Ever since there was news about Michael Carrick’s announcement of his testimonial game, people have been keeping their tabs on how the line-ups will pan out and what names will feature on the occasion. Carrick made the news official on twitter yesterday and the names of the two sides were enough to make the fans lick their lips.
The teams will be officially called, Michael Carrick All Stars and Manchester United 08 XI respectively, and will feature some of the best players to have graced the league including club legends like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville.
However, there are some star names from their glorious season of 2007/08 who will not be featuring in the game and here we take a look at five of them.
#5 Anderson
Things never panned out the way it was expected of Anderson after the way he announced himself to the footballing world. He won the Golden Boy award back in 2008, a recognition awarded by sports journalists to young players under the age of 21 for their impressive performances during a calendar year in a European nation’s top tier.
Although he couldn’t live up to the expectations at United, he won a handful of trophies and also managed to score a penalty in the Champions League final-shootout in 2008 against Chelsea and we’re quite sure that he would have loved a reunion with the old boys at Old Trafford under the great Sir Alex Ferguson.
Anderson currently plies his trade for Cortiba back in Brazil and is expected to take part in the club’s game against Atletico PR just a day before the testimonial game and we understand that is why he probably can’t make it.
#4 Nani
Nani followed in Cristiano Ronaldo’s footsteps to Manchester United and that kind of worked against his interests as maybe he wouldn’t have wanted all the massive expectation to be weighed on him from such a young age.
However, he will always be remembered as a hero among the United faithful for the services he offered to the club during his tenure with the English giants.
Nani came on as a substitute in the first half of extra time in the Champions League final and also successfully converted the fifth penalty in the shootout. However, he is away on international duty on June 3rd when Portugal play Cyprus in a friendly and that justifies his omission from the line-ups.
#3 John O’Shea
John O’Shea shared his best moments playing for the club he always wanted to play for, Manchester United. He is no stranger to the United faithful and there will be atleast some set of fans who would feel that he should have been there among his former teammates.
O’Shea did not play a part in the Champions league final despite being on the bench and his season was marred by injuries, limiting the centre-half to very little game time.
The 36-year-old is expected to play a part in Republic of Ireland’s international friendly against Uruguay on the day of Carrick’s testimonial in Dublin, a shame considering the fact that he was probably one of those unsung heroes and deserved the reunion more than most people on the list.
#2 Carlos Tevez
After all that has happened in the relationship between Carlos Tevez and Manchester United, he probably wouldn’t have fancied a return to the red half of the city. However, he shared some of his best moments with United where he won his one and only Champions League medal in 2008 and also enjoyed a lot of domestic success.
Back in March, Carrick had admitted that he enquired about Tevez’s availability for the game. “I had contact with Carlos before he went to China and he said he would have loved to play but didn’t know where he would be playing so he didn’t know.”
Rightfully so, the world’s highest paid footballer will be playing for Shanghai Shenhua in a game on Friday, just two days before the testimonial.
#1 Cristiano Ronaldo
This is undoubtedly the most obvious missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to Carrick’s testimonial game. Ronaldo was a phenomenon at United and still shares a close relationship with the players he played with at Old Trafford.
Be it Sir Alex Ferguson who brought him to the club, the individuals he shared the dressing room with or the fans who stood by him through thick and thin, everyone would have loved a bit of Ronaldo back at the theatre of dreams.
“I’ve spoken to Ronaldo,” Carrick said when the details were announced, “but it’s the Champions league final the day before. Who knows?”. If not now, some sections of the United supporters will be dreaming of seeing him in the club’s colours sometime soon.
