United Win Carling Cup – Another Step

By: Wayne Farry | March 2nd, 2009

First off, sorry for only reporting on this now. College work is stacked up like the least fun game of Jenga ever. I have piles of work to do over a short period of time but still, that’s no excuse to deprive my adoring fans of my voice. Back to what matters, not my trivial education but Man United, pure and simple. First stop, Carling Cup Final!

So the date was Sunday, March 1. The place was Wembley Stadium. The time was…emmmm…well it was about 2pm, I’m not quite sure though because I slept in until 3.30pm. Thankfully, I re-watched the match and am now up to speed on the events of the match.

Let’s face it, United were expected to win. To Spurs, this was basically just a glimmer of sweet, brief relief in what’s been an awful season. But for what was billed as a one-sided encounter it was very close. United had the better of the start of the match with Rio and Michael Carrick wannabe Darren Gibson (I’m still not convinced about him) coming close with long range shots. Spurs, however came more into the game and were looking the more threatening as the first half ended. Aaron Lennon had a good first half, making nice runs here and there with only his final ball being poor, prompting Andy Gray to consistently say that if he sorted out his crossing he’d be world-class. I mean, Andy Gray was saying this every time Lennon hit the ball. I almost started to believe it by the end of the first half. Thankfully though, this train of thought was interrupted by the half time ads, phew!

As usual, the second half followed half time. This half started much like the first with United threatening early on with Spurs coming more and more into the match. The standout performer in this half was undoubtably Ben Foster. The goalkeeper, playing in only his seventh United game had a cracking second half making many a vital save. United threatened on a fairly regular basis too, with Evra coming very close with a beautifully struck half-volley that just went over the bar. I very nearly thought we had won the match in the last minute of injury time when Ronaldo, making a run in from the right, struck a beautiful shot against the inside of Heurelho Gomes’ post, Nani could only tepidly strike the rebound wide. The main talking point of the second half however was another incident involving Ronnie. As Ronaldo made a run into the box he knocked the ball ahead of himself, as he reached to get it he was fouled by Spurs captain Ledley King. It looked like a stone cold penalty but somehow the ref thought that Ronaldo had dived and gave him a yellow card, much to his astonishment.

Extra-time ensued and it was all United. Spurs looked knackered and were content with slowing down the game. In the end it got to the stage where penaties looked inevitable, and were.

I’m not going to go into depth about the penalties aside from saying that Spurs didn’t look confident taking penalties and United did. See the penalties here.

Anyway, United won thanks largely to the magnificent Ben Foster; making a good save from O’Hara’s penalty and many previous to that.

One thing I noticed from the celebrations was, not only the happiness (obviously) but the team looked really focused, even in celebration. I got the feeling that they really see this as the start of something great. And so do I…

Man Utd v Spurs – Carling Cup – Highlights