|
Manchester United 2 Everton 1
Manchester United and Everton are different kinds of Champion’s League teams. Everton overachieved in finishing fourth, and United underachieved at third. Everton ended the season in relative glory, while United were bought by the quintessential Stupid Rich American, Malcolm Glazer, who cursed the team with debts so immense that they may not last the season before the hedge funds vulture down from Connecticut, and gorge their assets. United need to win, but their team, while rich in talent, is not a perfect vehicle for winning. They struggle scoring goals, and their ill-conceived midfield frequently disappears. Everton, for their part, need one thing: goals. Goals would rejuvenate their limbs after last year’s difficult ordeal, which had nothing to do with beauty, and everything to do with pain: pain inflicted and endured. If they can’t find a way to deploy their attackers, the pain will get worse. United survived an inquest of their weaknesses today, but Everton didn’t.
United enjoyed the best of the early play, mostly through Wayne Rooney, the former Everton forward who, at 19, is England’s most sensational player, and the centerpiece of his team. He singlehandedly fought off all of Everton, digging out a ball from the corner and somehow putting in a dangerous cross in the eighth minute, and making an outrageous change of direction two minutes later, whistling a shot just past the post, with all of Everton—and their fans—laying prone. Every time he touched the ball, he looked dangerous, and lesser teams than Everton will feel beaten before the game starts. He is football’s Shaquille O’Neal, and a one-man indefinite extension on United’ legacy as long as the Glazers can afford to keep him.
Things improved for Everton when forward James Beattie left the game with an injury. Beattie has been a disaster since moving from Southampton last year, though it isn’t quite his fault. A natural poacher, he is wasted in Everton’s system, which forces him to play away from goal, make tackles, pass the ball, and do everything but score, the only thing he’s really good at. The arrival of his substitute, Marcus Bent, gave Everton an extra playmaker, and made them some chances, but without Beattie, there was no one to convert them. David Moyes, the manager, must play Bent with Beattie. His team can throw a punch, but football isn’t only punching.
Still, with Beattie gone, Everton poured through United’s midfield, and could’ve scored at least three times. Age can be relative in football; Claude Makelele, of Chelsea, looks spry at thirty-four, and Paolo Maldini is thirty-six, and still has legs. The problem with Roy Keane is not that he’s thirty-four, it’s that he plays like he is fifty. Against the rugged Everton, he kept getting shoved off the ball, and the likes of Tim Cahill, Michael Arteta and Leon Osman fairly strolled into United’s penalty area, without so much as a red-shirted escort. He seems to play behind his man, Roy Keane. Paul Scholes, United’s venerable attacker, is out of position as a defender, and Darren Fletcher either can’t track back or won’t; but whatever the reason, he doesn’t. Thus do United offer opponents a kind of grace period: they let a team attack their goal, unharassed, for twenty minutes. The three-man defensive midfield is supposed to outnumber opponents, but United’s does the opposite, somehow. Maybe this is why they call the assistant manager, Carlos Quieroz, a “genius.” But three times zero doesn’t equal three, or even one. Only the frantic trio of Rio Ferdinand, Mikael Silvestre and Edwin Van Der Saar stood between United and an opening day defeat. Thankfully for them, Everton didn’t have the tactics to exploit them. In the twentieth minute, Tim Cahill dispossessed the ancient Keane on the touchline, played the ball to Simon Davis, and saw his own point-blank header slapped away by Van Der Saar, and a brilliant sprint to the goal went unrewarded. Marcus Bent hit the crossbar with a volley; Leon Osman missed a header; Joseph Yobo couldn’t poach a ball that rolled between the legs of John O’Shea. United were lucky.
Then, United showed their talent. In the forty-third minute, the brilliant Rooney stood on the ball at the top of the box, and waited for John O’Shea to make his run. Rooney’s pass was tapped by O’Shea to Ruud Van Nistelrooy—hereafter RVN—who scored a difficult goal at the near post, from an angled run. The canyon-sized difference in talent between the teams left Everton helpless. Thirty-four seconds into the second half, Joseph Yobo choked and gave the ball away in his area, and Rooney scored. Game over.
Then it was left to United’s Korean winger, Ji-Sung Park, to ingratiate himself to what remains of his supporters. He lacks the separation speed of Ryan Giggs, but his passing and movement are excellent, and he does not stop running. His combination play was great, and he is going to unsettle defenses already bothered by Rooney and Ronaldo, who didn’t play because of injury. Ronaldo may be spectacular, but is a better, more accurate passer. Plus, he has an underdog’s flair. If Ferguson plays them both at once, the team will be deadly.
As for Rooney, he is magnificent. Everton specialize in subduing attackers but they couldn’t stop Rooney at all, and looked afraid of getting close to him, ducking out of fifty-fifty engagements and refusing to close him down. Getting control of Rooney is like waving your hands at the sky to stop the rain, and he commanded United’s attacking third with an eye for the pass he didn’t used to have, which gives him—and his team—another weapon. Ferguson has made him United’s point guard, which, when you consider that he was already their power forward, that Ronaldo didn’t even play, that RVN scored an excellent goal within the offense, which he couldn’t at all last year, and that Park Ji-Sung looked a part of the team before we’ve figured out if his name is Park Ji-Sung or Ji-Sung Park, well, you have to think the Glazers are pleased, even if they don’t know what they’re looking at.
On the other hand, United only made one goal, which leaves them room for improvement. They haven’t finished re-inventing themselves yet, and won’t, as long as their midfield marking and spacing are this bad. A clever European team will cut them up. Considering what the club have to lose when the Champion’s League finds them out, Michael Essien looks a bargain at 31 million. But Everton are one of the better defensive teams they’ll face in England, so they should be able to learn on the job and bag points almost every week.
Everton, meanwhile, need goals. Have I mentioned that yet? Their players need to be buoyed by something more than heavy tackles, and they looked stunned to still be playing after last year’s crusade. David Moyes seemed shell-shocked and exhausted. His achievements of last year were driven in part by the defection of Rooney to United, but the Rooney-rage has faded, and no convincing battle-cry has yet been found to take its place. You can only tell your players to overachieve for so long before they feel like underachievers. Everton seem drained from the burden of making no mistakes, the dreary weight of football reduced to risk management. They need Beattie to be Beattie. Moyes got lucky last year, but he won’t have two Thermopylaes in a row.
BACK TO TOP
|
