Man United 3 Man City 2

Luis Nani

Man­chester Uni­ted 3 Man­chester City 2, Wemb­ley Sta­dium, Eng­lish FA Com­munity Shield, Au­gust 7, 2011. Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted came from 2-0 down at the ha­lf-time break to over­come FA Cup win­ners Man­chester City by 3-2 at Wemb­ley Sta­dium in the FA Com­munity Shield thanks to a goal from ex-Ful­ham de­fender Chris Small­ing and a brace by Por­tugal in­ter­na­tion­al Lu­is Nani.

Man­chester Uni­ted came in­to the Com­munity Shield mat­ch on the back of a 6-0 friendly fix­ture tri­umph ag­ainst New York Cos­mos at The Theatre of Dreams wi­th Mame Biram Di­ouf hit­ting a brace and Paul Scho­les, Way­ne Roo­ney, Oli­veira An­der­son, and Dan­ny Wel­beck net­ting a goal each for the hosts. Man­chester City, mean­while, ar­rived fresh from a 3-0 Dub­lin Su­per Cup vic­tory ag­ainst Itali­an Serie A gi­ants In­ternazionale at Aviva Sta­dium where Mario Balo­telli, Ed­in Dzeko, and Ad­am John­son had sco­red for The Sky Blues. At Wemb­ley Sta­dium, Rob­erto Mancini´s City slick­ers opened the scor­ing when Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al de­fender Jo­leon Le­scott head­ed in a lof­ted free-kick from Span­ish mid­fielder Da­vid Silva in the 38th min­ute of the en­counter. Con­tinu­ing to press for­ward, Man­chester City doubled their ad­vant­age as a square pass from Ja­mes Mil­ner fou­nd Bos­nia and Herzegov­ina marks­man Ed­in Dzeko who ham­mered a low long dis­tance shot from some 25 yards out pa­st a mo­tion­less Da­vid de Gea in the Man­chester Uni­ted goal in fir­st-ha­lf stop­page time.

At the ha­lf-time break, Man­chester Uni­ted su­premo Sir Al­ex Fer­guson made a tac­tic­al switch when he de­cided to re­place the un­usu­ally an­onym­ous Mi­chael Car­rick wi­th cre­at­ive mid­field play­maker Tom Clev­er­ley. Fol­low­ing the re­sump­tion of play, Uni­ted ul­ti­mately pulled a goal back cour­tesy of Eng­land U21 in­ter­na­tion­al Chris Small­ing who con­ver­ted a free-kick from sum­mer trans­fer sign­ing Ash­ley Young in the 52nd min­ute, and just six min­utes la­ter Por­tuguese wing­er Lu­is Nani lev­elled the score for the Old Traf­ford te­am wi­th a mag­ni­fi­cent fin­ish. Man­chester Uni­ted kept on at­tack­ing and they fi­nally got the win­ner when Nani pun­ished a mis­take from Man­chester City de­fender Vin­cent Kom­pany to re­gister his sec­ond goal of the af­ter­noon dur­ing sec­ond ha­lf in­jury time. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Chris Small­ing, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Rio Fer­dinand, Ash­ley Young, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Oli­veira An­der­son, Mi­chael Car­rick, Lu­is Nani, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: An­ders Linde­gaard, Ra­fael da Silva, Jon­athan Evans, Phil Jones, Tom Clev­er­ley, Ji-Sung Park, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov. Man­chester City Te­am: Joe Hart, Alek­sandar Kolarov, Micah Richards, Vin­cent Kom­pany, Jo­leon Le­scott, Da­vid Silva, Ja­mes Mil­ner, Nigel De Jong, Yaya Tou­re, Mario Balo­telli, Ed­in Dzeko. Sub­stitutes: Ad­am John­son, Gael Clichy, Stu­art Tay­lor, Stefan Savic, Gar­eth Bar­ry, Shaun Wright-Phil­lips, Ser­gio Aguero.

 

Luis Nani Quickfacts

Lu­is Nani made his com­pet­it­ive de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted when he entered the field as a sub­sti­tute for Mi­kael Sil­vestre in a 1-1 Com­munity Shield draw to Chel­sea on the 5th of Au­gust 2007.

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