The dream factory

WHEW! Say what you like, but the patrons certainly don’t lack for entertainment and drama at the Theatre of Dreams.

And, for the regulars, this edge-of-the-seat blockbuster even had a happy ending, Wayne Rooney’s goal in the first minute of injury time sending the red faithful home in raptures.

The only problem is that we haven’t reached the end at all. This is just the interval and, after a rip-roaring first act at Old Trafford, the reviews this morning are bound to stress that it could still be very much advantage Milan in the San Siro next week.

An away brace from the magnificent Brazilian Kaka means that United will still have to do it the hard way in northern Italy, although two goals from Rooney and one from Cristiano Ronaldo mean that Alex Ferguson’s men have every reason to believe they can contest the Champions’ League final in Athens.

As United prepared for the first leg of this absorbing tie, you could hardly blame the United manager for luxuriating in the outcome of his side’s last meeting with Italian opposition at this venue, the 7-1 demolition of Roma to which the gaffer referred in rhapsodic terms in last night’s match programme.

“In a lifetime of football you are maybe lucky to get half a dozen experiences of that exceptional nature,” he said, before seizing on some hippy vernacular to describe the events of the night as “mind-blowing.”

But Fergie didn’t get where he is today by losing himself in mysticism and forgetting that football has a way of kicking you when you’re up — as both unglamorous Portsmouth and Middlesbrough have reminded the Premiership table-toppers in recent weeks.

So the United manager was anxious to insert a health warning before the aristocrats of Milan took the pitch at Old Trafford. “Nice though it is for United followers to ponder the wonders of our performance,” he observed, “the beauty and awfulness of football is that come the next game, you have to start from scratch all over again.”

Indeed, that was almost literally the case for Ferguson last night as a rash of injuries to first choice defensive personnel forced him to radically reshuffle his back four and fill out the bench with youngsters from the reserves. Still, boosted by Patrice Evra’s recovery from injury which enabled him to start at left-back, at least the personnel were familiar even if the formation wasn’t, Gabriel Heinze moving inside to join Wes Brown in the centre while Ireland’s John O’Shea filled the right-back berth.

For Milan, Massimo Oddo kept the veteran Cafu out at right back but the veteran mainstays of Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nest were present and correct in the heart of the defence.

Not that they could do much about the goal which gave United the lead. Coming after just five minutes, the boy Ronaldo sent Old Trafford into raptures when his header from a Giggs corner so flummoxed Dida that the Milan keeper — just back from an injury lay off and showing it — could only help the ball over his own goal line For just a brief moment, an exultant Old Trafford was dreaming of another three goals in 20 minutes, the devastating opening salvo which did for Roma last time out — but Milan are made of sterner, cannier, more resilient stuff. Not only did they weather the storm, before long it was the home side who were struggling to stay afloat.

As a subplot, the game promised the battle of the wonderkids. In red, there was 22 year old Ronaldo, with a PFA award in one hand and a PFA young player award in the other. And in white, there was 25 year old Kaka with, if reports are to be believed, a bible in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. But it was what they did with the ball at their feet that mattered last night — and, in this contest, the Brazilian emerged a clear winner.

22 minutes into the game, Kaka had the visitors level, his velvet first touch and explosive turn of pace taking him past Heinze before angling his shot to the corner of the net. And it got worse for the makeshift central defender 15 minutes later — although he was not alone in his discomfort.

A long punt from Dida should have been easily dealt with by the United defence. But first Kaka outmuscled Darren Fletcher and then, as he cut inside, Heinze and Evra collided in comic fashion, leaving the Milan man a clear run on goal. And he made no mistake with the finish, calmly beating the exposed Van der Sar to turn the game on its head.

At that point, United’s dreams of reaching the final were hanging by a thread but, with Maldini and Gattuso forced out through injury, Milan were either unable or unwilling to press home their advantage.

Ferguson may not have got the big performances from his big players he needed last night — it was more cameo than command performance from both Ronaldo and Rooney, despite their goals — but he certainly could not have faulted the spirit and determination of his players to fight their way back into the tie.

And they did precisely that, first when Rooney expertly completed a well-worked move on the hour mark and again when, right at the death, the same player produced another lethal finish to put a much more acceptable gloss on the scoreline for United.

Yet the fact remains that Milan have managed to score twice in Old Trafford against a patched-up defence which creaked as much as many had predicted it might. Patrice Evra’s yellow card means that he is now out of the return leg, leaving Ferguson with more thinking to do as he plots how to negotiate the challenge in Milan.

After going ahead and then going behind at home, thanks to Wayne Rooney’s eye for goal, he’ll have been much happier at full time last night than he would have been for long stretches of this pulsating tie.

But, being the wise man who knows all the joys and heartaches of football, it won’t have escaped Fergie’s attention either that, long after the gladiators had left the arena, the visiting tifosi high up in the stands were still singing.

Game, as they say, on.