United’s Mission Impossible Looking Achievable

They came fearing a rout, a Champions League humbling to cast Manchester United into European oblivion, but as Bayern Munich’s players trudged off the pitch shaking their heads and remonstrating with the referee, Old Trafford was filled with renewed belief.

Bastian Schweinsteiger’s 67th-minute goal which cancelled out Nemanja Vidic’s headed opener eight minutes earlier ensured that the European champions denied United the victory which would have lifted the roof of the stadium.

But in a season of turbulence and trauma at Old Trafford, the scene of seven home defeats, David Moyes’s players summoned the spirit of United teams of old to test the jaw of the apparently undisputed champions of the world.

The team currently languishing seventh in the Premier League drew blood and fury from Pep Guardiola’s players.

Already without the suspended Javi Martínez in the Allianz Arena next Wednesday, Bayern will also be without Schweinsteiger, their beating heart, as a result of two yellow cards – the second for a 90th minute foul on Wayne Rooney which prompted German accusations of diving by the England forward.

They will need Vidic and Rio Ferdinand to roll back the years as they did here and also hope Danny Welbeck can find his shooting boots, but they will travel to Munich with hopes alive in a game that was supposed to be a dead rubber.

With United going into this game as underdogs, maybe, just maybe, mission impossible has become a fraction more achievable for United.

Moyes’ team must now summon up the same spirit, fight and desire in the Allianz Arena next Wednesday to claim a result that will match any in the club’s glorious European history.