Manchester United 1 (2) – Real Madrid 2 (3)
It wasn’t meant to finish like this. The result was what Cristiano Ronaldo would have wanted, the goal in the theatre of Old Trafford; but the way it happened, and the way he so clearly felt at the end, wasn’t. The game, and Ronaldo’s return to the ground where he made his name, was overshadowed by something that should not still be happening in 2013 – a highly controversial refereeing decision.
The reception for the footballer who regularly dazzled on the Old Trafford turf was one of the greatest for any player, former or current, and he seemed genuinely overcome with emotion before the game began, patting his heart and holding up a hand in acknowledgment to the fans. Perhaps some of this emotion affected him, because in truth it wasn’t a fantastic performance from Ronaldo. Yet a player of his quality and determination will always make a mark on a game like this, and Ronaldo’s was the goal that ended the match as a contest, sliding in at the far post on 69 minutes to prod the ball home after excellent work from Gonzalo Higuain.
Only ten minutes earlier however, the game had a totally different complexion, with an excellent opening 60 minutes from Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson showed that he still has the capacity for surprise, despite his decades at the top, by leaving Wayne Rooney out of the starting 11. Even last season it would have been unthinkable that Rooney would not play in a game of such magnitude, but this Manchester United squad has such quality in depth that Rooney’s ability no longer outweighs Ferguson’s concerns over his fitness or defensive discipline. Instead, Danny Welbeck started, and he excelled at the tasks he was given – dropping onto Xabi Alonso when Real were in possession to prevent his long-range distribution to the flanks, and making runs in behind when Robin Van Persie came deep to collect the ball and drag Real’s centre-backs out of position.
Ryan Giggs, on his incredible 1,000th game for the club, was deployed on the right to help Rafael, who stuck closely to Ronaldo, and tracked the runs of the overlapping full-back Coentrao. United sat very deep and allowed Real to have the ball in front of them, looking to hit them on the counter-attack. Real Madrid are devastating on the break, often scoring within seconds of an opposition’s corner, but they struggle when faced with a deep and compact defense. This was notable throughout the first half, with their possession sterile, consisting of passes around the top of the Manchester United half, unsuccessfully trying to drag payers out of position. United meanwhile, had the best chances of the first 45, with Vidic hitting the post with a header from a corner and Lopez saving Welbeck’s effort to turn in a parried Van Persie shot.
Manchester United’s adventure on the break was highlighted by the game’s opening goal just after the interval. The man tasked with tracking Ronaldo, Rafael, burst forward from the right into the centre and fed the ball to Welbeck. The ball eventually broke to Nani and his cross was deflected into his own net by Sergio Ramos. However, the narrative of this intriguing match was unfortunately permanently altered minutes later by the referee Cüneyt Çak?r. Evra cut out a Ronaldo pass to the right, the ball bouncing into the air over the head of Nani. Watching the ball, Nani lifted his foot into the air to control the ball coming over his shoulder, not knowing that Arbeloa was running in to chest the ball down. The Manchester United player caught the defender high on the body and both fell to the floor. Most saw it as an accidental collision and commentators expected a yellow card to be shown, but what happened next stunned those watching. As Gary Neville tweeted,
Morning all. Been going to OT since age of 5 and I’ve never seen the whole ground as in disbelief as they were last night at a decision!
— G.Neville (@GNev2) March 6, 2013
The crowd actually weren’t angry / weren’t shouting they were just open mouthed and in shock!
