Chris Hatherall
THIS HAS been the year of the unsung hero at Manchester United and Wednesday night Old Trafford rightly hailed the ultimate example in the shape of John O’Shea.
Following in the footsteps of Ji-Sung Park – who has become a cult hero at last after years of hard work but little recognition on the right wing – O’Shea had his time in the limelight against Schalke.
The Waterford defender has been at the club since he was 17, providing 13 years of uncomplaining, unstinting service and overcoming injury, misfortune and perhaps occasionally a lack of appreciation from the wider world to hold on to his United dream.
He has won four league titles, three League Cups, an FA Cup and a Champions League (although he never made it off the bench in Moscow). And now add to the list captaining his club to another European Cup Final.
With Nemanja Vidic, Ryan Giggs and Rio Ferdinand not included in the starting line-up against Schalke it was O’Shea who wore the armband, and needless to say he did it with pride and concentration despite being asked to play at left-back in a 4-1 victory.
“It was fantastic for me and my family and I just wanted to make sure we won the game; you don’t want to be associated with throwing away a tie like that as captain!” said the 30-year-old.
“I thought the performance was excellent, so I was really pleased. There were a lot of changes but the manager showed again he’s a master tactician. He has faith in the squad and it was important we repaid him with a quality performance. I think we showed he has a great squad to pick from.”
The result sets up a dream final at Wembley against Barca and a chance for revenge after United were beaten 2-0 by the Catalan club in the final of 2009, a match in which O’Shea played the 90 minutes and was one of his team’s better players.
“It’s going to be a fantastic final, a special final,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of experience against Barcelona; we beat them in the semi-finals to get to Moscow and obviously they got their revenge in the final in Rome the following year.
“We watched their game against Madrid closely this week and we learned from it. They survived some very forceful tactics and got through, so we have something to think about.”
If O’Shea deserves praise for his performance and his loyalty then the respect owed to Ferguson is off the scale.
Once again on Wednesday he got his selection, his tactics, his game plan and his forward planning exactly right and he now has an entire team of fit and fresh players to recall for Sunday’s title clincher against Chelsea –which O’Shea expects to win but knows he faces a battle to play in.
“We lacked our usual intensity against Arsenal last week, maybe that’s because the boys were tired. But it won’t happen again,” he said. “The manager decided to make changes against Schalke this time and it worked very well.
“It’s a massive game against Chelsea but the experience we’ve showed in big games at Old Trafford this season and we’ve beaten Chelsea already – gives us confidence. We know we are going to have to play well because Chelsea have hit a bit of form; but we know that at home we are a good team. Hopefully now we have momentum.”
Whether O'Shea plays or not - and his best hope is to move to right-back once Patrice Evra is recalled - he can rest easy knowing he has played a big part in setting up one of the most exciting season finales since United's Treble season of 1999.
For all the headlines swirling around big names such as Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs it has been United's shadow squad - and Ferguson's clever manipulation of it - that has been the key to their success so far as they prepare for the biggest four matches of the campaign.
Is this the season when the unsung heroes finally call the tune?
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/M68zIUTYhVM/post.aspx
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