El Clasico: Champions League Semis: Schalke vs Manchester United Recap (1st Leg)

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Schalke vs Manchester United

I guess I could be right when I said that Manuel Neuer could be the next Van der Sar (also, I didn’t realize he was the captain). He made a lot of awesome saves, denying Man U’s dangerous scoring attempts from Rooney, Giggs, etal. He’s probably the main reason the score was still 0-0 by half-time.

for me, Manuel Neuer was the man of the match
photo courtesy of uefa.com

But after 67 minutes of deadlock, Man U finally beat Neuer when Ryan Giggs found the back of the net from a set up by Wayne Rooney. And two minutes later, Rooney scored another one, this time from a set up from Javier Hernandez. Well, Neuer held it off for as long as he could. Schalke’s defense just exposed their keeper one too many times in this match. I’m surprised that Man U didn’t score more than two.

I was hoping for Schalke to pull off another 5-2 kind of win against the Red Devils. But Man U’s defense was just pretty solid, neutralizing any attempts from Schalke.

Jersey swap watch: Saw Raul swap jerseys with Giggs after the match. Raul had hoped to swap jerseys with Giggs and actually said so prior to the match. Neuer approached Giggs afterwards, I think he may have asked for a jersey too, but I’m only just guessing, hehe. This is one of my favourite parts of the game, the minutes after the final whistle blows when players take off their shirts, swap jerseys… I wish the camera/coverage would be a bit longer during this part.

Christoph Metzelder wearing a face mask

On an unrelated note… I’ve been wondering why Christoph Metzelder was wearing a mask when I saw their previous games. Apparently he broke his nose… for the 4^th time. Too bad, though, coz without the mask, he’s kinda hot J

Metzelder without the mask. Isn't he a cutie?

Aggregate Score:

Schalke: 0

Manchester United: 2

Here are numbers:

Schalke		Man. United
0	Goals scored	2
5	Attempts on target	10
3	Attempts off target	6
3	Corners	6
26' 8''	Possession (time)	48' 8''
35	Possession (%)	65
12	Fouls committed	15
2	Yellow cards	1
0	Red cards	0