AGP Matchdays - United vs Lyon Europa League QF
WOW. What a night. I’m not even sure where to start. It’s taken me a few days to get some time to sit down and write about my experience at Old Trafford last week. But first, let me take you back to a few days before the match and an attempt to meet a certain French World Cup winner, Correntin Tolisso.
Correntin Tolisso
Tolisso, (2018 World Cup winner), currently plays for Lyon and was due to be in Manchester for the big match. As some of you may know, I’ve been interested in World Cup winners even since I completed my mission to get them to sign a collection of World Cup matchballs from the past 50 years (I’ve even written a book about it “Looking for Legends” which is out later this year). I figured as Tolisso would be in town, I should see if I could get him to sign the WC18 ball. So I did a little searching and managed to get a number for his agent, Frank Hocquemiller at VIP Consulting. With nothing to lose, I sent him a text message introducing myself and explaining my request. Sadly, I didn’t get a response and thought nothing more of it, and decided not to try my luck at the game itself, standing outside with a ball in hand while waiting for the players as they head out to their team bus. I’ve been there and done that, and didn’t fancy coming out of full legends hunting retirement to do this. I’m sure they’ll be another time.
Back to the match
Thursday 17th April 2025. The night Manchester United played Lyon in the Europa League Quarter Final second leg. With both teams tied at 2-2 on aggregate, nobody could predict how the scores would look when the final whistle was blown. As a lifelong United fan, I’m used to experiencing the highs and lows of the beautiful game (there’s been a lot more lows for us lately), but its been a long while since I’ve had a night like that at the Theatre of Dreams. The kind of night where the venue lived up to its name for the first time in a very long while.
I was at the match with my Uncle Mike, my little cousin and my eldest, as a gift for his recent birthday. We hadn’t been to a live match for a good few seasons, its not that easy nowadays as we don't live in the area anymore, but we made the drive up the M6 and got to the stadium in good time, despite having to wait ages trying to get to our seats, (Missed Uguarte’s goal!). When we finally got into the stadium, we sat and watched how United seemed to have the game under control and shortly after got a second goal through Dalot just before half-time. 4-2 up on aggregate, we got this United!
The second half kicked off and United started to show signs of their standard playing style from this season - the art of switching off, and within 20 minutes or so, our pal Corentin Tolisso scored a header. Had to be him! Followed by another Lyon goal to make it 2-2. A few minutes later, Tolisso got sent off after receiving his second yellow card of the match. Careless. It was crazy how his night ended given that he was a player of interest to me before the game. The Lyon fans let off some flares. The ninety minutes were now up and the game went into extra-time. Anything could happen now, but given the state of United this season, I’ll admit I wasn’t confident, but I still had hope and a little belief that it could work out ok for us. Lyon, of course had other plans and so even with ten men, they were able to open up the United defence (twice) and create a two-goal lead to make it 4-2 to the visitors. The away fans went mad, United were in bits, and so were we in the stands. The United fans immediately in front of us decided to leave, as did many others, putting visible holes in the crowd around the stadium. Big mistake. Everybody knows the unwritten rule in cup football. Never leave the match until the final whistle, remember 1999? They probably weren’t even born then! Still, although we stayed put, I felt the belief leave me and now I was just clinging on to that little bit of hope inside. But we know this feeling. We’ve felt it hundreds of times before. It was only ever going to go one of two ways now. One, further self-capitulation by the Reds and a defeat ending in utter humiliation, or two, a miraculous fightback from the death and a triumph handed down from the football gods on a silver platter, and a goal from that one player we mocked all night. Thankfully for us it was the latter, but let me talk you through what you didn’t see happening on the telly.
The Fall and Rise.
We were sat high up in the East Stand, and this was the side of the pitch were all of the drama unfolded in extra-time. First, Bruno put a lovely penalty shot passed the Lyon goalie to put us back in the tie. At this point we were all going nuts, the confidence was slowly reenergising our bodies and our hearts were pumping. We are back in it! It's still possible, we can win this event though there was still loads to do. Six minutes later, Kobe Mainoo puts us level with a lovely shot. As we celebrated together, I noticed an unwanted figure encroaching our seat space and it was at this point I realise that my little cousin wasn’t with us. I looked forward at the empty row of seats in front and saw that he was stuck lying head first across the seats and was struggling to get up. It took me a few seconds to realise what had happened and me and Uncle Mike leaned over to help him back to his feet. He was shaken and sore, and held his head in his hands while everything around us was madness. I felt such deep upset at what happened to him, getting shoved over the seats as fans behind him had pushed forward which caused him to fall over. We held him tight and consoled him, he was a little teary and tried to refocus on the match. Then, as we were bringing calm to the situation, Harry Maguire leapt into the air and met Casemiro's cross with his big head and scored the final goal to put us through to the semis. Cue madness once again, the whole place was rocking, but thankfully no more falling about! It was crazy, my brain couldn’t process what had just happened and we were all doing double takes from the confusion and ‘WTF just happened!’ expressions on our faces! My little cousin even managed to crack a smile through his tears and the pains he felt from the fall melted away. I had a blank expression on my face, still trying to really understand how the game ended. My son said it was the greatest football night of his life, I can totally get why. I hope he gets to witness more magical nights like this (God willing).
United will take on Athletic Bilbao in the semis, a match I pray that they can go on to win. Sadly I won’t be there for the Manchester leg this time, even though I spent all day on the website trying to get tickets, nightmare. I’ll be supporting them from my sofa along with my family. I hope we make it through in the normal way, but then again, they don’t always like to do normal things at United.