{"id":3221,"date":"2014-04-02T01:54:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T01:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=3221"},"modified":"2014-04-02T01:54:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T01:54:44","slug":"uniteds-mission-impossible-looking-achievable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/uniteds-mission-impossible-looking-achievable\/","title":{"rendered":"United&#8217;s Mission Impossible Looking Achievable"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>They came fearing a rout, a Champions League\u00a0humbling to cast Manchester United\u00a0into European oblivion, but as Bayern Munich&#8217;s\u00a0players trudged off the pitch shaking their heads and remonstrating with the referee, Old Trafford was filled with renewed belief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Bastian Schweinsteiger\u2019s 67th-minute goal which cancelled out Nemanja Vidic\u2019s headed opener eight minutes earlier ensured that the European champions denied United the victory which would have lifted the roof of the stadium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>But in a season of turbulence and trauma at Old Trafford, the scene of seven home defeats, David Moyes\u2019s players summoned the spirit of United teams of old to test the jaw of the apparently undisputed champions of the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The team currently languishing seventh in the Premier League\u00a0drew blood and fury from Pep Guardiola\u2019s players.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Already without the suspended Javi Mart\u00ednez in the Allianz Arena next Wednesday, Bayern will also be without Schweinsteiger, their beating heart, as a result of two yellow cards \u2013 the second for a 90th minute foul on Wayne Rooney which prompted German accusations of diving by the England forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>With United going into this game as underdogs, maybe, just maybe, mission impossible has become a fraction more achievable for United.<\/p>\n<p>Moyes\u2019 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\u2019s glorious European history.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They came fearing a rout, a Champions League\u00a0humbling to cast Manchester United\u00a0into European oblivion, but as Bayern Munich&#8217;s\u00a0players trudged off the pitch shaking their heads and remonstrating with the referee, Old Trafford was filled with renewed belief. Bastian Schweinsteiger\u2019s 67th-minute goal which cancelled out Nemanja Vidic\u2019s headed opener eight minutes earlier ensured that the European [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[115,60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3224,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}