The Manchester Derby is a soccer game played between Manchester City and Manchester United. These two British clubs have been at each other’s throats for around two centuries, and their rivalry is always one of the most-watched games of the year. 

  Both teams recently played one of the most aggressive games, their 195th match against each other. Manchester City over the past couple of weeks has been in a slump, losing games to teams they shouldn’t have, but with their powerful start to the season, they are still fourth in the premier league opposing Manchester United who is fourteenth in the prem. 

  “I thought even though City is playing horrible right now, they would still win, because Man United have been playing even worse,” said Spanish teacher and sports fan Eric Bonanno. 

  This take was very common among people who watched the game.

 Sophomore Soren Scarpaci said, “Leading up to it, I thought City was going to  get the win, still a top 5 team up to that point but still on a huge losing streak but I still believed in them just due to the experience and how they have been dominating the Premier League the past couple years.”

  Other fans were even more frustrated.

  Sophomore Alex Tibinkowski said, “There is no excuse for Manchester City and this should have been one of their most comfortable wins of the season.”

  Injuries and lineup changes have riveted both teams a lot over the past few games with many stars being on limited time. 

“I mean injuries were critical, with Rico Lewis out with a red card suspension, Nathen Ake, a starting player that’s out with injury, and the same with Manuel Akanji,” said Scarpaci. “Rodri, who won the Ballen Dor then tore his ACL, and part of this big losing streak they have is because of Debrona being out and just coming back. Haland, even being second most goals in the Premier League, recently hasn’t been getting the ball in a position to score.”

  Injuries have been a major issue in the team’s success this year. 

“Rodris’s injury has had a bigger impact than anyone thought it would. It seems like he was the backbone of the entire team and they don’t know how to play without him,” said Bonanno.  “Phil Foden is not injured but there’s something wrong with him, he hasn’t played well this entire season. Debrona is either getting old or still recovering from that other injury, still a great player but hasn’t done much.”

The City defensive line is its own problem.

  “Akanji out injured making it horrible for their back line with Nunes playing left-back that ain’t right and you can tell he’s in the right position giving a very important penalty in the final minutes to Manchester United, that was just bad defending,” said Bonanno.

  The first score came from Manchester City in the 36th minute, with a beautiful header from defender Josko Gvardiol. 

  Almost immediately after this goal, a collision came between Man City and United with a Manchester City player going down and both teams coming in to contribute to the conflict. Players faced exchanging words and shoving opposing players of each other. Two yellow cards came out of it from the 2 players that started the scuffle. 

  “The tension between these 2 teams was crazy. You could clearly see not only the hatred from the players, but the hatred of the fans,” Tibinkosky said.

  From halftime to the 78’ minute, both teams looked far from their best, missing opportunities given by not great defending. But then Manchester put on 3 substitutions completely shifting the energy for them. 

  In the 88th minute of the game Bruno, Fernandez was dropped in the penalty box by defender Nunes leading to a chance to tie everything up.

  I believe the commentator Conor McNamara explained the penalty the best saying, “PENALTY TO UNITED!!! WOW!!! What a mess this is from city particularly Nunes, who badly underhits a pass back to Ederson. Nunes cant make up for this error, bringing the United man down with a very clumsy challenge and presenting United with a chance to level.”

  Bruno Fernandez was able to mark it in the spot, sliding the ball in the bottom right corner to make it 1-1 in the final minutes of this rollercoaster of a game.  At this point, Manchester would be lucky to come out with a draw and take the point for the draw. 

  Directly off the kickoff still, in the 88th minute of the game, Man United Defender Lisandro Martinez placed a beautiful ball, crossing it from halfield to the opposition, where he found an open Amad Diallo. He was able to chip the ball over the goalie and then score in the last minute of regulation,  leading a massive comeback for Manchester in red.

  “I mean that touch that he got to get over Ederson, that was just unbelievable, so clearly they needed to make a change and they did something, great substitutions,” said Bonanno.

“ Those substitutions winded up being huge because without them they wouldn’t have wound up scoring those 2 goals late in the game” Said Soren. “Just great coaching and a great way to save those players in the final moments.”

After this loss, Manchester City’s luck hasn’t gotten any better falling out of the top 5 and currently 6th in the Premier League Rankings. Manchester United went up in the rankings presently being 13th on a run of wins. If you want to catch these twos next game it will be April 5th at 10 AM, one of the last games of the season.