Louis van
Gaal has given himself the chance to claim his first trophy at
Manchester United just three weeks into the job. And to add to the
intrigue, it will be United’s most-detested rivals Liverpool trying to
stand in his way.
Winning
the International Champions Cup, a glorified pre-season tournament in
America, may not be the main reason United turned to Van Gaal after 12
months of David Moyes, but it’ll still be a nice start to the Dutchman’s
time at Old Trafford is his side win the final in Miami on Monday.
United
qualified for the showpiece game by defeating Real Madrid in front of a
record crowd in Ann Arbor on Saturday night and will now face their
north-west neighbours who topped the other group in the eight-team
competition.
Ashley Young
was United's unlikely hero with two goals against Real where the other
main source of interest was the size of the attendance inside the
University of Michigan’s American football stadium, 109,318.
It
was the biggest crowd ever seen for a “soccer” game in America and
represented the largest attendance for any United match since 1957 when
they travelled to Real’s Madrid’s Santiago Bernabueu in the fledgling
European Cup.
On
this occasion, Real were without their talisman Cristiano Ronaldo until
the closing stages and looked a pale shadow of the side that lifted the
Champions League in May.
Gareth
Bale was clearly their best player, winning and scoring a penalty to
briefly make the game 1-1. But their manager Carlo Ancelotti never got
to grips with the 3-4-3 formation Van Gaal is using to try and get the
best out of his array of attacking players.
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