The Олимп-2 pitch in Rostov-on-Don was frozen. It was wonderfully patchy and Jose Mourinho wondered if you could even call it a field at all. His desire to have the venue changed was laughed off by a UEFA official, Mourinho claiming the official told him “the players are insured, so if something happens, no problem.”
United traveled 1,876 miles to face a physical side that had beaten Bayern Munich there, drawn with PSV Eindhoven, been narrowly defeated by Atletico Madrid and hammered Sparta Prague 4-0.
Trotting onto the rock-hard surface to contest this first leg for United in front of 16,000 angry sounding Russians were the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Phil Jones and the great Marouane Fellaini.
Here we go... #MUFC #UEL pic.twitter.com/MW2UMXpPEw
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) March 9, 2017
This was the Theater of Nightmares. This was everything that Barcelona vs. PSG hadn’t offered, that beautiful sort of shit on a stick football wherein every actor is assigned the role of the killjoy pragmatist.
Phil Jones did exceptional Phil Jones defending, contorting his face in a strange channeling of the great cosmic suffering of existence. He slammed his head on the pitch until it went numb, a writhing mass of pain at one with the character of the match as a whole.
Phil Jones tells Fellaini what to do. Photo: @ManUtdMEN | Twitter
But a flourish from the great Fellaini suddenly brought a warmth to all in the most frigid of conditions. Fellaini, born with a chest forged by the Greek god Hephaestus, deftly controlled a searching ball with his torso, his first trunk touch (or something) evading the defender and sending that animated collection of flailing elbows, blonde afro and velcro-like upper body into the danger zone.
He slipped a ball through to Zlatan (with a foot pass! not even his chest!), and Zlatan did a little dance to play it back to Henrikh Mkhitaryan, a disturbed man that’s really enjoying these Europa League outings for whatever reason.
Manchester United get that important away goal! #UEL https://t.co/ucQ07CwfuO
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) March 9, 2017
But in the 53rd minute, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling were caught flat-footed, so just in their natural state I guess, and Aleksandr Bukharov scored the equalizer.
That was it. That was all. Manchester United are probably still in their airplane right now, somewhere over Poland, Phil Jones contorting his face in bewilderment over the wonder of aviation and Marouane Fellaini getting his elbows thwacked by the snack cart.
The18 Recommends For You