— G.Neville (@GNev2) March 6, 2013
As the referee pulled a red card from his pocket and held it aloft you could hear the unbelieving gasps around the stadium. Ferguson pushed his way down the stairs and onto the touchline to remonstrate with the fourth official, who looked as confused at the decision as the manager. This was not a case of a referee being hounded by players into showing a card, this was a time when a referee made a bad mistake due to not having all the information available to him. Refereeing is such a difficult job, and no matter what you do, it seems you will be hated by somebody. So why aren’t we doing anything to make their jobs easier? Yes it’s a debate that many are tired of, but video technology is something that has to be seriously discussed and implemented. I’m not just talking just about goal-line technology, but about an official with video reply access. Between Nani’s foul and the referee showing a red card 20 seconds elapsed. In that time two replays were shown on the TV broadcast. In 10 more seconds an official could review these images and communicate back to the ref that this was not a deserved sending off. FIFA law 12 states –
“A player is guilty of serious foul play if he uses excessive force or brutality against an opponent when challenging for the ball when it is in play….Excessive force means that the player has far exceeded the necessary use of force and is in danger of injuring his opponent.” via FIFA.com
The video official could have the law on a piece paper in front of him if that’s what was needed. Nani did not use excessive force or brutality, it was an attempt to control a ball that led to an accidental coming together with an opponent. These things do not even themselves out over the course of a season as the old football cliché goes. The Champions League is the highest possible level of football and these kind of mistakes cannot be afforded, the fortunes of one club cannot be allowed to turn on the single decision of one man. In cooperation with another official it is indeed possible that the decision would have been the same, but I think it is highly unlikely given the consensus about this being a mistake.
The wrong decision?
The biggest shame though, was that we were not able to see how a fascinating tactical battle would have developed naturally; would Real have been able to find a way to break down the defense, would Manchester United have held on to progress? Credit must go to Mourinho for acting so swiftly after the sending off, replacing Arbeloa with Modric and moving Khedira to right back. Ferguson had to move Welbeck to the right side after Nani’s dismissal, meaning that Alonso now had the time and space to dictate the play. Modric was excellent when he came one, able to make clever, incisive passes, and scoring a wonderful long-range effort that ricochet in off the post. United should be disappointed that they were not able to hold on to their lead after the red card, as it’s a situation we’ve seen teams be in before and advance, most notably last season with Chelsea against Barcelona.
There was always going to be a moment in the match for the homecoming son though, and within 13 minutes of Nani leaving the pitch the tie was over, Ronaldo with hands held up almost in apology as he sealed his team’s win. Ronaldo’s sadness, despite Real’s triumph over Manchester United to progress into the Quarter Finals of the Champions league, was clear to see at the final whistle. The contrast between the two goal scorers could not have been clearer. Luka Modric bounded over with a look of impish glee to embrace his teammate, while Ronaldo slowly walked back to the dressing rooms with his head bowed, and a grimace, not a smile, on his face.
We should try and remember what a great game, and tie, this was before it was mired in refereeing controversy. Here were two of, if not the, greatest football clubs on the planet, with so many world-class players on one pitch that we should feel spoiled. But I’m sure for Manchester United fans it’s difficult to do this, and for years to come they will remember with anger, what if? We need to take a lesson from rugby and introduce video-referees so that we end these what ifs, and we can focus on the beautiful game, not ugly refereeing.
Recently, I was reading a blog post written by an American, about football. He was eulogising the wonderful complexities of the league, the wealth of talent on display, and the myriad of countrywide matchups that brought together fans and teams with rich, varied histories.
Yes, he was writing about real football. Association football. Soccer, if you will. One of the reasons he loves it, why he feels he is cheating on his beloved NFL, is the refereeing. To quote:
"Amongst the EPL's charms….No replay, plus an officiating structure interacting with rules that guarantee plenty of dodgy calls, thus adding a very un-American flavor of fatalistic arbitrariness and chaos to the proceedings."
Which calls for a well-worn maxim.
"Referees have a hard job."
One hears this all the time, albeit it mostly from pundits, before they give the former substitute geography teacher from Bluntingdon Comprehensive School an absolute shoeing for being shit at his current line of work. They'll qualify it by saying "…referees have a hard job, but that's no excuse for his performance…" as if the men in black are the only ones that should be exempt from making mistakes.
Yes, referees have a hard job, and yes, some of them are crap at it. But when a so-called good ref comes along? The poor bugger's already stuffed before the game has even started. Everyone's scrutinising him even more than usual, waiting for him to book a player three times, or wanting him to run backwards and fall over, rectum first, onto a corner flag.
Unless of course he's Pierluigi Collina. A ref so good, the IFF raised it's mandatory retirement age so he could continue officiating. You see the 'respect' campaign logo every now and then on hoardings at the side of pitches, but what's more powerful than respect? Fear. Players were scared shitless of Collina. If one of the bog-eyed aliens from 'Mars Attacks!' was staring you down in the centre circle, I'd imagine you'd accept his decision with good grace and get on with it too.
