Michael Owen Nets The Winner

Michael Owen

A con­fid­ent Manchester United team man­aged to defeat European Cham­pi­ons Bar­celona 2–1 in front of an 81,000 crowd at Fedex Field in Wash­ing­ton DC on Sat­urday. The win­ner was even­tu­ally scored by pre­vi­ous Liv­er­pool, Real Mad­rid and New­castle United cent­ral attacker Michael Owen in the 76th minute of the friendly match.

Sir Alex Ferguson´s Manchester United had a rather tough start to the pre-season game as Rafael da Silva was injured already in the 17th minute of the play after a col­li­sion with Bar­celona mid­fielder Sey­dou Keita and it remains uncer­tain whether the for­ward think­ing wing back will be fit and ready for the upcom­ing Eng­lish Premier League cam­paign. The Manchester Reds opened the scor­ing when the ath­letic and bandy legged Danny Wel­beck sent a mag­ni­fi­cent through ball to Por­tugal inter­na­tional winger Luis Nani who slipped his shot behind a com­pletely help­less Vic­tor Valdes in the Bar­celona goal and into the back of the net after only 22 minutes of action. Pep Guardiola´s play­ers man­aged to hit back in the second period, though, as pre­vi­ous Fla­mengo mid­field favour­ite Thi­ago Alcan­tara lev­elled the score with a thun­der­bolt effort from some 25 yards in the 69th minute. A mere seven minutes later, how­ever, dynamic area-to-area play­maker Tom Clev­erly inter­cep­ted a pass and played the ball to sub­sti­tute Michael Owen who hammered home to give Manchester United a well deserved 2–1 tri­umph over The Blaugrana who blatantly missed the ser­vices of Lionel Messi on Sat­urday. Manchester United: David de Gea, Rafael, Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Tom Clev­er­ley, Ander­son, Ash­ley Young, Danny Wel­beck, Wayne Rooney, Nani. Sub­sti­tutes: Michael Owen, Gab­riel Ober­tan, Rio Ferdin­and, Ryan Giggs, Mame Biram Diouf, Fabio, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Anders Linde­gaard, Ben Amos, Michael Car­rick, Ji-sung Park, Dim­itar Ber­batov, Fed­erico Macheda.

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