Otelul 0 Manchester Utd 2

Otelul Gal­ati 0 Man­chester Uni­ted 2, The Na­tion­al Arena, UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group Sta­ge, Oct­ober 18, 2011. Af­ter be­ing held to a 3-3 draw by Basel at Old Traf­ford in their pre­vi­ous Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group Sta­ge fix­ture, Man­chester Uni­ted be­at Otelul Gal­ati by 2-0 at The Na­tion­al Arena in Bucharest cour­tesy of two pen­alty goals from Way­ne Rooney.

Man­chester Uni­ted boss Sir Al­ex Fer­guson had made nine changes from the si­de which had drawn 1-1 ag­ainst North West rivals Liver­pool at An­field three days earli­er. United´s start­ing lineup con­tained goal­keeper An­ders Linde­gaard; de­fenders Fa­bio da Silva, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Chris Small­ing, and An­tonio Va­lencia,  mid­field­ers Olivi­era An­der­son, Lu­is Nani, and Mi­chael Car­rick; and for­wards Way­ne Roo­ney and Javi­er Her­nandez, whi­le goal­keeper Da­vid de Gea; de­fenders Jon­ny Evans and Phil Jones; mid­fielder Dar­ren Fletch­er; and for­wards Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Mi­chael Owen, and Dan­ny Wel­beck were sit­ting on the substitutes´s bench. On a some­what chilly even­ing in Bucharest, Way­ne Roo­ney con­ver­ted two pen­al­ties in the sec­ond ha­lf to hand Man­chester Uni­ted a fully de­served 2-0 vic­tory over Ro­mani­an Cham­pi­ons Otelul Gal­ati in front of an audi­ence of 50,000 bois­ter­ous spec­tat­ors at The Na­tion­al Arena. The Red Dev­ils should have taken the lead a few min­utes be­fore the sound of the ha­lf-time sig­nal, but Mi­chael Car­rick ma­naged to waste a de­cent goal scor­ing op­por­tun­ity over the cross­bar. Fol­low­ing a goal­less fir­st pe­riod ag­ainst the un­fan­cied Ro­mani­ans, the Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue out­fit slowly but surely star­ted to con­trol the play and the vis­it­ors were re­war­ded five min­utes pa­st the hour ma­rk when they re­ceived a pen­alty af­ter vet­er­an mid­fielder Ser­giu Costin had hand­balled in­side the eight­een-yard area. Wi­th the calmness of a Druid priest, Roo­ney con­ver­ted the sub­sequent spot-kick in fine style, giv­ing Man­chester Uni­ted a well earned 1-0 lead to si­lence the Bucharest crowd. But wi­th the tem­per­at­ure rising on the field, the Otelul Gal­ati sup­port­ers smelled blood when Man­chester Uni­ted and Ser­bia cent­ral de­fender Ne­manja Vid­ic was han­ded his march­ing or­ders by Ger­man of­fi­cial Fe­lix Brych af­ter a high chal­lenge on Ro­mani­an in­ter­na­tion­al Gab­riel Gi­ur­giu a mere two min­utes af­ter the open­ing goal.

Spurred on by their fans, The Steel­work­ers searched for an equal­iser, but the an­em­ic ho­me play­ers lacked bite in at­tack. As the con­test rea­ched the clos­ing mo­ments, Otelul Gal­ati Head Coach Dor­inel Mun­teanu de­cided to in­ject some fresh en­ergy in­to his te­am by re­pla­cing Ionut Neagu, Sor­in Frunza, and Brat­is­lav Pun­o­se­vac wi­th Mar­ius Pena, Silviu Ilie, and Gab­riel Vigli­anti, who emer­ged from the dark ob­scur­ity of the sub­stitutes´ bench in the 72nd, 83rd, and 87th min­utes re­spect­ively. But wi­th on­ly a couple of min­utes re­maining on the referee´s watch, for­mer Ser­bia and Montenegro U21 in­ter­na­tion­al Mil­an Perendija was pun­ished for break­ing the laws of the ga­me when he was sent off for his sec­ond book­ing af­ter a pro­fes­sion­al foul on Javi­er Her­nandez. And wi­th the fix­ture ap­proach­ing stop­page time, the hosts re­ceived the fi­nal nail in their coffin as the om­ni­present Way­ne Roo­ney was il­leg­ally bro­ught down by Transylvani­an born wing­er Liviu An­t­al in the pen­alty box in the 90th min­ute of ac­tion. The Eng­land play­er once ag­ain stepped up to the spot and the con­fid­ent marks­man made no mis­take, scor­ing his sec­ond goal of the night. Al­though Man­chester Uni­ted struggled to break down the rugged Otelul Gal­ati de­fence for most of the en­counter, Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s men stayed pa­tient and got the res­ult they need­ed. And not even renowned nov­el­ist Bram Stoker could have come up wi­th a bet­ter end­ing than this one. Otelul Gal­ati Te­am: Branko Graho­vac, Mil­an Perendija, Cor­nel Rapa, Liviu An­t­al, Ser­gui Costin, Sor­in Frunza, Ioan Filip, Gab­riel Gi­ur­giu, Ionut Neagu, Ad­ri­an Sala­geanu, Brat­is­lav Pun­o­se­vac. Sub­stitutes: Cris­ti­an Bra­net, Silviu Ilie, Cris­ti­an Sar­ghi, Ne­jc Sku­bic, Lauren­tiu Iorga, Gab­riel Vigli­anti, Mar­ius Pena. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: An­ders Linde­gaard, Fa­bio da Silva, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Chris Small­ing, Oli­veira An­der­son, An­tonio Va­lencia, Lu­is Nani, Mi­chael Car­rick, Way­ne Roo­ney, Javi­er Her­nandez. Sub­stitutes: Da­vid de Gea, Jon­ny Evans, Phil Jones, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Mi­chael Owen, Dan­ny Welbeck.

Wayne Rooney Quickfacts

Af­ter join­ing Man­chester Uni­ted from Ever­ton for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £25.6 mil­lion at the front end of the 2004-05 cam­paign, Way­ne Roo­ney went on to ac­cu­mu­late a total of 253 goals in 559 fir­st te­am out­ings for the club be­fore he re­turned to Good­ison Park at the end of the 2016-17 season.

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