Bayern were without Arjen Robben but Franck Ribery had managed to recover from an injury and he was in the starting line-up. Rather surprisingly Antonio Valencia was left out of Man United’s starting XI with Ji-Sung Park and Luis Nani lining up behind Rooney.
With only one minute and four seconds on the clock United took the lead through Rooney. Nani’s freekick in from the right was smashed in by an unmarked Rooney after defender Martin Dimichelis had slipped.
Bayern couldn’t get near United for the first 10/15 minutes, we looked confident and it looked like we could bag ourselves a second away goal.
United had a few opportunities in the first half with Paul Scholes blazing over the bar after receiving the ball from Park, Rooney had a shot blocked and Nani missed from 15-yards out.
United also hit the bar after Nani’s cross in was miss-hit, if that had gone in it would have been very embarrassing for the keeper.
Just before half time Rooney had a fabulous chance to double United’s lead after Darren Fletcher had got past Philipp Lahm, his ball into the area was missed by the defender and landed at Rooney’s feet. Rooney took a touch and his eventual shot was saved.
It wasn’t all United, there were some moments during the half where Ribery caused one or two problems, but nothing too major. Hamit Altintop was put through on goal by Ribery but his first touch was terrible and the ball was collected by Edwin Van Der Sar.
Bayern’s best chance of the first half fell to Ivica Olic, who missed from 3-yards out. Ribery ran down United’s left, Van Der Sar only managed to punch the ball partly away, Altintop miss-hit his shot and the ball rolled under Olic’s foot. Any contact on that and it would have been in the back of the net.
United never really got going during the second half, United’s man of the match had to be Van Der Sar. There were a few great saves that had to be made, which he did until the last few minutes when everything went disastrously wrong.
Van Der Sar had to make saves from Ribery, Altintop and Mark van Bommel, that was only first 10 minutes of the second half.
Ribery was going past Gary Neville with ease, which meant that Nani had to come back and help him out.
United still weren’t clicking, the midfield wasn’t controlling the game so Sir Alex Ferguson brought on Dimitar Berbatov and Antonio Valencia for Carrick and Park.
We were managing to hold on until Neville stupidly handled the ball just outside the penalty area. Ridiculous thing to do, especially from a defender of his experience.
With 77 minutes gone, Ribery’s freekick took a nasty deflection off Rooney and went past Van Der Sar and equalised for Munich. Two minutes of injury times was added on and it looked like it was going to finish all square, with an away goal being United’s advantage but there was plenty of time left for drama.
Mario Gomez ran at United’s defence, Nemanja Vidic partly stopped him but Patrice Evra didn’t seem quite sure where he was, it was either that or he had seen what had happened to Rooney. Olic took the ball and he only had to slot the ball past Van Der Sar, which he did.
Whilst all this was going on, Rooney was down on the ground in pain. Rooney limped off with what looks like a serious injury. It definitely seems like he will be out of the massive clash between United and Chelsea on Saturday, also most proberly the return leg next Wednesday against Bayern.
