Football

Man Utd fail Greek test in Champions League

by
yardie
February 26, 2014

The above cartoon is a depiction of the way many Manchester United fans the world over feel about their team today. “I have no words”, these were the sentiments of Manchester United legend and former goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel on twitter yesterday after the Champion’s League round of 16 match against Olympiakos in Greece.

When the draw was made and United was matched with Olympiakos, one would have been forgiven for thinking that it was all but over and United would progress easily. Well, that has not been the case, after a shambolic performance from the former European Chmapions that saw Olympiakos carve out a 2-0 win. Man United now have to score three clear goals without conceding in three weeks’ time when they next meet at Old Trafford.

Olympiakos started the match showing off their attacking intent and had United on the back foot winning possession easily and pressing the away side which resulted in a yellow card for Evra in the 3rd minute of the game. In the 9th minute it was all Olympiakos once again with Dominguez racing through with only a last ditch tackle by Captain Nemanja Vidic preventing a goal. The game continued in much the same way for most of the half with Tom Cleverly not so much conceding possession as making wilful donations to Olympiakos. Robin Van Persie had only 12 touches of the ball for the entire half and Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia ran down the wings time after time with no end product for the United forwards to latch on to.

With such a lacklustre performance, conceding the deflected opener from Alejandro Dominguez in the 38th minute was inevitable and showed just how United had been playing up to that point, ending the half trailing 1-0.

Nine minutes after the restart United’s troubles took a turn for the worse as Olympiakos doubled their lead with a top class effort from on-loan Arsenal winger Joel Campbell. Moyes brought on Shinji Kagawa and Danny Welbeck but it was too little too late as the team barely threatened thereafter as Van Persie slammed a shot into the crowd from inside the box. All in all it was a very poor display from a team that at this point last season was holding Real Madrid to a draw at the Bernabeau and won last year’s Premier League title by all of 11 points.

Borrussia Dortmund took a big step towards the Champion’s League quarter finals with a resounding victory in Russia. Dortmund raced into the lead thanks to Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marco Reus in the 4th and 5th minutes respectively. Reus was involved in both goals as he held off the challenge of Criscito before Mkhitaryan scored then whilst the Dortmund fans were still celebrating he doubled the advantage latching onto Kevin Grosskreutz’s lay-off to beat Lodygin at the near post. The Russian League leaders then tried to find a way back into the contest but lacked the cutting edge they needed. Lewandowski could have made it 3-0 to Dortmund before the end of the half but, Lodygin turned his effort behind for a corner.

Dortmund continued to create chances after the break, but it was Zenit who would find a goal to bring them back into the game on 57 minutes. Jose Rondon who was making his first competitive appearance for Zenit hit the post and when the ball came back to Shatov he rifled it past Roman Weidenfeller to bring the score to 2-1. Dortmund’s response was almost immediate, and it came through striker Robert Lewandowski after good work from fellow polish international, Lukasz Piszceck. Piszeck went from hero to villain soon after as he was adjudged to have fouled Viktor Fayzulin and Hulk made it 3-2 from the penalty spot. But Dortmund was not to be denied, and it was Lewandowski once more who drilled a right-footed shot across Lodygin and into the bottom left corner after excellent work by Reus. Dortmund now go into the second leg on the 19th of March in firm control all but qualified for the next round.

Writer: Lynford Harris