Manchester United 0-0 Portsmouth
(Manchester United win 3-1 on penalties)
The FA Community Shield, sponsored by McDonald's 2008
Sunday 10 August 2008
Wembley Stadium
For the second year in a row, The FA Community Shield was decided by a penalty shoot out, as Premiership Champions Manchester United and FA Cup winners Portsmouth couldn’t be separated after 90 minutes.
It was also United’s second successive Community Shield success following another shoot-out win in 2007, taking their total collection to 13 titles.
No-one could have argued that they didn’t deserve this one either, as Sir Alex Ferguson’s team certainly enjoyed the better of this game on what was a sunny afternoon at Wembley.
Whilst United had the lion’s share of the possession, Harry Redknapp’s Pompey team were resolute and determined in defence but it was perhaps United’s inability to convert their opportunities that led to the game being decided by spot kicks.
Carlos Tevez and Nani were both in impressive form throughout for United and the former could have put his team in front early on after slipping the Pompey offside trap to bear down on goal, only for Sylvain Distin to recover and make a good block.
Moments after that, the Argentinian came close again with a flash header from Darren Fletcher’s cross.
It was Fletcher who had the best chance of the game though, when Nani’s cross from the left fell invitingly for the Scotland international but with the goal at his mercy, he couldn’t quite turn it home.
Fletcher was again at the heart of things in the second half, when he saw an attempted chip from the edge of the area tipped onto the crossbar by Pompey goalkeeper David James, who then blocked Tevez’s follow-up too as United looked to break the deadlock.
It wasn’t to be and when the shoot-out began, United always looked favourites after Lassana Diarra blazed the first kick over the bar. Whilst Jermain Defoe netted his spot kick, further misses from Arnold Mvuemba and Glen Johnson meant that successful scores from Tevez, Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick were enough to secure victory for United.
