The top five team performances of 2011 include an 11-goal comeback and a one man Mission to Moscow. It won’t make easy reading for Manchester United fans … including your humble author.
5. Coco United 11-10 Amazon Rainforest
OK, it was way back in 1994, but the story of Coco United’s remarkable comeback in the Jungle World Cup Final only came to light last month and it makes such a pressing case for inclusion that we eventually relented.
After a nightmare first half which saw them trailing by 10-0 at the break, Coco United changed tactics, started knocking it up to Shorty Giraffe (the Big G) up front and were rewarded with a second half onslaught that yielded 11 goals, including the winner for Heftie Hippo.
But don’t let us you tell the full story, it’s all neatly encapsulated in the gripping and tell-all three-and-a-half minute documentary below.
4. Team Richard Dunne 0-0 Russia
We realise we’re cheating a little bit here, but seeing as we’re not acknowledging individual performances it would be remiss of us to ignore completely the Honey Monster’s tour de force against Russia in Moscow.
Last ditch-tackles, heroic goal-line blocks, inspirational aerial clearances and one brilliant mazy run upfield, Dunne was untouchable and the main reason that what should have been a 5-0 defeat instead resulted in a vital 0-0 draw. At one stage during the second half, big Richie is rumoured to have shouted to the opposition bench: “Put on more Russians,” only to be met with the response: “There are no more Russians”.
3. Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
They are the noisy neighbours no longer. Ever since Sheikh Mansour began pumping billions into City, there was an inevitability that they would eventually be dining at the top table and rarely has there been a more emphatic statement of their arrival than the 6-1 thrashing of their rivals on their own patch.
Let’s not get carried away. Three goals in injury time meant that the 6-1 scoreline was a bit flattering to the winners, but United had been beaten long before they went all kamikaze in the closing stages. Even Fergie admitted as much and when Alex Ferguson goes against his own charges, you know something significant has happened.
2. Stoke City 5-0 Bolton Wanderers
An odd one perhaps, but Lord knows Stoke get enough criticism so they’re due a pat on the back every once in a while. It might be hard to believe now, but last season, Bolton were nearly everyone’s second team because of their attractive style of football and the overall likeability of Owen Coyle.
Can Walters be a key man for Ireland as he is for Stoke?
In the FA Cup semi-final, however, they were battered on a day where four past and present Irish internationals started for the Potters and Jonathan Walters was particularly impressive. They mightn’t have won the FA Cup Final, but their run gained them a few admirers which they appear to have promptly lost since.
1. Barcelona 3-1 Manchester United
Many hopelessly optimistic United fans went into the Champions League Final in May believing that (a) they had a chance of winning and (b) there was surely no way it could be as bad as their humiliation at the hands of the same opposition two years previous.
They were proved wrong on both counts and with regards to (b), it was even worse than Rome 2009. Put simply, with Barcelona’s holy trinity of Xavi, Iniesta and Villa as majestic as ever, the Catalans owned them and Wayne Rooney’s equaliser before half-time was merely the calm before the storm.
In fairness to United, they weren’t the first team, and on this season’s evidence they certainly won’t be the last, to receive a footballing lesson at the hands of possibly the greatest club team of them all. It’s just a pity for Fergie and company that it keeps happening on the biggest stage.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
