SOCCER:THERE WAS only one other person in the Emirates Stadium who knew the true depths of Darren Fletcher's despair. Paul Scholes was among the first to approach his disconsolate team-mate in the dressing room.
“I just shook his hand and said, ‘Well played,’” said Scholes. “I told him he was fantastic again, just as he was in the first leg. But what else can you say?”
All the memories came flooding back for Scholes as he saw Fletcher, a towel round his neck, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him.
In 1999 it was Scholes and Roy Keane who were banned from playing in the European Cup final; now it would be the turn of the player who had dominated midfield in both of Manchester United’s semi-final legs against Arsenal. Fletcher had been sent off for an alleged professional foul and Uefa reiterated last night there was no scope for an appeal.
“It’s not a nice feeling,” said Scholes, thinking ahead to the May 27 final. “You have to sit there and watch when all you want to do is play. Your team is in the final, you want to be involved.
“It’s the biggest game of your life, the European Cup final, everyone wants to be playing and it’s desperately disappointing if you can’t, especially when it’s something that wasn’t deserved. And I think everyone can see that in this case, that it was never a red card.”
Scholes regards missing the 1999 final as the biggest disappointment of his long and distinguished career. He and Keane watched the match in their club suits and had to be coaxed on to the pitch to join in the celebrations at the end.
“Not having an opportunity to contribute really hurt,” Keane recalls in his autobiography. “I felt pretty useless. It’s astonishing how out of things you feel when you’re not playing. It’s as if a glass partition descends between you and the players in the side and you are on the wrong side of the divide.”
Fletcher’s own suffering is exacerbated by the fact television replays have shown him making a clean touch of the ball in the challenge on Cesc Fabregas that the referee, Roberto Rosetti, deemed to be a professional foul, awarding Arsenal a penalty in the process.
“It is totally different to what happened with me,” said Scholes.
“There weren’t too many complaints about the yellow card that ruled me out. But this was never a red card, as simple as that. Even if he did make a foul, we were 4-0 up on aggregate with 10 or 15 minutes to go. It just seems very harsh to me.”
United had been clinging to the remote hope that the Turin-based Rosetti might accept he had made a mistake and ask Uefa to overturn the decision but he is understood to be not sympathetic to United’s grievances. There is scope within Uefa’s laws for a sending-off to be rescinded only if it is a case of mistaken identity.
The feeling at Old Trafford is one of resignation. Alex Ferguson talked of it being a “tragedy” and Fletcher, an unused substitute in last season’s final, was described as “distraught”.
GuardianService
