Ben Foster's tormented season ended in triumph in another bizarre twist in the United keeper's incredible tale.
The one-time England World Cup hopeful would have been counting the days to Fabio Capello naming his squad for South Africa at the end of this month had he not blown his golden chance with the Reds seniors earlier in the campaign.
In a sad apparent fall from grace he was at Old Trafford for Ole Solskjaer's reserve side in the Premier Reserve League Play-Off final in front of just 2165 at Old Trafford.
And it looked like the elder statesman in Solskjaer's young northern title winners was going to wreck his teenage colleagues' big day.
The 27-year-old, who had wrecked his United opportunities through a series of first team gaffes, made another with eight minutes to go as he failed to deal with a corner and southern title winners Aston Villa's captain Ciaran Clark made him pay as he headed in Villa into a late 3-2 lead.
Clark's goal added to a pair by Villa's Brummie teenager Nathan Delfouneso.
They were cancelled out by a brace from Mame Biram Diouf and a penalty by Federico Macheda.
So the entertaining showpiece came down to a penalty shoot-out.
Foster is no stranger to spot kick drama having won United the 2009 Carling Cup against Spurs at Wembley with his nerveless heroics.
That was in front of 80,000 and a worldwide audience this was played out in front of an empty Stretford End stand.
But Foster stood up to the challenge in sensational fashion.
The big keeper put United ahead in the shoot-out 3-2 when he swapped his gloves for his boots to thunder in a brilliant kick from 12-yards.
He immediately took his place between the sticks to save from Delfouneso and then repeated the trick from James Collins to secure the Reds second string their second title of the season as they became national champions.
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We,ve got to keep on till its over believing wigan can hold chelsea. Having said that i dont want to point fingers at anyone but, certainly some players must look to their own performances and worry if Fergie will perform a cull on the squad. on the brighter side and pluse,s for this season Rooney as been
a trojan for united, Valencia as had a great first season ,Fletcher as been brilliant for us,Johnnie Evans as proved to be a capable defender just needs to build upper body strength and a bit more ruthless in the tackle. Evra would in any other season been my player of the year superb . But given a horrendous injury lists we have done well to be in the race till the last game of the season. Nani,s
returned to form as been pleasing to the eye hopefully he keeps it going and proves the doubters wrong and achieves greatness with united.
pod the red hulme manchester
things are looking up if we have won the primership lol
Well done guys !!!
pod the red, you don't need to sign your name.
fyi.
Great credit due to Ole Gunnar. Deserves his chance as Fergie's No.2. He's ambitious, has proved himself with this success and can offer alot more from the dugout than Mike Phelan. Even during his playing career Ole proved he could read games from the bench waiting for his chance to come on and make an impact - he always did.
I watched the game on MUTV. We were lucky to beat Villa on pens. They were the better team by a mile in the first half and were better for large parts of the second half too. Only Diouf showed that he has what it takes to be a United first teamer. Macheda was awful again; disinterested and clumsey for the vast majority of the game. The midfield, as always under Ole, were very poor. The defence was only marginally better. Foster played OK and saved a couple of pens but this was a poor performance overall.
A good game to watch and well done to them all.
Great game and great saves/goal from Foster. I hope he stays at United.
Might have saved the pens but was at fault for 3rd goal
I tell you what! Macheda & Diouf played well together & looked very promising!
Way to go guys!!! National Champs!!!
Lets hope some of those players can make a mark on the first team next season. It's our tradition!
Brilliant effort.....hopefully some of these boys will step up to the next level and fill the gaps in the main team....our stars of the future :)
We don,t need any more forwards we just need a new manager and a new midfield.We have got the best young talent arund with an old out of date manager!
Mame Biram Diouf's double and a Kiko Macheda penalty kept United in the contest during normal time, but goalkeeper Ben Foster was the shootout hero; making two saves and scoring what proved to be the winning kick
T&c
you are being very harsg on macheda from what i remeber he set up a few chances with defence splitting passes.
Keep It Real yes they always have done and it is normally Obertan that makes all the chances.
We don,t need any more forwards we just need a new manager and a new midfield.We have got the best young talent arund with an old out of date manager!
