It manifests first as pain. Brennan Johnson nipping in ahead of Luke Shaw to bundle in a cross from Pape Matar Sarr and thrust a dagger into Manchester United’s best-laid plans.
In some nations, a goal scored close to half-time is described as “for the dressing room”; they transform the managerial team talk, force Xs and Os to get scrubbed from whiteboards, put frighteners into substitutes yet to stretch their hamstrings properly. Johnson’s goal for Tottenham Hotspur against Manchester United in Wednesday’s Europa League final was in the 42nd minute, scruffy, opportunistic, but effective.
The pain is sharp at first, but turns into a dull throb over the second half. The ball doesn’t stick to United’s best players the way they want it to. The match refuses to settle into a rhythm that suits them. Coach Ruben Amorim waits until the 71st minute to make his first substitutions, and Joshua Zirkzee and Alejandro Garnacho offer a moderate attacking threat when they come on. Diogo Dalot arrives in the 85th minute, and Kobbie Mainoo — man of the match in last year’s FA Cup final win against Manchester City — enters the pitch even later, with only nine minutes of stoppage time to arrest the situation.
The painful scoreline hangs on the stadium screen: Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Manchester United.
Amorim’s players try their best to change that, but there’s a horrible, awful, gnawing feeling emanating from one side of the San Mames stadium that it won’t be enough.
An estimated 80,000 football fans travelled to Bilbao for the Europa League final. A touch over 17,000 United supporters got tickets for the match and took the proverbial planes, trains and automobiles to be here to try to will their team to victory. Their players on the field are not matching their passion and energy, however. Time slows. Chances dry up.
United needed to play perfect football to unlock a stubborn defence, but struggled to push past competency. There was no stoppage-time magic last night. The club’s historical prestige could not be parlayed into a better future.
Then comes the shock of the final whistle and the sadness that swiftly follows. Catharsis for Tottenham’s fans and players. Heartbreak for everyone attached to United.
Garnacho slumps to the ground, devastated. Amad sits on the turf, where eventually he is consoled by team-mate Mason Mount. Zirkzee pulls his jersey over his head. The ‘Bilbao or Bust’ tightrope act finally spun off-balance. It ends in a bust. The biggest game of United’s season wandered away from this team in the key moments.
Defeat in a final like this realigns time and space. It disorients and debilitates. United will be without European football of any kind next season. The last time that occurred was 2014-15, Louis van Gaal’s first season in charge. Before that, it was 1989-90 under Sir Alex Ferguson.
A club of United’s size and history require the added attraction of European competition to be their best, idealised selves; when you define yourselves as winners, you need as many opportunities as possible to show that to the world. Fans, players and coaching staff will now have to adjust to playing one game each week for much of next season.
There will be no European football for Manchester United fans to follow next season (David Ramos/Getty Images)
That may come with minor benefits — more time on the training pitch to finesse tactics and playing methods. But it also comes with significant drawbacks.
United will earn far less money in terms of matchday, broadcast and commercial revenue. The absence of Champions League football is going to make them less appealing when approaching possible signings in the summer. A precarious financial situation has been made worse. In the hyper-capitalist world of modern football, money is an accelerant — what is necessary to fix this club will not now arrive on the speediest of timelines.
And so to the big questions.
Where do Manchester United go from here? And how long will it take before the club is good once again?
Amorim has said he has “nothing to show to the fans, so at this moment, it is a little bit of faith”. There have been glimmers of quality across his 41 matches in charge since being appointed in November, but there is a vast distance between where United are now and where they want to go. Their head coach doesn’t wish to change his approach, but said he will leave without conversations over compensation if fans and senior executives believe him to be ill-equipped for the job he’s been given.
In his post-match interview, United and England defender Luke Shaw described the situation as “nowhere near good enough”.
“It’s going to be a very difficult process. Us as players, we’ve let a lot of people down, including Ruben,” Shaw said. “We’ve been nowhere-near good enough the whole season.
“A lot has to change. That’s why Ruben is 100 per cent the right person. He knows what is to be done, he will do everything to make that change and put Manchester United back at the top.”
Whatever decisions get made, it will be important for everyone to row in the same direction. Longstanding issues are best defeated through collective and consistent efforts.
It will take time for United to adjust to their new reality in the relative football wilderness. It will take time on top of that to find their way back from it. The best way out of a messy situation is — very often — to go through it. That will hurt, but it can also serve as a learning opportunity. There is no get-out-of-jail-free card this season, as there was with that FA Cup final in the previous one.
Senior executives have not moved from co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s opinion, given during a series of interviews in March. They believe Amorim is a good coach who can correct a bad situation. United fans have slowed their singing of Amorim’s name in a chant to the tune of Bonnie Tyler’s It’s a Heartache. They are understandably torn on whether to back a manager who has struggled to improve the squad he inherited.
Backing a head coach requires a financial investment, and in this case recruiting the players who can make Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation viable against Premier League opposition.
United need to strengthen their goalscoring options. They need to recruit targets who can match the physical intensity and technical quality of players at Champions League clubs. They need better options at wing-back. Some fans remain unconvinced about goalkeeper Andre Onana almost two full seasons in.
That is a long shopping list, made more difficult by the loss of revenues. But to back Amorim is to do more than to give him money. He is a struggling employee who requires many things to perform his job properly, including honesty from those above and around him.
The 40-year-old Portuguese wears his heart on his sleeve in press conferences — sometimes to his detriment. Club personnel other than him need to be willing to face questions and explain the blueprint for the future. Amorim has strengths that can be furthered with financial investment. He has weaknesses that can be reduced with a better structure.
How one creates that structure in a time of mass layoffs at the club is difficult. The attempts by Ratcliffe’s INEOS business empire to trim the perceived fat at United risk cutting into lean meat.
Ratcliffe has spoken of making the club the most profitable in the world within three years. Chief executive Omar Berrada has told staff a league title is possible in 2028, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of United’s founding. Plans for a new stadium were unveiled with little detail on costings but with a goal to complete the build for the 2030-31 season.
These are all ambitious, lofty goals. They also run counter to each other. A perennially injured athlete does not tell the world they plan to run a marathon.
United’s short- to medium-term objectives need to focus on competency. They need to build tools and processes to guard against the complacency that has eroded the club’s brilliance since Ferguson’s 2013 retirement.
“But we’re Manchester United” is not a reasonable counter-argument when confronted with desperate situations. Belief that your institution is exempt from the hard, functional and often boring parts of the job leads to a slow decline. Footballers need to do warm-ups and cooldowns to maintain peak performance. Football clubs need to properly condition themselves for the seasons ahead, too.
Past midnight, hours after the full-time whistle, the celebrations, the press conferences and the exit of nearly every football fan — a San Mames employee took to the pitch with a leaf blower. For 30 minutes, he neatly arranged the gold ticker tape and glitter from the trophy lift into a small square, before co-workers came and swept it all away with dustpans and brooms. When the process was complete, the heavens opened and rain began to fall on the stadium, soaking those who remained.
This was the last European party United will be invited to for a while. Those in charge of the club will have to find ways to turn the misery of last night’s defeat into brighter days in the future.
(Top photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
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