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26.02.2006 - Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
Glory glory Man United! Our first trophy in almost two years! Definitely a time for celebration. Winning the League Cup isn't really bad after all. All the fuss of this cup competition being the lowest in the English Premier clubs' caste system isn't quite true. Being a United fan for 12 years now have proven me that winning any competition is always the best way to start winning the others, especially when you're having a new team consisting of new breed of players.
It wasn't really the case 14 years ago when we won the same competition in Wembley. The only new breed to ever mark the triumph at that time was Giggs who gave the assist of the only goal of the match. Choccy scored the goal. But it was the start of an era, lead by Giggs. The next year we won the double. How I wish we are on the same path again this time. I've seen it. Ronaldo is growing more and more efficient. And Rooney is finally proving himself as the coolest player in the current England squad.
Okay, it's Wigan not Barcelona. But let's think of it this way round instead: would you prefer us going to the quarter-final of the Champions League beating Barca and losing the semi-final to whoever goes there, after having to settle with Rio and Patrice in the midfield? Look at our midfield department. Before some of the lads went injured, it's already mentioned as being in 50% strength of what United should be. Now we're losing Scholes, Smith, Fortune. No I won't count Keano this time now, he's past and shouldn't let ourselves stared at his past glories.
Apart from it, what we see is a very efficient United team. Apart from O'Shea who still lacked authority in his midfield role, we saw a settled Giggsy, an efficient-showboating Ronaldo, and an eagle-eyed Park at their best. Even without Ruud, we still have a very solid attacking partnership in Rooney and Saha. This is United who can beat every team in the world.
The rest of the season would be an interesting part for us now. We can now find out how this win would affect the players' motivation in chasing Chelsea. It is important to keep fighting til the end. Put some pressure on them. See how good they are at holding on. We didn't manage to put the pressure on them last season. Now they're still in the Champions League, although that home loss to Barca might as well end it sooner than we expected, and also in the FA Cup against Newcastle. They have more matches to play. More exhaustion than us. This is when we can start building up the winning mentality. I don't know where we would end up this season. But we all know at least a silverware would be placed in the very front row of the team photo next season. Glory glory Man United! (rud) |
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