And It Begins

Manchester City team: Hart, Lescott, Richards (Y), Kompany (c), Kolarov Y (Clichy,74), Milner (Y) (Johnson,67), Silva, de Jong, Toure (Y), Dzeko (Y), Balotelli (Barry, 59)
Manchester United team: De Gea, Ferdinand (Jones, HT), Evra (Y) (Rafael, 72), Smalling, Vidic (c) (Evans, HT), Carrick (Cleverley, HT), Anderson (Y), Rooney, Welbeck (Berbatov, 89), Young, Nani

The nerves, excitement, angst, tension and drama is back as the game of two halves returns with a bang. The traditional curtain raiser, the Community Shield, was like no other as it was the second Manchester derby in the history of the Charity/Community shield. Many claimed that this would be just another pre-season match, but how wrong can they be as this game was a typical derby with every ingredient for a perfect game.

United started the better team and the gloves were off almost from the start as the City players were quick to lunge in and Balotelli squared up to Vidic after a foul. That was followed by Anderson and Dzeko with Dzeko actually pushing Anderson away, both received yellow cards. But it began to look like the FA Cup semi-final and Champions League final as United started very bright without scoring that crucial goal and were caught cold. Evra was getting frustrated with certain decisions and exerted his frustration by bringing down Milner. Silva whipped the ball in from the wide free-kick and Lescott jumped higher than Ferdinand to head past De Ga who was in no man's land. City one-nil up after thirty-eight minutes despite only having thirty-four percent of possession. It got worse for United as Dzeko was allowed to run with the ball (a la Toure in FA Cup and Messi in Champions League), Dzeko struck the ball from thirty yards and De Gea failed to save it when really ought to have done. City two-nil up in first-half injury time.

Alex Ferguson had stated pre-game that he would make the allocated six changes at half-time, this was halved to three as Jones, Evans and Cleverley came on for Ferdinand, Vidic and Carrick. Again United started the brighter after the break, knowing that they needed an early goal to get back into the game. It came seven minutes into the half when Richards brought Evra down. Young floated the free-kick into the box where Chris Smalling poked the ball past Hart to make 2-1. United then equalised six minutes later with a fantastic team goal, Rooney, Cleverley and Welbeck were all involved but the move was started and finished by Nani as he slotted past Hart from a tight angle. From there City looked on the ropes as their players tired, but the game ebbed and flowed as it went from end to end. Then, in true derby fashion, there was a late goal to prevent the game from going to penalties. City played a long free-kick deep into the box where Dzeko had a free header, he couldn't make the most of it and Rooney blasted it clear. Nani was running towards Kompany and managed to win the ball off the last man, Nani then took it around Hart before rolling it home to seal yet another remarkable comeback for Manchester United.