Manchester United’s disallowed own goal was a work of art

That this ejection came about on penalties, and that the United players who missed their penalties were all senior professionals and England internationals only adds to the amusement. As for the fact that the very first penalty was missed by Wayne “Old Shep” Rooney, well, we might be reaching the point where his crisis of form slips from the amusing to the agonising, from the entertaining to the existential, and so might have to stop laughing at United’s captain because this is less “good footballer doing bad thing” and more “plangent manifestation of the unstoppable march of entropy that will claim us all.” But we might not be. That, dear reader, is between you and your conscience.

It’s also beside the point. The funniest thing that happened last night was this:

Let’s start from the beginning with a quick headcount. Middlesbrough, fourth in the Championship, are attacking with five players. Manchester United, fourth in the Premier League, are defending with nine, plus their goalkeeper, Sergio Romero. So, nine and a half. That this ends with the ball in United’s net at all points to some pretty miserable defending.

Job not done. The ball bounces under Fellaini’s dangling foot as the Belgian inflicts upon himself that rarest of indignities, the self-nutmeg. The sight of this near-mythical trick hypnotises every United defender in the defensive line. They stare, rapt, at the mysterious bouncing sphere that has manifested between Fellaini’s scissoring limbs. What is it? What does it want? Is it dangerous?

Here we need to pause for a moment and consider the technicalities of good and bad defending as they relate to the offside line. Offside is about positioning, and as such is binary: If the defenders get themselves up and past the attacker, then it’s worked! Hooray for everybody! Even if they do so by falling over. Even if they do so by diving into and missing tackles. Even if they do so by advancing in a zombie-like mass towards the ball, jaws slack, apparently oblivious to everything else. Being in the right place is all that matters. Assuming, of course, that they were; Boro’s striker, Kike, looks suspiciously level.

We’ll come back to that. For now, let’s move on. Kike, in the video’s only moment of competence, moves onto the ball, opens up his body and cracks a lovely shot past the advancing Sergio Romero. At least, that’s how it appears at first glance. Watch it a few more times and you start to wonder: Has that ball gone less around Romero, and more straight through him? We know, after all, that Romero is uncannily gifted at diving up and over apparently straightforward shots; we learned this earlier in the season at Swansea. Has he done it again?

If so, we can only give thanks, for if he’d made the save we’d never have had the rest of this moment. The ball cracks into the inside of the post, bounces back across the six-yard box at some pace, and is heading directly for a United defender. At this point, however, any United fan still keeping track of things — rather than, say, chewing through their own arm at the indignity of it all — can relax. The ball is not falling to one of United’s more maladroit figures: Fellaini, perhaps, or Phil “QWOP” Jones. It’s falling to Daley Blind. That means things are probably going to be okay.

In the course of Blind’s season-and-a-bit at Old Trafford, it’s become very clear that he is not a complete footballer. He’s played in three different positions and looked imperfect in each of them: In central midfield he’s a shade lacking in presence; at left-back he’s just a beat too slow; and as a central defender he’s not quite solid enough. But he’s plenty useful in a squad game, and he’s exceptionally good at one crucial aspect of being a footballer: The surprisingly tricky business of kicking a football so that it ends up where it’s supposed to go.

Oh, Daley.

If your response to that finish was anything like your correspondent’s, then your mouth will have fallen open, but no noises will have come out. Then you will have realised that your silence has been born not of surprise or shock but of the fact that every single question in your brain is trying to clamber out at the same time. And then you’ll have started laughing. And you won’t have stopped.

There are no answers to any of those trapped questions. Blind certainly doesn’t have any, which brings us to the more minor of the two injustices here. The director, irrationally choosing to focus on important things that were actually happening, didn’t immediately cut straight to his poor face, preferring instead to go first to the celebration, then the linesman. We can therefore only imagine what happens to Blind’s face as he tries to process what he’s done; as he tries to come to terms with the fact that his gift, the gift that has carried him to Old Trafford, has abandoned him at precisely the worst moment. Did his eyeballs melt in despair? Did his hair fall from his head in shame? Romero’s face would probably have been good for a chuckle too.

The second and much greater is, of course, the fact that the goal was ruled out for offside. Own goals are precious and beautiful things — perhaps the finest individual moments that this whole sport has to offer — and to see one of such delicacy and majesty cut down at its very moment of flowering is somewhere beyond heartbreaking. Not just for Boro fans, but for any thinking and feeling football fan. As far as we’re aware there is no legal precedent for treason on aesthetic grounds, but that doesn’t alter the fact that this official should have been immediately rendered to the Tower.

On the other, it’s hard not to feel that we’ve lost something special with that linesman’s flag. These things are never certain, but “Blind against Boro,” by virtue of the teams involved, the farcical buildup and the wicked angle of the finish, definitely had a decent shout at entering the pantheon alongside Chris Brass and all the rest. Instead, it’s a what if, a never was, and will soon fade from memory. Lucky for Blind, of course, but a desperate shame for the rest of us.