The much anticipated clash ended in a hard fought truce
The draw for the Champions League always pulls off some off these and there is no margin for even the minutest error in a game as exciting as these.Manchester United were pitted against the mighty German giants Bayern Munich and for the first time in years,the encounter was treated to be a David and Goliath one.
The game,rather unexpectedly concluded as a 1-1 draw but the prospect surely caught the attention of many football fans around the world.Both sides,Moyes' Manchester United and Pep Guardiola's Bayern Munich had to fight utterly hard to earn a stupefying stalemate .Outgoing skipper Nemanja Vidic broke the deadlock in the 58th minute only to see United's dream of beating the Bayern getting shattered by a Bastian Schweinsteiger equalizer.
Here are some lessons we learnt from the supreme showdown which took place at Old Trafford-
5. Buttner makes a case for himself
Many neutral and rival fans had fight off their bouts of laughter when United's second choice left back Alex Buttner proclaimed that he would try and control Arjen Robben effectively .But,the young Dutchman lived up to what he actually said and defied people who said -"Better said than done".
He succeeded exceptionally well in closing down compatriot Arjen Robben and was rightly,one of the nominees for the Man Of the Match award.
His abilities have come into question recently,but his showing against one of the most dreaded right wingers proved why,he can replace Patrice Evra as United's first choice left back.
4. Robben is not as monotonous as we think
Alex Buttner's work was cut out even before the game started, but we can say that he got off a wee bit easy only because Arjen Robben was deployed in a different role by Pep Guardiola.
He was roaming around freely on on the pitch,disregarding his tendency to work out on the right side,quite predominantly.To work out openings ,which were too tough to find,Arjen Robben operated everywhere on the pitch for the Bavarians and even combined well with hitman Franck Ribery to carve out a decent amount of half chances.
We are now ,quite used to seeing him make a trademark cut inside the box from the right but yesterday,we realized that Robben is after all,not as monotonous as he seems.
3.Welbeck-good but not good enough
The man who has been working up the pecking order continuously,Danny Welbeck could have proved out to be the real difference maker for both the sides ,but once again,his finishing let him down quite blatantly.
He was put clean through on goal by Wayne Rooney and it caught Bayern off guard,quite easily.Welbeck,owing to lack of experience decided to chip a well positioned Manuel Neuer ,but the opportunity was blown away quite easily by the 23 year old Englishman.His quick feet did help him agitate the likes of Jerome Boateng,Rafinha and Javi Martinez but simply failed when he needed to deliver the goods.
We have seen,through the seasons,that his finishing has let him down and it was proved once again,that Welbeck still needs to work upon his finishing and shooting abilties.
2.Lack of competition costs Bayern dear
United were already being counted out against Bayern Munich but David Moyes got his tactics and substitutions impeccably spot on.
No doubt,Bayern were exceedingly appreciable in keeping hold of possession throughout the game,but faltered when pressurized even once by the quick and agile feet of the United boys.The only reason one can think of is the lack of competition present in the Bundesliga.They are not at all used to falling prey to this kind of pressure all of a sudden and much like against City and Arsenal,they collapsed against United as well.
As a result ,Bastian Schweinsteiger got sent off in the 90th minute and will miss the next leg.English teams have succeeded in picking out weaknesses in the Bayern side and above is the only reason why Bayern can't perform exceptionally well against them.
1.Man United never die
Despite of enduring an utterly torrid season under new manager David Moyes,Man United decided not to give in against the mighty giants from Bavaria.
Nobody expected United to deliver a rock solid performance against the self proclaimed "Best Team of Europe" but much to the surprise on even some United fans,the showing was tremendously commendable.They defended deep and maintained a high line up the pitch to deny Bayern even the slightest of openings.Although,Bayern head into the 2nd leg,holding a slight advantage but I get the feeling that United will "upset" the European Champions.
A much favored chant for Old Trafford faithfuls-"Man United Never Die",fits almost inch perfectly into the way they played against Pep's people.They were resilient and possessed their trademark qualities of the Never Say Die attitude and there's no wonder why United would be happy with the result.
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