Utd were lucky to survive the first half. They sorted themselves out a little in the second but it should have been good night Vienna way before then. Rafael was awful, just awful and Ronaldo, Coentrao and Ozil all accepted his open invitation to rape that side of the pitch. Man Utd had no control of the possession at all, but left 3 up front all the time which meant that when they did finally get the ball into the opposition half Arbeloa, Ramos, Varane and Conetrao were caught napping, as usually there was only 3 back there.
Utd scored a vital goal totally against the run of play and if that hadn't gone in when it did this tie would have been over. Granted Utd did create a few chances, especially later on and you would have expected RVP to have done better than he did. Having said that it was men against boys last night. Although Madrid didn't win and Utd will be very happy with their 1-1 draw, Madrid will not have any fear about going to Old Trafford. They are stronger in all area's and they know it, stonger in defence, stronger in midfiled and stronger up front. To be honest it was a little embarrassing as an Englishman to see the runaway EPL leaders getting handed a lesson by a La Liga team that are 16 points behind the leaders.
I'll still be cheering for a Utd win, but they have a lot of work to do. This could be a repeat of the Barca Chelski matches from last year, where Chelski just got through by pure luck.
P.S. Apart from the blatent mistake by the ref for not calling the foul by Varane on Evra when the latter was clean through, I don't see why everyone is saying the ref had a bad game?
Good night Vienna? Madrid created fuck all other than their usual half threatening shots when given the initiative. It was NOTHING like the Chelsea game, Chelsea had like two or three shots on target in BOTH ties. United had SIX at the Bernebau alone, Madrid had EIGHT (only two more) and United created the two best chances of the game. If you want domination against United, look at the Spurs (yes Spurs) game against United a few weeks ago where they reduced United to 5 shots all game and 2 on target.
Of course Madrid have a lot to worry about, they created nothing of note apart from two Coentrao chances and never carved United open to create a clear one on one with De Gea in 90 minutes of football at their own backyard, all they relied on was pot shots from around the 18 yard box (I count about 11 of them). Manchester United have an infinitely better chance of beating Madrid 1-0 than Sevilla and Betis, both of those have happened already this season. Heck, United don't even need to score to go through. But oh, yes I forgot, Madrid WILL score, yup, like they did in their Andalusian games.
In the first half Madrid had 56% possession, how on earth is that possession domination comparable to the Barca-Chelsea tie? They had the territorial advantage but United's obviously wasn't going to attack at the Bernebau. SAF did his homework and knew Madrid are one the most useless big teams if they can't counter, and they were proven right because Madrid created more in the first half where they had only 56% than they did in the second half where they had about 65% in possession. United looked very comfortable in the second half. All they need to do is play that way again and they should go through.
Its always interesting to see Madrid play a big team that isn't Barcelona, and every time they've played these teams (Bayern, Dortmund and now United) I get more and more convinced they aren't an elite team and are riding on the coat tails of Barcelona's success, i.e. the notion that "They sometimes get results against Barcelona so they must be an elite team". Nope, they aren't ahead of the chasing pack, they just benefit from familiarity with the Barca game and I'm sure if Bayern, United or Juve have a 15 game experience against the Barca team they'll win a few as well.
I thought they were just about deserving of their second favorites tag but now I don't think there's a clear second favorite, I wouldn't be worried about their CL exploits. Even if they go past United they are not winning the competition, there are just too many teams that can beat them, I count about 4 left in the competition.
Your last point is laughable, "Apart from the blatant mistake". Well, except that is a HUGE game changing decision right there, at least 5 times out of 10 that is a red card for the defender and United are one of the best teams at capitalizing on an extra man advantage. How on earth you cant see that the referee was a homer is beyond me. He was quick to hand RVP a yellow within 3 minutes of the game for a nothing incident, refused to book ANY Madrid player despite their constant fouls, blew the whistle before United had a chance to take their corner 30 seconds before the 3rd minute of injury time, yet he didn't have a bad game. Sometimes I wonder if this a Barcelona fan board, it doesn't seem that way half of the time.
