Last night Manchester United and Bayern Munich went head-to-head to battle it out to win the 2009 Audi Cup. In fact it wasn't a battle, there were one or two chances for either team and not the best of matches.
After 90 minutes the game was still set at 0-0 so we went straight to penalties. Unfortunately Man United lost 7-6 on penalties.
Bayern Munich had the better of the first half but they failed to score. The first real chance fell to Bayern Munich's Gomez in the 18th minute, when his 12 yard shot hit the Edwin Van Der Sar's crossbar.
22 minutes in and a scare came for Man United. Michael Owen was chopped down by Martin Demichelis. The challenge deserved a red card and if it was a competitive match, the ref would have shown a red. Owen was down for a minute or two in agony (which wasn't a good sight) but he got up, limped a bit and he managed to play 78 minutes of the game.
Thomas Muller was also close to scoring, 28 minutes in he was in on goal but he didn't manage to connect properly onto Alexander Baumjohann's cross, the shot was weak and was at Van Der Sar.
Minutes later, Bayern wanted a penalty after Muller went down in the penalty area after a challenge by Jonny Evans. The referee rightly waved play on.
Man United's first chance of the match came in the 40th minute. Giggs' corner was flicked on to Dimitar Berbatov by Rio Ferdinand, he was unable to create a chance but it did fall to Michael Owen and he failed to put the ball into the back of the net.
That seemed to kick Man United into life (a little bit), minutes later it was Man United who it the woodwork. Berbatov tried an overhead kick and the ball hit the goalkeepers right hand post.
Man United were a lot better in the second half, Berbatov came close to scoring with a header and so did Owen. Luis Nani got the ball on the halfway line, he fed the ball to Paul Scholes. Scholes put Owen through on goal but the goalkeeper Rensing blocked the ball.
Wayne Rooney, Anderson and Antonio Valencia were all brought on and it was Rooney who was close to scoring the winner. 85 minutes in Rooney's shot (which should have been on target) was a wild one and it went high over the crossbar.
The match finished 0-0 and luckily we didn't have to sit through 30 minutes of extra time- it went straight to penalties.
First up was Man United's Ryan Giggs, he scored. Both teams scored their first three penalties (Anderson and Nani scored for United). Then up stepped Patrice Evra who was taking Man United's fourth penalty. Rensing made a one handed save to deny Evra.
Bayern's next penalty taker was Daniel Pranjic and Van Der Sar managed to block his.
Rooney scored Man United's fifth penalty but Bayern also scored theirs. Darren Fletcher scored United's sixth but so did Bayern. Man United's seventh penalty taker was Jonny Evans but his was saved. Van Buyten took the winning penalty for Bayern Munich, which he scored and it was Bayern Munich who won the Audi Cup.
When it goes to penalties, it is luck. We didn't have it last night and luckily it wasn't an important competition.
Overall we got what we needed, a competitive game. Bayern tested us and if we had our strongest team out and if they did aswell then I think we would have had a few goals.
