Stalemate at San Siro

The Romanian and the Bulgarian slugs it out

It was a meeting of former adversaries as Fergie takes the trip to Italy to meet his former foe Jose Mourinho. Fergie didn't exactly have a good record against Mourinho considering that counting all the games including those at Porto, Fergie only won once. It was Mourinho's time at Porto and his infamous victory over United a couple of seasons ago at the Champions League using that Porto team had propelled him to superstardom and gave him the right the call himself "the special one".

The first half was dominated by United as they break constantly into Inter's backline with their pace and quick passing. Inter were clearly having some trouble dealing with the off-ball passing too. Inter's typical slow build-up style was choked up easily through some excellent disposession techniques by the United defenders. Zlatan did not terrify the United defenders as much as Ronaldo did to his Inter team-mates. Giggs was excellent too in breaking through defences but his finishing could not match up to result in a goal Just before half-time though, frustration at the referee in the substitute bench became confrontational when Toldo and Figo decided to give the fourth official a piece of what they're thinking. Too many free kicks and decisions were given in favour to United, as so they seem to have argued. Of course, the ref has no nonsense for that and slapped Toldo with a yellow. On the other hand, the San Siro crowd is getting restless after seeing the amount of chances United have against their goalie. Berbatov, Giggsy and Ronaldo all had superb beautiful chances, but none of them could add to the score.

Inter's performance in the early part of the second half was an improvement as they were the ones iniating the attacks instead. However, Inter players were similarly guilty of missing open chances too. Ronaldo's performance at the San Siro was possibly one of the best ever seen this season. His free kicks were on target but they were matched up evenly by some vital saves of Julio Caesar. A last minute unleashing of Rooney was done in the hope of getting something out of the game but nothing much came out of that coz he came into the game too late. It was the climax of the game at the last few seconds of the game when Ronaldo went up to take on yet another free kick but the Inter goalie was extremely proud of himself to deny the Portugese once again. It ends with a 0-0 score.

United would have rued the missed chances to score especially when the away goal is so vital in deciding the outcome. They were clearly dominating and had enough firepower to kill the game but failed to do so. This was the same situation when they were facing Barca at Nou Camp when Ronaldo missed his penalty and that resulted in 0-0. No away goals meant that a draw with Inter scoring at least 1 will be sufficient for the Italian club to go through. Fergie will have to beef up his defence to block Zlatan and co. from scoring there. The return of Vidic will certainly makes things easier for the defence although O Shea and Evans demonstrated that they were as capable in stopping Zlatan. The ultimate question however will still be whether those missed chances will return to haunt Man Utd.