Thursday 13th October 2022: UEFA Europa League: Old Trafford: Manchester United vs Omonia Nicosia
If you had told the teenage me that he would be in the home end at Old Trafford cheering on Manchester United someday he would have laughed in your face, but this Thursday evening that’s exactly where I was and what I was doing. To betray my younger self in this way was a perplexing experience, but after more than 2 weeks of being unable to go to games it was a bullet I had to bite.
That my first game in the Old Trafford home end was also my first ever experience of a European night was a little balm on my teen self’s wounds. Even better for younger me was that the visitors were minnows who had a real chance of creating one of the upsets of the decade. The minnows in question were Omonia Nicosia, whose nickname is I Basilissa (The Queen), on their first visit to the home of the Red Devils. They ran today’s hosts close to the line on the return leg in Nicosia last week, leading 1-0 at half time it took an almighty comeback by the Red Devils to limp to a 3-2 victory.
Untied were now back on home turf though and with the vociferous backing of tens of thousands of home fans, who hadn’t seen their heroes on home turf for over a month, I was backing the hosts to get the result they wanted. As for my personal hopes for the match result, I was torn straight down the middle. Part of me wanted to see the Cypriots annihilate the team I had despised growing up but another part of me wanted to see the hosts win for the good of the English game. To have a team from such a minor footballing nation come to the nation that created the sport and beat one of their most recognisable teams would have done immense damage to the prestige of our national game: even I didn’t despise United viscerally enough to hope that happened.
Nicosia did have one ace up their sleeve in the battle though as in their dugout sat Celtic legend Neil Lennon. Having played against United in his club days he knows exactly what to expect on nights like these and will have prepared his players accordingly.
Erik Ten Haag had also prepared his charges well for this one though and was leaving nothing to chance by arriving at the ground a reported 4 hours before kick-off. Most teams leave it till just 90 minutes before things get underway to arrive at the ground and arriving 2 hours early myself, I expected to catch them coming off the coaches. No such luck this time though and after having to switch turnstiles, when the first got stuck closed, I headed inside early to soak up the atmosphere being created by the vocal away support.
The home support failed to make any attempt to match the decibel level coming from the away end, but from the first few seconds it was clear that the action on the pitch was only ever going to have one winner. United were shooting towards the Stretford End in the first half, at the far end of the pitch from my seat, and as such I barely saw the ball all first half.
From kick-off United grabbed hold of possession and would only let it slip a fleeting number of times throughout the match. This dominance of the ball almost paid off immediately as Rashford found himself in enough space on the edge of the D to let one fly. It was only through the brilliant acrobatics of Francis Uzoho in the Omonia goal that the visitors avoided going behind within the first 60 seconds of the match. Uzoho leapt off the ground like a flying fish out of water to tip it over the bar. This was United’s first taste of the forcefield that would leave them frustrated for most of the match.
Omonia had come into the match with the sole intent of picking up their first point of the competition and it showed in the way they set their stall out early doors. They made little attempt to pressure United when the hosts had the ball in their own half, choosing instead to get 10 players behind the ball and put on a show of stalwart defensive work that would make any army green with envy.
The probing attacks on this dug-in defence were launched with a ferocious regularity by the hosts in the first 10 but they very rarely resulted in presentable chances to break the deadlock. The closest United came to breaking through with their early attacks came from a raking ball down the left from Marcus Rashford that landed at the feet of Cristiano Ronaldo, but his shot could only rattle the side netting.
Having weathered the first waves of the hosts’ attacks Nicosia decided to try and stage a breakout. They got as far as 25 yards from the United goal before two Nicosia players both left the ball behind for the other one to continue the attack allowing the back-pedalling defenders to scoop it up and boot it back up field to the siege lines surrounding the forcefield protecting the Omonia goalmouth. The forcefield seemed to be particularly effective against the players in Red, rather than the ball itself, as twice in quick succession Bruno Fernandes was able to fire crosses thought the corridor of uncertainty, without a single teammate of his being able to get to it and tap it home.
This was the last advance of the early attacks on the forcefield as the game settled into a turgid midfield slugfest for the next 10 minutes. Then the slugfest was broken by United as first Fernandes fed Ronaldo who fed Rashford and once again it was only the excellent work of the Omonia keeper that kept the scores level. Uzoho was back at it again minutes later to keep out a bullet of a shot from Rashford, once more, as the forcefield held for now. It was almost breached as the game hit the half hour mark when Ronaldo spun on a dime to unleash a powerful shot just a yard wide of the left-hand post from 12 yards out.
Omonia seemed to turn up the dials on their forcefield at this point as it now stopped the ball from being crossed into the area. Not that this helped them break out of their own half though and De Gea was so massively surplus to requirements at this point that he could have taken a nap in the goal and none of the rest of the players would have noticed.
Till the 41st minute that is, when Nicosia came close to taking the lead severely against the run of play. A hoofed ball clear was run onto by Andronikos Kakoulli and he continued to stride towards the Untied goal with the ball attached to his boots. It took a desperate diving tackle by Victor Lindelof to pry it free only for it to land at the feet of Hector Yuste. He controlled the ball and unleashed a powerful shot past De Gea at his near post only to see the ball ricochet away off the bar. This gave Nicosia a taste for attacking though and they came even closer to scoring just 90 seconds later. Once more Yuste tried to slide the ball in at De Gea’s near post, but this time the keeper was equal to the effort. If only the Cypriot’s winger had looked up, he would have seen Kakoulli bounding free in the centre and picked him out for a sweaty tap-in.
