Rome 1 Man Utd 1

Dong Fangzhuo

Rome 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 1, Olympic Sta­dium, UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group Sta­ge, Dec­ember 12, 2007. Manci­ni equal­ised for Rome in the 71st min­ute af­ter Ger­ard Pique had giv­en Man­chester Uni­ted the lead on 34 min­utes. At the Olympic Sta­dium, Dong Fang­zhuo made his fi­nal fir­st te­am ap­pear­ance for Uni­ted when he took the field as a sub­sti­tute for Way­ne Roo­ney in the sec­ond pe­riod, but the for­ward had too little time to make an impact.

Al­though bo­th te­ams were al­ready qual­i­fied for the knock-out phase of the Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue, the ga­me still had its mo­ments. Man­chester Uni­ted went in front as Cata­loni­an de­fender Ger­ard Pique head­ed ho­me a cor­ner kick from sum­mer sign­ing Lu­is Nani four min­utes pa­st the ha­lf hour ma­rk. Rome pressed hard for an equal­iser af­ter the break, and The Yel­low Reds fi­nally ma­naged to level the score when Brazili­an in­ter­na­tion­al Manci­ni re­ceived a pass from Mauro Es­posito re­place­ment Mirko Vu­cin­ic and put a well pla­ced shot pa­st Man­chester Uni­ted net cus­todi­an To­masz Kusz­czak and in­to the goal wi­th nine­teen min­utes re­maining of the con­test. And shortly af­ter­wards, the ho­me si­de were just a few in­ches away from tak­ing the lead in the mid­week en­counter as Vu­cin­ic fired an ef­fort which hit the up­right, and the Montenegro in­ter­na­tion­al came clo­se ag­ain in the fi­nal min­ute of nor­mal time when he some­how ma­naged to send the ball over the cross­bar from point-blank. But wi­th no more goals at the end of ninety min­utes of play, the tussle ended wi­th a one-all draw. Un­for­tu­nately, the Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group Sta­ge mat­ch was mar­red by fight­ing be­tween sup­port­ers of bo­th clubs out­side the Olympic Sta­dium in the Etern­al City. Rome Te­am: Donieber Al­ex­an­der Marangon, Vit­orino An­tunes, Cicero Joao de Cez­are, Mat­teo Fer­rari, Phil­ippe Mexes, Ahmed Apimah Barusso, Aless­andro Faiolhe Amantino, Da­vid Pizarro, Rodrigo Tad­dei, Mauro Es­posito, Fran­cesco Totti. Sub­stitutes: Chris­ti­an Pa­nucci, Daniele De Ros­si, Ludovic Gi­uly, Mirko Vu­cin­ic, Sil­veira Ju­an, Ad­ri­an Pit, Ju­lio Ser­gio Ber­tagnoli. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: To­masz Kusz­czak, Dan­ny Simp­son, Jon­athan Evans, John O’Shea, Ger­ard Pique, Chris Eagles, Louis Saha, Mi­chael Car­rick, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Lu­is Car­los Al­meida da Cunha, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Kier­an Lee, Sam Hewson, Wes­ley Bro­wn, Fe­bi­an Brandy, Dong Fang­zhuo, Ad­am Eck­ers­ley Tom Heaton.

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