The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

If you are a 90s kid like myself, then you will be aware that certain fashions and trends in that era, appear to be coming back in this era. From retro pairs of Nike trainers to a certain style of headwear, in the world of fashion, things go back in a full circle.

In the sporting world, if you were a kid born or who grew up in the 1990s, then you would have been accustomed to Liverpool being towards the lower parts of the top half of the table. Sorry, Roy Evans.

Arguably the reason I started to support Manchester United was due to them winning everything English club football had to offer. Now, that isn’t happening currently, but what has come back around in a full circle is the exciting matches with Barcelona.

Thursday’s particular match-up, which was a Europa League play-off match, only goes to show how both of these European giants have fallen on bad times.

The match itself ended in a thrilling 2-2 draw, where United would have felt they should have got something more from the game. We have been down that road before.

In the 1998/99 season, Premier League giants would have felt hard done by with certain decisions, decisions such as Jules Kounde not getting sent off, when he appeared to be clearly the last man when he brought down Manchester United’s striker Marcus Rashford.

Teams of Manchester United and Barcelona, are at least from their history, Champions League sides. The Thursday night game, at Camp Nou, brought back many memories.

From going to school the next day, realising I had homework, to then getting a Fergie-like hairdryer treatment as I made the worst excuse as to why I didn’t do the homework.

Maybe, I could have got off lightly if I said, sorry miss forgot to do my homework as I was watching a classic between United and Barca the night before.

Even now when I retell this story, I get embarrassed. Dog ate my homework, seems like the better option in hindsight after all these years. To be honest, I couldn’t bear the thought of missing the Barcelona vs Man United game. It’s the Champions League!

The homework got done (in detention), so the story ended as a win-win right? To keep the topic on Manchester United, in their second league meeting with old foe Arsenal, they produced a master class of performance, which made me reminisce about the classic duals between Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex.

Man United fans, or at least the ones from the 90s are an impatient lot. Many have reportedly switched allegiance and have started supporting Man City, simply because United’s noisy neighbours have won some cups that no one took seriously until City came.

Erik, quite simply I want to say thank you. Thank you for helping me, revisit my childhood. The games against Arsenal and Barcelona were what a younger me lived for.

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