Cheered on by the native crowd, the star-studded ‘house’ facet, with an assault spearheaded by Romario and Edmundo, pressured the United defence, inflicting the usually dependable Gary Neville to make two errors within the house of three minutes.
First, an errant backpass was pounced upon by Edmundo, who squared to Romario to complete, then the 1994 World Cup hero was sensible to Neville’s tried chest move, nicking possession and rounding Raimond van der Gouw to attain.
Edmundo added a 3rd earlier than the break, after expertly turning Mikael Silvestre, and a shellshocked United facet shorn of Beckham’s artistic affect couldn’t muster a second-half response, other than Nicky Butt’s comfort aim.
“If we had come by the primary half-hour with the solar I felt we’d have been okay,” Sir Alex mentioned at full-time.
“Sadly the person who’s often probably the most dependable participant within the membership has made two errors which have misplaced it for us.”
United’s match was successfully over with a sport to play, however, on a weekend the place home golf equipment have been battling the chilly within the FA Cup fourth spherical, the Glaswegian had no regrets.
“It has been improbable right here – what an opportunity for us to come back out and get some solar,” he advised the BBC.
“Again house we’d have been freezing our toes off. Enjoying within the Maracana stadium – that is an expertise that most likely 90 per cent of the highest gamers on the planet do not get.
“It has been well-organised, the Brazilian folks have taken care of us very properly. On the enjoying facet, we want we had been higher.”
He fielded a much-changed workforce for the ultimate fixture, a digital lifeless rubber in opposition to South Melbourne, who have been managed by a really younger Ange Postecoglou in his first teaching function.
Quinton Fortune’s quickfire brace settled a tie which even the membership’s official yearbook describes as having ‘an unmistakable aura of anticlimax’ about it, though it was a helpful train for youthful Reds like Jonathan Greening, Danny Higginbotham and Ronnie Wallwork, who understandably have been discovering first-team alternatives exhausting to come back by at house.
