No Champions League for Manchester United, and in the Ali Sami Yen stadium here yesterday they made a poor case for belonging to anybody’s league of champions before going out of the European Cup to Galatasaray on the goals they had conceded in the 3–3 draw at Old Trafford.
United came to the Bosphorus looking to Eric Cantona to inspire the victory they needed to succeed where Arsenal and Leeds United had previously failed, and win English football a place in the Champions League for the first time. Instead they suffered Cantona at his disparate dilettante worst and found themselves up Frenchman’s Creek.
Again Cantona was the anti-hero he had been during Leeds’s faltering attempt to reach last season’s European Cup play-offs. True, he made more of an impact this time, though hardly in the manner United had anticipated.
At the final whistle Cantona ran up to the referee, Kurt Rothlisberger, shook him by the hand and then pointed a finger to eye, suggesting that Swiss opticians could do with some extra custom.
Rothlisberger, not amused, promptly showed him the red card. Choosing to insult a referee who taught French was not the brightest thing to do.
Earlier, as the game had entered its final goalless quarter-hour, Cantona had been involved in an incident with the Galatasaray bench as he went to retrieve the ball. In his anxiety to get the game going again he planted an elbow in the solar plexus of Nezihi, the Turkish champions’ reserve goalkeeper. After a brief and angry hiatus the match resumed, but perhaps it was just as well after that that United did not steal a winning goal.
Certainly they did not deserve to win a game to which they had contributed more hard work than imagination. Although the defence coped reasonably well in the absence of the injured Pallister, apart from a fraught spell late in the first half, the attack struggled in the wake of Alex Ferguson’s decision to play Keane, even though Robson was fit, and omit Hughes as the unwanted “foreigner”.
In the end United paid the ultimate and not wholly unexpected price for assuming the opening leg had been won after they had taken an early 2–0 lead. The initiative they surrendered at Old Trafford was never seriously regained here yesterday.
“Welcome to Hell” declared the home banners. Yet for half an hour it was more a case of sound and fury signifying nothing-nothing.
All too aware of the importance of not conceding a goal, the teams played cat and mouse with each other, with everybody casting for the role of Tom rather than Jerry. United were content at this point to let the plot meander, but it soon became apparent that in Hughes’s absence their attacking options would be severely limited.
The Welshman can be annoying when he cocoons himself in his own thoughts, but his strength in holding the ball up under pressure was always going to be badly missed in a game of this sort. If United thought that Cantona would fulfil a similar role they were quickly disillusioned.
Stumpf, one of Galatasaray’s two German defenders, practically padlocked himself to Cantona whenever the Frenchman tried to find space – and he did not try very hard for very long. After a time United found that lobbing the ball behind defenders for Sharpe or Giggs to chase was more apt to cause Galatasaray some anxiety.
Not that they ever created much in the way of clearcut openings. What proved to be the best came in the 36th minute when Phelan, Cantona and Robson combined to send Giggs clear on the left. The Welshman’s cross-cum-shot would have promised more had Phelan arrived at the far post a fraction earlier.
By then, in any case, the contest might well have been beyond United, for Galatasaray had squandered three scoring opportunities in the space of two minutes just past the half hour.
Only Schmeichel’s goalkeeping maintained United’s interest in the tie a while longer. First Hamza and Tugay gave Hakan the opportunity to use his superior weight in bustling past Parker in the United penalty area. A goal appeared certain as Hakan bore down on Schmeichel but somehow the Dane kept the ball out.
Then Parker, anxious to avoid conceding a corner, played the ball straight out to Kubilay, who quickly set up Hakan for a second chance. Again Schmeichel’s size and reflexes denied the striker a goal from point-blank range.
A minute later Tugay’s lob caught the United defence square and found Kubilay running clear and onside through the middle. He managed to beat the advancing Schmeichel with a first-time flick, but the speed with which the goalkeeper had narrowed the angle saved United yet again, the ball rolling wide.
Aware that their luck might not hold forever, and knowing that sooner or later they themselves would have to score, United were more prepared to take the game to Galatasaray in the second half.
This, however, merely emphasised the need for Hughes’s ability to pick up a fading attack and shake it into some sort of life. Galatasaray trembled briefly when Cantona managed to hold off Suat as he gathered a dropping ball in the penalty area, but the danger was scrambled away.
After that, and for all the drive of Robson, Ince and Irwin, an increasing number of United’s attacks became enmeshed in a tightly organised defence. The replacement of Keane by Dublin was more down to desperation than design.
And so United are left to contemplate a Mancunian derby on Sunday followed by a season devoted to giving themselves another chance of reaching the Champions League.
Whether or not Cantona remains part of those plans will depend on the view Ferguson takes of last night’s comédie-Française.