As Roma 0 Manchester United 2

The match started with AS Roma being rather defensive. They chose not to be too adventerous and since this was an away match for Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson set up his rather defensive formation with Wayne Rooney playing the lone forward up front.

United packed the midfield with Michael Carrick playing the holding midfield position with an option to spray some long passes aka quarterback style.

Paul Scholes took on the playmaker role reviving his paring with Carrick which had been rather so successful last year.

This time, Sir Alex Ferguson has young Anderson in his disposal and he employed Anderson as his front midfield role giving him the instructions to hurry and hassle the opposition midfield as much as possible. And Park Ji Sung was given the surprise starting position and he did a very similiar job to what Anderson was doing.

And it was no surprise that AS Roma could not do much in the first half as United defended the spaces extremely well when they did not have the ball.

This match was all about Rio, Roon, Ronnie and Scholesy!

Rio had probably his best ever match for United. He was simply awesome.

Scholesy was simply superb.

Ronaldo, the goal he scored, was simply awesome.

Rooney in a central forward movement had no where to go. To his right was open. Scholes, in a rare forward movement, was moving into that open field. Rooney overhit his pass to Scholes and for a second, the opportunity looked past. Scholes, however, brought the ball into control and hit a hanging cross into Roma box. And in came Ronaldo, the rocket. Speeding into the box, he struck a header so powerful that it almost broke the net.

AS Roma 0 Manchester 1.

Roma started the second half strongly and decided to attack United. However, Rio was simply superb in the absence of Vidic, who suffered a first half injury.

And Rooney. The second goal was a gift. Rooney really did not know where the ball was a split second before he poked the ball home after the Roma keeper failed to hang on to a simple cross from Park on the left.

AS Roma 0 Manchester United 2.