Manchester United traveled to pain to play a game of football against Real Socieded in which anything but football was the winner. The match finished 0-0, and the only incidents of note were stupid. Hurray Champions League!
Real Sociedad vs. Manchester United: Final score 0-0 as zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Robin van Persie hit the post twice. That’s all that happened.
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Absolutely nothing worth mentioning happened in the first half. Fortunately, the second was slightly more accommodating. In the 50th minute, Javier Hernandez came up with a stunning miss, smashing a bobbling ball into orbit from five yards following good work from Shinji Kagawa, an attempt poor enough to get the striker hauled (along with Wayne Rooney) off for Ashley Young and Robin van Persie.
That duo made an immediate impact. Van Persie hit the post with his first touch, while Young won a penalty with a frankly hilarious dive shortly thereafter. In keeping with the spirit of the match, said penalty was missed. Initially, it looked as though Claudio Bravo had made a fine save in tipping van Persie's spot kick onto the post, but as it turned out the goalkeeper only ended up able to touch the ball on the way out.
There were a few more half-chances, and they didn't all fall United's way -- Xabi Prieto was desperately unfortunate to have missed the net after a brilliant move in the box -- but this game was destined to finish 0-0. So it did, although we did have some fun in the late stages when Marouane Fellaini got himself sent off for tripping David Zurutuza.
All in all, that wasn’t worth watching at all.
Real Sociedad starting lineup (4-3-3): Claudio Bravo; Alberto de la Bella, Inigo Martinez, Mikel Gonzalez, Carlos Martinez; David Zurutuza, Markel Bergara, Ruben Pardo (Xabi Prieto 72'); Antoine Griezmann (Haris Seferovic 79'), Imanol Agirretxe, Carlos Vela.
Manchester United starting lineup (4-4-1-1): David de Gea; Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Chris Smalling; Shinji Kagawa (Phil Jones 90'), Ryan Giggs, Marouane Fellaini, Antonio Valencia; Wayne Rooney (Robin van Persie 64'); Javier Hernandez (Ashley Young 64').
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