Their title slipped away quietly. It has been so long since anyone thought Manchester United could be champions of England again this season that few mentioned it became mathematically impossible when Liverpool won at West Ham United on Sunday.
The first inquests were conducted months ago. More materialised in recent weeks and just when it appeared United was in a downward spiral, things got better, and not simply because they could not get any worse. Their past two league games produced eight goals. They confounded expectations by both holding and worrying Bayern Munich.
They arrived in Bavaria with the tie still alive, which is more than many predicted, and as outsiders, but ones with increasing confidence.
Patrice Evra often strikes an upbeat note but the Frenchman made a valid point when he talked about his teammates rediscovering “the spirit of Manchester United”. It has been absent for much of a season of capitulations, but it was apparent in last week’s draw. The refusal to be beaten or intimidated, the sense that a cause served to rally them: these were the hallmarks of Sir Alex Ferguson’s bloody-minded winners, not David Moyes’s insipid losers.
Perhaps they are galvanised by the reality that the end to a dismal year is in sight. So, too, is the culmination of United careers.
Nemanja Vidic, the captain and outstanding player in the first leg, will depart in the summer. Evra and Rio Ferdinand may do likewise. They once formed three-quarters of Europe's best back four. Now they must be its most defiant. This is the stiffest of tests.
The warnings from Arsenal and Manchester City’s knock-out ties, against Bayern and Barcelona, respectively, are clear: one flash of skill, one lapse in concentration, one defensive mistake and it is over. Three triple Champions League finalists will never take to the European stage in a United shirt again.
Yet the realisation the end is nigh can be liberating. Evra raised the spectre of Chelsea’s 2012 champions, another to underachieve in the Premier League, another with ageing players – Didier Drogba and Jose Bosingwa, in their case – leaving and who, in what United will hope is an encouraging parallel, prospered against Bayern in the Allianz Arena.
It felt like a unique achievement, a rare case of circumstances coinciding as a team acquired an irresistible, strangely unstoppable momentum.
If United hope history repeats itself, they have to adopt similar tactics. Moyes talked of going to toe to toe with Bayern. Actually, United will not. They cannot. They cannot pass and move like a Pep Guardiola team. They have neither the technique nor the players. Instead, they require 90 minutes more of Chelsea-esque defending, of steadfast stubbornness mixed with intelligent counter-attacking to procure the goal they require.
Last week’s leg offered the first evidence of his reign that Moyes possesses the tactical sophistication needed at this level. His deployment of Danny Welbeck as part left winger, part galloping raider at the heart of the Bayern defence was clever. If Moyes no longer has the surprise factor and Bayern now have their most formidable defender, Dante, back from suspension, Guardiola’s perfectionists are without Bastian Schweinsteiger and in the unfamiliar position of having lost a game.
Indeed, after going three matches without a win, they are on their worst run of the Spaniard’s reign. Form is famously temporary, class notably permanent, and Bayern remain Europe’s outstanding team while United are a declining, mismatched bunch.
Yet as their veteran defenders gear up for what may be one last rearguard action, the clouds that enveloped Old Trafford have lifted. They may have false hope, but at least it is hope.
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