Michael Calvin's Big Match Verdict: Blue Moon rising leaves fallen United red with anger

By Michael Calvin in Mirror Football Blog

Published 23:00 16/04/11

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Two celebrated supplicants attended 11am Mass at Holy Rood Church, in central Watford, yesterday.

Robert Mancini and his assistant Brian Kidd found respite in the simple rituals of their faith.

The service offered a semblance of normality, a chance to pause, reflect, and find a sense of perspective.

They certainly needed it on a definitive day in the development of Manchester City Football Club.

Victory redeems, especially when it arrives on the biggest stage, against your biggest rivals.

Mancini was unrecognisable from the isolated, overwrought, figure he has cut in recent weeks.

He and Kidd embraced, until they were drawn into the madness which swirled around Mario Balotelli.

Passions boiled over; fingers were pointed, vengeance was promised.

Manchester United players left in a lather of anger and frustration.

The stadium was a riot of sky blue. City fans writhed and wept, bayed at a Blue Moon.

Everyone knew the magnitude of the result, not least Sir Alex Ferguson.

He stalked away from the posh seats, a superfluous accreditation badge around his neck.

The orders he had barked, into a microphone on his collar, were not followed through.

He will not forget his sense of impotence, or the pleasure taken in United’s downfall.

Mancini talks of building dynasties, making history.

Success demands stability. It is no coincidence that City have had 17 managers during Ferguson’s tenure at Old Trafford.

Mancini has spent £150million, attempting to redress the balance.

In today’s game, that means adding to a collection of strangers, in a strange land.

Despite the extravagance of their celebrations last night, none of the City players are linked, emotionally, to the club, or city.

Devotion is manufactured, at odds with the unquestioning loyalty of their fans.

You don’t have to believe in the Abu Dhabi project to identify with their joy.

They were intent on partying like it’s 1999, the year of City’s anarchic League One play off win over Gillingham.

Wembley has seen no more surreal sight than 35,000 of them, turning their back on the pitch, and doing the Poznan dance.

The contrast to the red hordes, sullen in their supposed superiority, exposed the cultural divide between the clubs.

Yet City are no longer the eccentric maiden aunts of English football.

They’re career girls in killer heels and tailored three piece suits.

A bit too self-aware for the makeover to be entirely convincing, perhaps.

But they’ve certainly grabbed the attention of the boys across town.

This one will run and run.

United pressed; City persevered.

They have turned patience into an art form, and Mancini waited for the fatal mistake.

Michael Carrick was the fallguy, Yaya Toure the man who exacted a measure of revenge for 35 years of hurt.

Managers are at the mercy of their players.

Mancini spent most of the game screaming at his pet project, Balotelli.

He was indolent, breathtakingly fickle, unsurprisingly provocative.

Yet, unlike Paul Scholes, he stayed on the pitch.

For that, the City faithful will forgive him anything. For now.

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