The 7-game goal drought is finally over. Cristiano Ronaldo has finally broken his goalscoring drought as Manchester United beat Sheriff 2-0 in the Europa League.
Despite what people might think about Sheriff, they actually came out and tried to play with Manchester United. Whether it was due to a desire to impress their Moldovan home fans, or because they believed they could surprise United by playing positive football, Sheriff put on a great performance that should be applauded.
The team they put out isn’t worth 1/20th of the value of United’s (in terms of the sum of player transfers and wages), but that didn’t stop them from attacking, trying to play through the midfield, and giving United a few heart-in-mouth moments in first half. I see how they caused Real Madrid so many problems in the Champions League last season.
In the end, however, Manchester United had too much quality. Jadon Sancho opened the scoring on the 20′ mark with Christian Eriksen receiving the ball in the box, reversing a pass to Sancho, who pulled the ball to his left foot and curled a shot into the bottom corner.
This goal just proved how important Christian Eriksen has become to this Man United side. Not since Paul Scholes roamed the midfield for United has there been a midfielder that has so seamlessly linked the midfield to the attack. He’s easily been United best player this season, let alone being United’s best transfer.
If he continues this great form for the rest of the campaign, then he might very well go down as one of the greatest free transfers in history.
Anyway, Jadon Sancho nearly scored another a few minutes later, but was denied off the goal line by Sheriff’s Stjepan Radeljić, who did brilliantly to get behind his goalkeeper to clear the ball off the line.
There were a few half chances with Bruno Fernandes and Cristiano Ronaldo between the 30-36 minutes, but neither could get on the end of any of their, respective, crosses or through balls.
However, on the 37′ mark, Diogo Dalot made a daring run into Sheriff’s box. Sheriff’s Patrick Kpozo darted over to strip the ball off Dalot but missed and took down the Portuguese fullback in the process. Obviously, the ref called for a penalty and Ronaldo stepped up to take it.
The greatest goal scorer ever dispatched the penalty right down the middle, sending the Sheriff goalkeeper the wrong way as CR7 doubled United’s lead. I didn’t even realize this until a graphic went up right after Ronaldo scored but that goal was his 699-club goal (his 816 for club and country).
One more United goal and Ronaldo will become the first player in world football to score 700 goals in their club career.
Simply, CR7 is the G.O.A.T of goal scoring.
Going into halftime, I thought that we’d see more goals from United in the second half as Sheriff were reeling towards the end of that first half. Yet, that didn’t happen as Erik ten Hag brought on Casemiro to control possession and suck the life out of the rest of the game. Thus, it ended 2-0 for United, giving them their first 3-points of the Europa League campaign.
I said the same thing after United and Real Sociedad played each other on Matchday 1, but this game is just the first inevitable domino to fall in United’s qualification to the Round of 32.
Sheriff and Omnia are fun, enjoyable underdogs to root for and will give Sociedad and United a game (as they both did to the Spanish and English clubs today), but they are only distractions. Real Sociedad and Manchester United will be the teams that qualify, it is just a battle as to who finishes 1st and 2nd in Group C.
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