Old Traford becomes The ‘Theatre of Shattered Dreams!!’ – First Half

What happened at the stadium that was once known as ‘The Theatre of Dreams’ on March 14, 2009, is what led to the above headlines. The ‘Red devils’ received one of their worst losses at their backyard in Old Trafford to one of their long time rivals Liverpool. The worst part of all this is that they were beaten in their own backyard. How painful can that be. It’s like inviting setting up someone for a nasty trick and the trick ends up happening on you. Old Traford has been known to be the place where dreams are made for the home fans and dreams shattered for their opponents. On this particular day, it was quite the opposite. Here’s how it all went down.

Starting line ups

Man Utd: Van der Sar (GK), Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand, Oshea, Ji Sung Park, Carrick, Anderson, Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney

Liverpool: Reina (GK), Aurelio, Hyppia, Skrtel, Carragher, Riera, Lucas, Mascherano, Kuyt, Gerrard and Torres

The game was quite evened out at the begin but the scoring started when Tevez happened to give Ji Sung Park a lovely through ball in the 18 yard box leading Reina to try and get . Unfortunately, he was too late and he tripped Park. Ronaldo, the usually spot kick person for Man Utd, put the ball in the far corner…score Man Utd 1 Liverpool 0.

Liverpool then began play as if nothing had happened. You should have seen the heart that the Liverpool players had. They took everything as if the game was still wide open and that they could win. That confident spirit is what led them to play on and push on as if nothing much had happened. Not so long after that a defensive blunder by the experienced Nemaja Vidic led to a spectacular goal. Fabio Aurielio lobbed the ball over to the center field and found the Man Utd defense asleep. The ball bounced the first time near the centre half and went over Vidic. As he tried to follow up to try and clear the ball, El Nino (the man Torres himself), was right behind his heels and was able to outsmart the experienced defender and put an easy goal behind Van der Sar…score Man utd 1 Liverpool 1.

The goal evened out the game but you could still see on the Liverpool players that all was no yet over. A number of free kicks by Ronaldo threatened Reina but he stood his ground at the goal. In one instance, Ronaldo had a thunderous shot that Reina could not hold and Tevez was right there waiting to pounce on it. But the quick reflexes of Reina enabled him to get to the ball fast. The game went on well for sometime but a splendid through pass from Torres made Evra commit a defensive error that led him to trip Gerrard in the 18 yard box and Liverpool were given a penalty. Who is better at spot kicks than Gerrard himself. He did deliver and was able squeeze one behind Van der Sar despite diving the right way. So at the half time break….score Man Utd 1 Liverpool 2.

Second Half Details