To a club in seventh position, leaving Europe’s greatest tournament is not simply a matter of bidding adieu.
It will be September 2015 at best before United pass this way again and who knows what the team, and bench, will look like by then?
Certainly, many of the playing personnel will have changed, but what of the manager? Might this also be David Moyes’ last Champions League match in charge of Manchester United? If so, he went out with more of a whimper than a bang.
United made something of a stand by opening the scoring, but their hold on the advantage was so temporary as to be almost ephemeral.
Blink, and you would have missed it. In all, there were six passes between Patrice Evra’s fantastic shot into the Bayern goal and Mario Mandzukic’s soft header past David de Gea.
Scoring proved almost the worst thing United could have done. In the first half Bayern Munich did not have a shot on target. Once Evra scored they woke up and applied some directness to their play.
There were 17 minutes between 1-1 and 3-1. Job done, Munich hit the snooze button again.
It was as if they had been waiting for their motivation to arrive for the best part of two matches.
Not that this was their best game, more that they had toyed with victory up to that point, enjoying the lion’s share of possession with little return.
Suddenly, they knew they had 32 minutes to win this tie, and needed little over half that. United trooped off the pitch and, for many in this team, it will be the last they see of the Allianz Arena and nights like this. A run of 18 consecutive campaigns has come to an end.
The next United team to compete in the Champions League will be transformed; and it will need to be
Evra encapsulated the problem for United in the Moyes era. His goal showed a willingness to embrace the big European occasion, his reaction to Munich’s fightback the reluctance to assume the responsibility that goes with it.
United’s best performances have come in the Champions League this season — the thrashing of Bayer Leverkusen, the fightback against Olympiacos, the resilience against Bayern Munich, the champions.
Yet when it mattered Evra was not interested enough in the defensive side of his game to see his team through.
Some blamed him for all three goals; certainly he could have done better in two. ‘He’s a defender who’s not interested in defending any more,’ a respected former international told me on the eve of this match. It seemed harsh; but fair comment given the evidence.
It would have been nice to let them enjoy it a little longer. This was the equivalent of winning the lottery and, two minutes later, getting a knock at the door and a tax demand for precisely the same amount.
Yet before the second was scored and United’s fate sealed, the visitors had their best chance of the night. It came after a pass from Welbeck found Wayne Rooney, whose finish was uncommonly lame. If this was evidence of the injury he carried into the game, he might have been better off as a spectator. A fit striker would have tested Manuel Neuer at least.
If the equaliser found a United team still returning from cloud nine, there was no such excuse for the second. A cross from Arjen Robben that should have been cut out by Evra, Thomas Muller in front of Nemanja Vidic, the ball scrambled past De Gea from close range.
Even so, at this stage the demand for United remained the same. A 2-2 draw would have seen United through. A single goal would still have done it.
This came, but at the wrong end, Munich’s third giving the scoreline an emphatic feel and underlining the Germans’ superiority over two legs. Robben raced into the area, Evra beaten too easily again, and a shot that deflected off Vidic defeated De Gea. United’s race was run.
Where from here for Moyes and his men? Well, for Rooney, a period of rest between now and the end of the season wouldn’t go amiss. He looks at best exhausted and at worst struggling with a combination of fatigue and injury.
Those bemoaning his performance last night forget how much he has given to Moyes’ season. A few more like him and this defeat would not have felt so final, so much like the true end of an era.
The team requires major surgery, though, because this Bayern team can be beaten.
It will be interesting to see what Chelsea make of them, if the semi-final draw throws that up, or Atletico Madrid, conquerors of Barcelona.
Certainly Rooney’s second-half chance could have made for an interesting final 30 minutes; he had a glimpse of goal in the first-half, too.
Yet it is the soft equaliser that will most trouble Moyes, the way his players reacted to a very decent break. One cannot help but think that some United minds were already elsewhere. Now they will have time to reflect; too much time in some cases, one imagines.
