Manchester United advanced today to the group stage of the Champions League after spending a year in wayward pines. Wayne Rooney scored three goals and the Red Devils won 4-0. Great for them! That’s terrific. Way to go, fellas. Cheers. Good luck in Russia or Madrid or Israel in the next round.
I would like, however, to have a conversation about the belly laughter-inducing performance of Club Brugge. It was a display so wholly putrid, so lacking in intensity and intention, that it is my favorite showing of the young season so far. Sports can be funny, and this was some of its best comedy.
Needing a 2-0 win to advance, one would have assumed Club Brugge would cautiously push bodies forward, attack the wings to spread United out, and try to get back into the tie with an early goal. The Belgian side went instead with the lethargic tactical strategy of “let’s get the manager fired.”
Rooney’s first goal is a good indicator of how much Club Brugge did not give two damns about this match from the opening whistle: Brugge had sagged back and back and back for twenty minutes and were so spread apart defensively that more than once I used my finger to count how many players they had on the pitch. Then Memphis Depay ran fast and slotted the ball through to Rooney for the opening goal. Exactly no blue-clad players on the pitch did anything that could even be considered “light, morning jogging.”
For the second, Rooney again tapped home a pass between a few defenders who were daydreaming about their pups for National Dog Day. Just look at all that space above the backpedaling defense.
The tie was over, but United wasn’t done having a bit of their daily exercise, so Juan Mata played a nice ball through to Rooney again for his hat trick. It was another inspiring display of apathy from a group of Brugge midfielders and defenders, which is fine when the aggregate score is out of hand, but they’d been playing lifeless like that since the start.
But my personal favorite, the single embodiment of how overmatched Club Brugge was in a must-win game, was Ander Herrera’s goal in the 63rd. On the defensive side of midfield, Bastian Schweinsteiger played a pass straight down the center of the Belgian defense, spinning poor Oscar Duarte into the ground like he was stuck in a vacuum cleaner.
The crap display from Brugge was contagious after a while, too. United’s Daley Blind almost headed home a fantastic own goal in the second half, and then Javier Hernandez was subbed on, took a penalty, slipped, missed, and elicited this wonderful reaction from Louis van Gaal and Ryan Giggs, which is a bit like the face you make when someone starts screaming during their fourth lunchtime bench press set.
If you’re keeping score at home, United netted eight goals in the two-leg tie, one of which went in its own net. Brugge managed two total shots on goal over two matches and didn’t score a goal of their own. Funny sports are my favorite sports.
