Sporting Braga 1 Man Utd 3

Sport­ing Braga 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 3, AXA Sta­dium, UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group Sta­ge, Nov­ember 7, 2012. Wi­th sec­ond ha­lf goals from Robin van Per­sie, Way­ne Roo­ney, and Javi­er Her­nandez, Man­chester Uni­ted were able to col­lect a 3-1 win ag­ainst Sport­ing Braga at AXA Sta­dium. The away vic­tory over the Por­tuguese meant that Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s Old Traf­ford troops were thro­ugh to the knock­out sta­ges of the UEFA Cham­pi­ons League. 

Sport­ing Braga had be­en de­feated 3-2 by Man­chester Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford two weeks earli­er and need­ed to win the mat­ch to stay in con­ten­tion for qual­i­fy­ing to the next sta­ge. The Barclays Pre­mier Lea­gue club came in­to this im­port­ant mid­week fix­ture on the back of a 2-1 ho­me win over Ar­senal thanks to goals from Robin van Per­sie and Pat­rice Ev­ra, whi­le the Por­tuguese Primeira Liga si­de had re­cently beaten Gil Vi­cente 3-1 at ho­me thro­ugh goals from Jose Lu­is Mendes An­drade, Alan Osorio da Costa Silva, and Hugo Vi­ana. Fol­low­ing a com­par­at­ively bor­ing fir­st pe­riod in which there was no score, the clash be­tween Man­chester Uni­ted and Sport­ing Braga burst in­to life shortly af­ter the re­sump­tion. At a foot­ball sta­dium carved from the rock face of a quarry, North­ern Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al Jon­ny Evans fouled dy­nam­ic mid­field work­horse Cus­todio Castro as he ran in­to the area and au­thor­it­at­ive head ref­er­ee Fe­lix Brych im­me­di­ately awar­ded The Arch­bish­ops a pen­alty which Brazili­an for­ward Alan Osorio da Costa Silva sub­sequently con­ver­ted af­ter 48 minutes.

In the 60th min­ute of the Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group H en­counter, a power cut saw the flood­lights at AXA Sta­dium turned off and the play was sus­pen­ded for some fif­teen min­utes. But, wi­th just ten min­utes re­maining on the watch, a mag­ni­fi­cent thro­ugh ball from ver­sat­ile stal­wart Ry­an Gig­gs freed sec­ond ha­lf sub­sti­tute Robin van Per­sie who lobbed his shot bey­ond the reach of ad­van­cing Sport­ing Braga and Por­tugal goal­keeper An­tonio Al­berto Bas­tos Pim­parel and in­to the net to level things out. And, a mere five min­utes la­ter, Way­ne Roo­ney was bro­ught down to earth in­side the pen­alty box by cent­ral de­fender Nu­no Co­elho, and stepped up to take the spot kick him­self which the Three Li­ons in­ter­na­tion­al duly con­ver­ted in­to a goal. Then, in the sec­ond min­ute of stop­page time, the same play­er flicked the ball on to Mex­ic­an goal poach­er Javi­er Her­nandez, who ma­naged to find the back of the net wi­th a trade­mark clo­se ran­ge ef­fort to con­firm an ex­cel­lent 3-1 away vic­tory for Man­chester Uni­ted over the Por­tuguese. Sport­ing Braga Te­am: An­tonio Al­berto Bas­tos Pim­parel, Le­andro Sa­lino, Nu­no Co­elho, Douglao, Uwa Eld­er­son Ech­iejile, Cus­todio Castro, Hugo Vi­ana, Alan, Ruben Mi­cael, Ruben Amor­im, Eder. Sub­stitutes: Quim, Bai­ano, Is­maily, Held­er Barbosa, Djamal Ma­hamat, Mar­cio Mos­soro, Ze Lu­is. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Va­lencia, Chris Small­ing, Jon­athan Evans, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Nani, An­der­son, Ry­an Gig­gs, Way­ne Roo­ney, Javi­er Her­nandez, Dan­ny Wel­beck. Sub­stitutes: An­ders Linde­gaard, Ra­fael, Rio Fer­dinand, Ash­ley Young, Mi­chael Car­rick, Tom Clev­er­ley, Robin van Persie.

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