Rafael da Silva was on Saturday afternoon remembering how much it hurt the last time Manchester United met Bayern Munich in a Uefa Champions League quarter-final.
At the same time he insisted his thigh, on which he took a knock in the 4-1 win over Aston Villa, was not bothering him.
The Brazilian right-back, whose readiness to start against Bayern at Old Trafford on Tuesday night will be assessed on the morning of the match, is determined that amends will be made for what happened four years ago.
In the previous last-eight meeting with Bayern, Rafael received a red card in the 50th minute of the second leg, in Manchester. His offence was to tug the jersey of Bayern’s Franck Ribery.
United were leading the tie at the time, they went on to concede two goals, the second of which – a brilliant Arjen Robben volley from a Ribery corner – put the German club through on away goals.
Reacting to Rafael’s red card afterwards, then-United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, produced a quote that would stick in the collective memory.
“Typical Germans,” Ferguson spluttered, enraged at how many Bayern players had mobbed the referee after Rafael’s misdemeanour, pressing for a second caution.
The dismissal, as Rafael recalled to reporters, “cost United the game”, a turning point that he says was also a “learning” point for him.
He was 19, still at an early phase of his United career, still in the stage where earnest debates could be heard about which of the Da Silva twins was likely to contribute more in the long-term to United folklore.
His brother Fabio, a left-back, has since become very much the lesser light, though whether Rafael, who should play his 100th Premier League match next weekend, eventually becomes associated with a period of United glory or decline remains to be seen.
His fortunes, like United’s during the past 10 months, have ebbed, and he will be sharply reminded of one aspect of his diminished status when he looks at the Bayern team-sheet on Tuesday night.
On it will be his compatriot right-back Rafinha, probably in the starting XI, as he is for the majority of Bayern’s games, but possibly on the bench if Philipp Lahm, the captain, is picked at full-back rather than in midfield.
Wherever Rafinha, or Rafael, begin this evening, the former knows he is the more-highly valued right-back in their native Brazil.
A year ago, that was not the case. Rafinha, 28, was a marginal figure in Bayern’s treble of Champions League, Bundesliga and German Cup.
In the summer, Bayern thought about whether or not to pursue interest in him from Schalke, the club where he began his Bundesliga career in 2005. New coach Pep Guardiola, however, liked the look of the player, even though he knew Rafinha had had some grumpy moments with Jupp Heynckes, Guardiola’s predecessor, and that Lahm and the versatile Jerome Boateng, two senior Germany internationals, were higher in the hierarchy to play at right-back for Bayern.
Guardiola praised Rafinha’s enthusiasm when he introduced him as a late substitute on the first day of the Bundesliga season.
“He played as if they were the most important minutes of his life and that really impressed me,” Guardiola said.
Rafinha’s zeal encouraged Guardiola to pursue his experiment with Lahm anchoring midfield. Rafinha has started all but five matches in the Bundesliga this season; in 2012/13, he featured in Heynckes’s first XI just six times.
In December, he extended his Bayern contract to 2017. Last month, a call-up to the Brazil squad confirmed the Rafinha renaissance.
He had last been capped in 2008, the year he also featured in Brazil’s Olympic Games squad. He played 90 minutes in Brazil’s recent match against South Africa, the last friendly before national coach Luiz Felipe Scolari picks his World Cup party, a promising omen.
Scolari, by contrast, has not selected United’s Rafael at all since taking over Brazil last season. Yet, at one stage, the United man had looked the designated deputy and long-term successor to Barcelona’s Dani Alves as Brazil’s dashing right full-back.
Rafael was in the Olympic team who finished with a silver medal at London 2012.
Since then, he has been thoroughly eclipsed, most obviously by the rejuvenated Rafinha, who will seek Tuesday night to maintain his club’s hungry pursuit of titles at the expense of a United chasing their last chance to gain any prize from a gloomy season.
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