Well that was a painful sequence of events. From the moment Bayern scored their winning goal in Munich and the camera immediately panned back to Rooney limping off, a bucket load of bad luck has afflicted us and our season has seemingly imploded. The ‘offside’ goal from Drogba, the gift of a goal to Bayern when we were flying at 3-0, changing the whole dynamic of the game, and the disastrous sending off have all conspired to twist the knife in ever deeper. Then, away from our matches, there was Arsenal’s last gasp winner, just when we were thinking that at least they we’re out of the title race, whilst we’ve even had Liverpool lording it up following their win against Benfica, taunting us with ‘that’s how you do it’, despite them being demoted to a competition for losers – the fact that they’re still in with a chance of winning a European trophy, regardless of its dubious value, seems grossly unfair. Oh, and City even managed a 6-1 away win, and are now looking favourites to claim 4th place, which would make them genuine threat having achieved Champions League status. The gods have certainly been against us!
Wednesday night was a shock to the system – it was felt by everyone associated with United, be it management, players or fans. This wasn’t just a defeat, something far deeper occurred. Going out to Bayern is no disgrace, and we all knew we were up against it following the loss in the first leg, but the manner in which it happened is something which really cut to the core, in a similar way to how it felt in 1992 when we fell apart in the home straight and Leeds pipped us to a championship that had eluded us for a quarter of a century, or 1995 when we failed to get the final day win at West Ham that would have seen us retain our title. When we lost in the final to Barcelona last year, at least we knew that we’d been beaten by a great team – the disappointment was more to do with the fact we’d failed to turn up, and had given a poor account of ourselves. Like Wednesday, the other examples hurt so much because we know that we should have emerged triumphant, but didn’t – this is why it was such a shock for us all.
It’s at this type of moment that a team learns the most about itself, and can hopefully take onboard these brutal lessons and grow. If they’re made of the stuff I hope they are, Wednesday night will galvanise these players, bring them closer together in adversity, and have a positive impact long term. We could still rally to win the league, which would be an incredible achievement in this rollercoaster season of downs and ups, but even if we fall short this term, the experience will serve us well in the future.
Time to brush off the bad luck and stop feeling sorry for ourselves, you make your own as they say, so we have to hand it to Bayern for their unwavering determination throughout both legs of the tie, even when it looked like they might be chasing a lost cause – a never say die trait that has been associated with our team throughout the years. They made their own luck, whilst our nervousness contributed to our own downfall, and hopefully our players will have learnt a valuable lesson from their example.
If we can fight in a similar way during our 5 remaining matches we may still conclude the season on a real high, and the nightmare of the past few games will have all been worthwhile. And then the World Cup.
