The audacity of persevering with youth

When we ventured into the knock out phase of the champions league and Manchester united were drawn with the Italian giants AC Milan, they were faced with the conundrum of containing to twinkle- toed playmaker, Ronaldinho, that job was entrusted to the young and upcoming right back, Rafael Da Silva, in the first leg, who put up a decent show. But then in the second leg the task was entrusted to the old war horse, Gary Neville, who did a splendid job. Rafael has cost united dearly at crucial junctures in the season. His mistimed tackle, and subsequent marching orders, affected the game and possibly led to Manchester’s ouster from the competition. And a fundamental error from the juvenile stopper allowed Tottenham back in the game, when he drifted off the post, and allowed Ledley King’s header to sneak in, and if not for the heroics from Nani, United’s title credentials were in serious doubt if the game had ended 1-1.

But the 68 year old tactical genius at the helm of affairs at United has always believed in his youngsters, the best example of that was the 94-95 season, when a wealth of talent was at his disposal and he started rebuilding the team by selling experienced players like Paul Ince, Andrie Kanchelski and Mark Hughes, and replacing them with the youth academy alumni, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and the Neville brothers.