If and when a good ref mucks up, the pundits will say "…it's a terrible decision from a referee of his calibre", as if being good at something precludes you from being crap once in a while. Not all Ronaldo's step-overs work. I'm sure RVP has shinned a sitter on more than one occasion. But as a ref you simply can't win.
…But that's not the point. Replays won't enter into the beautiful game any time soon for several reasons:
a) Remember that in rugby union, TMO's are only there to assist the referee in determining if points have been scored. They're not there to say that Toby Cottonsmythe came in late with a high tackle on Pinjan Onomatopoeia after a ruck. That's the job of the ref and his touch judges. If they miss that, then so be it. We get on with the game, lament the fact that the ref isn't omnipresent and have another beer. In football, if you start to erode the referee's responsibilities, if you remove his ability to interpret the rules of the game in a way that is pertinent to the match in hand, he becomes even less worthy of the player's respect. He's a puppet. A mannequin. Goals are clearly important in deciding the outcome of matches, and thus goal-line technology should, hopefully, get rid of that particular bugbear, but you can't go handing over every trip and kick in the shins to the TMO.
2) What would fans shout at matches instead of "The referee's a wanker!"?
Perhaps "The referee's got five other professionals to help him do his job and thus isn't really worthy of abuse any moooooooore!"
Maybe there shouldn't be a proper referee at all. Maybe all decisions should be aggregated, in a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 'ask the audience' style, by each member of the crowd pressing a button (Free Kick / Red Card / Harsh Talking To / etc), the decision of which is relayed to a pretty cheerleader in one of those sexy Halloween costumes (because we can learn some things from American Football), who blows her little whistle and informs the players of what the baying mob have decided. But this would depend on each fan being honest, putting prejudice aside, and, oh, sod it.
d) The game isn't perfect and that's why we love it. Human error should play a part, lest we remove all soul from the game and what we're left with is a sanitised version that's only suitable as a Sunday double header with Songs of Praise. It's unrefinedness (yep, that's a word) is both it's charm and it's downfall. It's life in all it's complexity boiled down to 90 minutes, 22 blokes, some grass and a ball. It's unfair sometimes. It's the strong versus the weak. It's prawn sandwiches and questionable meat pies. It's crunching Diadora tackles and luminous pink Nike penalty area diving.
I seem to have digressed somewhat. Watching the match on ITV, I said immediately after the now-infamous red card that doubtless Roy Keane would agree with the decision. Lo and behold, in a prickly post-match debrief, Keane explained his rationale to a clearly confused and exasperated Adrian Chiles, who screwed up his face like a baby bulldog chewing on a lemon. Gareth Southgate made the point that Nani didn't see Arbeloa coming, and thus he couldn't be called to account for his foot ending up in the Spaniard's chest. To which Keane countered by saying, "What, he didn't expect there to be other players on the football pitch?" Touché. The ref interpreted the rules in the way he saw fit. If you stick your foot five feet in the air and catch another player, it's open to interpretation as to what to award. The ref felt it was worthy of a red, so be it. (I maintain that Arbeloa played for the foul and made the most of the subsequent contact, however.)
I half expected Keane to have a go at Giggs and Ferguson too, who could be seen spending the next five minutes (after remonstrating), rather than calming down and locking down a solid, disciplined 4-4-1 formation, were instead attempting to gee up the Stretford end by waving their arms up down at the crowd like they were long jumpers in the Olympic final. What did they expect would happen? The crowd to blow really hard if the ball came near their net? The United players to be fortified by the cacophony? It didn't work. More's the pity.
Man Utd fans should look at this result as a blessing in disguise. This way, they can march on to celebrating a somewhat drab domestic double, safe in the knowledge that 'we woz robbed', quoting Jose 'Appeaser' Mourinho that the best team lost, signing Lewandowski in the summer and then having another bash at it all over again. To squeeze into the final and get beaten by Barca for the third time in five years would have been much, much worse.
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