A great evening of Europe in Manchester for the reception of Barcelona! And for good reason, Thursday evening, this Manchester United-Barça had flavors of the Champions League. It was only an 8th return from the Europa League, between two “ex” in reconstruction but it was the atmosphere of the big nights at Old Trafford. And if he was slow to find his rhythm, the match kept its promises.
A penalty for Barca
Barcelona, largely at the top of La Liga and qualified for the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, sees its dreams of a hat-trick stopped dead by the Red Devils with impressive moral resources. The Blaugranas, who played in mustard yellow on Thursday evening, nevertheless had the game in hand. Bruno Fernandes had launched hostilities from the 4th minute, on a masterful opening from Casemiro, seeing his cross shot well repelled by Marc-André Ter Stegen (4th).
But in the 15th, the Portuguese stood out in the other area by slightly pulling Alejando Balde’s arm and the French referee Clément Turpin did not hesitate to designate the penalty spot. After many small steps in his run-up, Robert Lewandowski was very happy to see that David De Gea’s hand was not firm enough to get his shot out (0-1, 18th).
Then a tactical change for MU
Barça had control of the game for the rest of the first half and it even took a decisive double intervention by Casemiro in the box just before the break, after a failed pass in the axis of De Gea, for the Catalans not to not widen the gap. Dutch coach Erik Ten Hag certainly shook up his players at the break, but he mainly opted for a tactical change by leaving Wout Weghorst to bring Antony on the wing and refocus Fernandes.
The Brazilian winger energized the right flank and allowed Fernandes, finally with the stick, to find Fred in front of goal. If it was with the shin that the midfielder hit, it was all his determination that allowed the ball to deceive Ter Stegen and put the two teams equal (1-1, 47th) from the start of the second act . The Red Devils did not let go and the reward came just over a quarter of an hour from the end, on a cross shot from Antony which gave his team the advantage in a burning Old Trafford (2-1, 73rd).
Varane, the dam
Barcelona tried everything and thought they could come back to score in the 93rd on an attempt by Lewandowski, but Raphaël Varane pushed back in front of his line before the flag rose to signal an offside. If Manchester United has returned to its crazy European evenings in the “Theater of Dreams”, it will have to quickly come back down to earth since, from Sunday, a League Cup final awaits it at Wembley, against Newcastle. The opportunity for the club to fill its trophy cabinet for the first time since 2017. That season, under the orders of José Mourinho, he had won the League Cup and… the Europa League.