In the ever-improving but increasingly complicated game of football with money and statistics, it is the individual, independent moments that remind us exactly why we love it.
Expected goal statistics, outrage over transfer fees and commercial priorities are all forgotten when you have found yourself tumbling four rows down from your usual place and hugging a man you have never met before in your life and lived in the moment your meat pie goes AWOL.
It’s easy to look back on football – like anything – with pink glasses and marvel at “the Barclays” halcyon days. And while the rhetoric is admittedly quite tiring and playful, there are some moments that just grab you, right next to the retro shirt you spent too much money on.
The garters, the football, the baggy kits – this is Barclays | Mike Hewitt / Getty Images
Especially for Manchester United fans, these moments have been the key to keeping the fans sensible in recent years. Nothing more than a special goal in April 2009, which is battling with WrestleMania 25 for the biggest sporting event of that calendar year.
Is there anything that Manchester United did not have at the time? Three incredible kits, an attack by Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov and Sir Alex Ferguson in search of league titles as if they were his favorite chewing gum that quickly lost stock.
After winning the Premier League and Champions League 2007/08, the Red Devils were at the top of the world.
Although he only won the title on the last day of the 2007/08 season, there was an air of invincibility across this United side, which had quality throughout the park. But after being beaten twice by Liverpool in the 2008/09 campaign – including a 4-1 knockout at Old Trafford – the race for the title that season went well between England’s two biggest clubs.
A feud that could have had the main fair at the WrestleMania show 2009 … | Clive Mason / Getty Images
After losing 2-0 to Fulham at gameweek 30, United could not afford more slip ups with Liverpool just one point behind them. And on Sunday, April 5, Rafa Benitez’s men were top and United were 2-1 at home to Aston Villa, with a third title in as many seasons.
Ferguson, not only a serial winner but also a risk taker, played youngsters. On came a 17-year-old striker named Federico Macheda after 61 minutes, tasked with somehow stopping the Premier League title from going down the M62.
With ten minutes left, Ronaldo took a second and leveled the match at 2-2. It was still not enough, but suddenly a belief arose that went through the theater of Dreams and the speed was entirely with the red devils, who were hectic in their pursuit of a winner.
Ronaldo drew United level | Ryan Pierse / Getty Images
The young Italian had been given a good position in the center when the game bled into the dying glow of the injury time and picked up the ball outside the box from Gary Neville. He was removed, but the ball would only go as far as Ryan Giggs.
Macheda had by this time worked his way back into the 18-yard box and found the ball at his feet again turned away from goal. In what felt like slow motion, the teenager pulled it back, spun Luke Young into oblivion and rifled the ball with his right foot, sending it straight into the upper right corner.
Out of nowhere, United had won it. And for all their star power, it was a debutant Macheda who sent Stretford End in an earthquake of cheers and reduced Martin Tyler to a helpless scream and beat the Premier League title back to Manchester in a poetic way.
Macheda, the Italian born in Rome, had risen like Neptune to propel United forward when even their strongest assets could not, before running into a swarm to celebrate with the crowd and embracing Ferguson on the touchline after performing a miracle.
The turn. The goal. # GoalOfTheDay is a moment of Macheda magic? pic.twitter.com/9J3otLGO9Q
– Premier League (@premierleague) April 4, 2019
Speaking to SPORTBible 2020, Macheda admitted that he was ‘on another planet’ after the goal went in.
“I was over the moon. I was not part of the first team at the time so I was not aware of how important it was to us. I was just over the moon to myself because I could not believe it,” he said.
While this game did not see them directly over the line, it was undoubtedly Macheda’s goal that effectively sealed United’s third consecutive Premier League title as they returned to the top of the table and were unbeaten in their remaining eight league games.
The goal saw Macheda hyped up to the sky and although it never really worked for him at the elite football level, United fans will never forget his iconic goal that has kept him etched in the club’s history as a cult hero for eternity.
