Long Long ago in a Galaxy far far away, two opposing forces were lined against each other in the ultimate battle for North London. The evil Empire under Ze Darth Wenger had long established supremacy over the region and the stuttering Rebel alliance. The Rebels had managed to regroup a couple of years ago and had thought they finally gained a foothold in the battle when the Empire sent out its most evil weapon yet to put paid to their hopes. Their mild-mannered, non-crossing rightback by day was indeed the fearsome, the indomitable, the taking-entire-teams-out supervillain by night… La Sagna!
Sagna... La Sagna!
Two years later though, under the nerveless Harry Solo the Rebels finally got their greatest victory ever. With a young kid called Obi Wan.. Gareth Bale finally growing up to become a man, the Rebels scored significant victories over the Empire, and a bonus victory over another annoying, but even more evil empire. On the back of all such things, the Rebels travelled north to their graveyard, to a place they hadn’t won in 21 years. The paesants were full of hope that this could finally be it, and told all their Jedis- May the Spurs be with you.
Cut out of Star Wars fantasy and to Old Trafford reality. For the entire first half I have no clue what either team was doing, because I was getting back from a football match myself and hence missed all of it. However, the 24 minutes that I got in a Hyderabad summer at 39 degrees in a 5-on-5 football game gives me enough cause to empathize with Patrice in his 90-minute game on a pitch the size of Old Trafford at 1:00 PM in a British summer. As he retched from dehydration on the near side, images of the Spuds and their lasagna nightmare was most helpfully brought up by my brain, which clearly has no sense of propriety. 2 mins later though, Dimitar ran into a dead end Spurs wall only to catch an Evra fully fit and steaming down the left into the penalty box. A careless flick back and Assou-Ekoto, who had already suffered the ignominy of having beaten by Berbatov for pace 20 seconds ago, decides to establish himself as the ‘Man who lost the game’ and clatters into Evra. He got all of the leftback and none of the ball, leading to a damn sight clearer penalty than the one that Martin O’Null’s team got in their Derby the next day. Up steps Ryan Giggs, whose last penalty was in ’92 in the FA Cup. And he’d missed that. Talk about stepping up. As an aside, I’d like to know what the heck is it that they fed Evra that he was up and running like that! I, on the other hand, had been unceremoniously carried off the field and dumped on the side so that the game could go on.
Michael Carrick gave a shining example of why he’s giving Berba a good run for the ‘Most expensive flop’ tag this season as he stood and gave a shoulder-up for the fit-again, crocked-again Ledley King to head home an equalizer. However, this was one of those games where you ‘know’ somehow that that’s not going to be the final scoreline, especially on the back of the previous week. Spurs did the fatal error of leaving us with 19 minutes to make something of the game, and in true United fashion, that was enough time for us to score not once, but twice. A word about Super Nani and his super-cool finish is warranted here. This is against a man who two-handedly kept out Van Persie and the rest of Arsenal barely 10 days back and in an undeniably high-pressure situation. But the audacious flick was enough to show that there’s still hope with Nani. All his frustrating outings aside.
Well, Chelsea went and thumped Stoke yesterday so it’s not quite the ‘weekend where everything’s gone right’ this time. We’re leaving it to the Kop to help us over haul their own championships tally. It cannot get more ironic. And therein lies the beauty of this game. 2 to go now!
what about the pen giggs scored in the champs league final shootout?
I knew this would come up. But then decided against writing ‘in normal playing time’ assuming it was a given. So. ‘In normal playing time’
Nani has really turned the page this year Ducky.. He can no longer be qualified as ‘that frustrating kid’… He has delivered in every big game so far this year.
Does Man United’s success over the years has anything to do with how ugly
Scholes, Nani, Ronaldo, Evra, Neville (and earlier Silvestre!)
Loved the writing till the pop culture reference. had no relevance but was an interesting read. the rest of it was as good as usual.