Marcus Rashford had never taken a penalty for Manchester United before.
Think about that for a second. He’s 21. It is the last minute of a Champions League knockout match, with victory in the balance. Against him is Gianluigi Buffon, one of the greatest, most experienced goalkeepers the game will ever see. And 50,000 or so Parisians, give or take.
If he scores, this will be one of the greatest comebacks in European history. If he misses, there will be no hiding place. And, beside him, is a £75m striker, almost five years older, and on a hat-trick: Romelu Lukaku. Yet Rashford is taking it.
Think about that for a second.
In these moments, he looks so young, standing over the ball, glancing up, assessing Buffon, veteran of so many shoot-outs, so much sudden death. He should have been fazed. Was he fazed? Was he heck.
Rashford walked back ready for a long run, curved it, took a few short steps, took a few long ones, took an almighty shot into the roof of the net to propel Manchester United into the Champions League quarter-finals, Buffon nowhere. He left Paris Saint-Germain’s players sprawled on the turf, spent, broken – Neymar impotently furious on the bench. What a player Rashford is.
We have seen scenes like this before, of course, and we all remember when. Bayern Munich at Nou Camp, 1999. And we know the common denominator, too. He was there on the bench, in a gold bib, because UEFA thought his top clashed too much with PSG’s colours. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The second coming.
They were singing his name long into the night, the travellers; and no wonder. This was not just a win, it was a win that rewrote the record books, one that was achieved with a shadow of the team that Manchester United could field. It was a win that was never meant to happen; and yet that could be said of a lot of the greatest events in Solskjaer’s career.
So just give it to him. Not because Manchester United won, not because they set records, or are the first team to overturn a 2-0 first leg deficit at home in this competition, not even because they beat one of the greatest teams in Europe with a weakened XI.