Mame Biram Diouf's double and a Kiko Macheda penalty kept United in the contest during normal time, but goalkeeper Ben Foster was the shootout hero; making two saves and scoring what proved to be the winning kick
danny, WILMSLOW
Hmmm, I wonder who bought these youngsters. Same old out of date manager perhaps?
t&c
What game were you watching? Macheda was class.He set up Diouf twice with beautiful through balls, scored a very good penalty in normal time, hardly ever lost the ball, created two Diouf goals, he was bursting past player's and leaving them for dead and scored again in the shootout.You sure you were not getting him mixed up with Diouf?
i managed to get down yesterday i was sat right behind the macheda family lol kiko was our man of the match, tho i had to put up with sum dick head giving diouf abuse for most of the match because to be honest he missed a shit load of chances he should of buried most of which were one on ones he scored 2 but he should of scored 5! everything he done was right it was just his shooting that let him down, was great to see him shut that fella up by scoring just before injury time, because when villa scored in the 82nd min i think it was everyone started to walk out (muppets) but then kiko laid a great ball off to diouf who could not surly miss another point blank range effort, was sad to see obertan hobble off after being on the pitch for about 5 mins, gotta give it delfonso for taking his chances well haha was funny to see him at the end with his william gallas like strop after his shocking pen! as for the pens well gotta give it to ben foster lolol i was sat next to the family stand with all the youth team and younger players and when he smashed that one in boy did they enjoy that lol then he saved the next 2 pens haha quality he did fuck up for their 3rd goal but hopefully fergie will give him another chance and he can become our new pen taker
Macheda was easilly our best player. He is a class apart at that level. Its easy to see why SAF rates him so highly and is loathed to send him out on loan. He's only 18 but ready for a place in the first team sqaud. A good prospect although I am not sure about too many others. Diouf has a future in the game not sure about at United. Obertan is never a United player. Of the rest I liked the look of Keane when he came on he looks razor sharp poor pen tho. Villa were the better side, Foster worryingly caught out for another goal, and the partnership of Macheda and Diouf were too much for them to cope with in the end.
bobbydazzler, the first thing Macheda did right was retrieve the ball in broken play and set up Diouf. He did it again and scored a pen. Sum total of his contribution. Diouf was by far the brighter player.
For me, Macheda has to go on loan to somewhere where he plays first team football every week. It doesn't need to be the premiership. I think a run of 10 or 15 games will get him back up to the standards he showed last season. Being on the bench and coming on 10 minutes from time or being plonked back into the reserves obviously doesn't agree with him. He needs to get his motivation back.
Drago, do you think two through balls and a penalty kick is an adequate return from a first team player at reserve level? His general play was poor. Diouf was by far the better of our forwards.
T&C,
I know that the club are trying to bring Macheda into line and that, like Anderson and Hargreaves, he is an anomolous presence to the coaches but I think you're letting this awareness sour your perception of his performance. I don't think Diouf comes anywhere close by comparison, in anything other than attitude and pace.
t&c
I class 2 assists, 1 goal in normal time, 1 penalty scored in the shootout, 2 more through balls to create chances for Diouf which he missed, hardly ever losing the ball and his all round game very adequate indeed.He was our best player during the game.
diouf missed a hatfull of chances but if it wernt for kiko we would not of won so for me kiko was our man of the match and played better than diouf, diouf should of had about 6 goals yesterday his finishing was poor but apart from that everythin else he done was class, he's amazing in the air, nearly everytime he jumped he plucked the ball outta the air with his head, chest feet but his shooting let him down, as for obertan, HE WILL MAKE IT AT UNITED! he's injury prone though which has hamperd his progress this season, am gettin sick of people not giving the youngsters time to develop, it wernt to long ago when people were calling fletcher cracp, and jonny evans dodgy, and nani a waste of space. NOW LOOK! obertans been injured most of the season and people are writing him off! nearly every reserve game he's played he's assisted a goal and even in the first team. remember owens second against wolfsberg? or how he was involved in the build up to the goal at the council house??? give the boys time, not many are instant world beaters like the rooneys, messi's, ronaldo's and even mickey owen when he burst onto the scene give the boys time!