It’s the first ever Manchester Derby held outside of England, and one of the main storylines was the heat and humidity in Texas. It was a late night kickoff in Houston, but the heat index was still about 96 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s mid July in Houston for you, luckily the air conditioning was on in the stadium for this International Champions Cup clash.
–Also, here’s the link to the second half takeaways.
-Both sides honored victims of the Manchester Arena Ariana Grande concert terrorist attack in May. Go here for more on those shirts, what the bee logos on them represent and the bigger cause they serve. The “worker bees” logo on the shirts even became an emoji for the Manchester Derby hashtag.
#ManchesterDerby is a top ten trending term on Twitter nationally as we write this.
-Ander Herrera had a booming shot in the early minutes, but it was stopped by new Man City goalkeeper Ederson. The 23 year old Brazilian signed from Benfica thwarted the first real scoring opportunity for either side in this game.
-About four minutes later, Raheem Sterling provided the first City scoring opportunity with a shot on target, but it was right into the chest of opposing goalkeeper David de Gea. Sterling fired away again in the 26′, going high this time but De Gea jumped up on deflected the ball away.
-The derby drew a pretty good crowd, the stadium was mostly full and it’s estimated that at least 65,000 showed up.
-Romelu Lukaku opened the game’s scoring in the 37′ as Ederson came way out of the box. Lukaku converted a very tough angle, and then brought some A+ goal celebration game too.
Here is video of the goal below:
Pace – Yes. Touch – Yes. Goal – Yes
Lukaku. pic.twitter.com/raf85rU8kP
— Utd (@RantUtd) July 21, 2017
Marcus Rashford quickly added on in the 39′. Up 2-0 heading into the locker room, Man City definitely looked the part of the team playing their first preseason exhibition of the summer.
United’s having already won two friendlies definitely showed in the way they handled the Sky Blues in the first half. Here’s footage of the Rashford goal:
Marcus Rashford's goal vs Manchester City 2-0 pic.twitter.com/vdfOo6Jbqd #MUFC
— Manchester United (@ManUtdUpdates_) July 21, 2017
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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