As it was though the match was destined to reach half time with the scores level as Omonia’s forcefield held against the peppering it had taken from the plethora of chances United threw at it all half. As the teams headed down the tunnel for their break it was clear that if this match was going to have a winning goal it was going to come from the boot of a man in red, but first they had a forcefield to break down.
With the hosts shooting towards my goal in the second half I was hoping that Ten Haag’s half time speech would result in a glut of goals for me to enjoy. Despite the lack of personnel changes at half-time it took just 25 seconds for United to smash straight back into the forcefield around the Omonia goal. Rashford drove forward from midfield and fed the ball through to Bruno Fernandes outside him. Fernandes unleashed a cannonball of a shot toward goal, but Uzoho stood tall to parry the ball away to the far left of the area. It is picked up by Rashford who fires it towards the net but, in a show of fleet-footedness any prima-ballerina would be proud of, Uzoho was back on his feet in a flash to notch up an incredible double save. The forcefield continued to hold for now.
Just 2 minutes later Uzoho pulled off another double save to keep the scores level. This time it was Rashford first then Fernandez on the follow up as United swarmed all over their visitors. Omonia hadn’t managed to get a foot on the ball so far this half and consequently turned the forcefield up to 15. It now began deflecting crosses away from the goalmouth as a Rashford cross to Ronaldo at the back post curved wildly wide of the near post.
This lack of results from conventional attacks forced United into trying some unique and hilarious ways to break through, including a hoofed ball upfield that Fernadez tried to flick home off the back of his head whilst facing entirely the wrong way. It was a lovely moment of levity to break up a frustrating array of missed opportunities for the hosts, but it still failed to provide the breakthrough that United’s dominance deserved.
Omonia didn’t have a single touch of the ball in the first 15 minutes of the half as United fired shot after shot at the forcefield around the visitor’s goal without breaking through it. The lack of a goal for the home fans to celebrate was certainly not for lack of trying, but simply boiled down to a lack of composure at the crucial moments and a goalkeeper in world-class form. Rashford had the majority of these chances and he would waste another as the game hit the hour mark. He was given the freedom of Manchester to advance down the left channel and with just the keeper to beat he contrived to screw it wide of the target. The goal was at his mercy and he somehow missed it, even the ref couldn’t believe what he’d seen, giving United a completely undeserved corner as he refused to accept that any player could mess up such a gilt-edged opportunity.
Ten Hag reached further and further into the assets on his bench in the final half hour in the hopes of finding anyone who could find a way through the forcefield. Jadon Sancho and Luke Shaw were given the full half hour, Christian Eriksen got 20 minutes whilst Scott McTominay was given a measly 10 to make his mark. They each had their own chances to break the stalemate, Eriksen twice sending piledrivers from 20yards out agonisingly wide within 5 minutes of entering the field, but it was McTominay who would be the one to finally bring the forcefield crashing down with United’s final attack of the match.
Apart from De Gea every other United man had tried their luck by this point, but these were either deflected by the forcefield or the incredible exertions of Francis Uzoho. The resignation in the home stands had reached depths never plumbed before in the history of human endeavours. I lost count of the amount of glorious chances they passed up before the match clock struck 90, including McTominay blazing over the top of the bar from the edge of the D.
When the board flashed up 5 minutes of added time the earth-shatter cheers that surged through the home stands filled the players with hope. Everyone in the stadium knew that this gave them enough time for one last chance and the hope that this final chance would provide the breakthrough their dominance deserved, and boy did it. McTominay may have got the final touch but heaping helpings of credit for it must go to fellow substitute Jadon Sancho, who twisted and turned on the left side of the box to tie his marker in knots. Having performed this awesome feat he bulleted the ball across the box to the onrushing McTominay who fired it to the left side of a recovering Uzoho, who was finally unable to keep the forcefield up. It was unlucky 13 for the Omonia forcefield
That was the final attack of the match as the ref blew for full-time straight from kick-off, to leave me celebrating a Manchester United win for the first and only time in my lived existence. To score with the last of your 34 shots of a 90 minutes where you enjoyed 78% of the possession is one hell of a way to win a game, especially when it leaves you needing just 1 point from your remaining 2 matches to qualify for the next stage of the competition.
The only problem with the above is that it took you 34 shots to score a single goal and you can’t afford that level of profligacy in the later levels of the competition. The fixture list inside United’s programme lists all of the 65 potential matches they could play this season, but they will need to improve dramatically in front of goal to reach all of them.
It was lovely to return to football after an enforced break, but to do so in the home end of a team I grew up despising with a fiery passion and cheering them onto victory is not how I would have chosen to do it.
Next week I get to return to a team I like as I make use of a couple of days off to head down to London for Brentford’s home game against Graham Potter’s Chelsea. I only hope they can return to form against his old team tonight, so they are in top shape to thrash his new team in just under a week’s time.
The Football tourist 