Thanks for joining us for this one. You have strong constitutions, all of you. If nothing else, it’s surely made us all pine for the season proper to start. Later.
Updated
Full-time: Manchester United 1-4 Borussia Dortmund
And that’s that.
90 mins + 3: Mor goes down having been caught by an errant Mata arm. He reacts as if pulverised by a hammer, but...well, it was Mata.
90 mins: Five minutes of added time! Five! Lads - THIS. IS. A. PRE. SEASON. FRIENDLY.
89 mins: So what can we learn from this? Well, not much: Dortmund are further ahead in their preparations than United, and both teams are without a slew of key players. Still, it was 90 minutes spent not having to do anything else, so mustn’t grumble.
GOAL! United 1-4 Dortmund (Castro 86)
That’s better from Castro. His first goal was scrappy and his free-kick woeful, but Gonzalo Castro is given a bit of time just outside the box, on the right, and he absolutely larrumphs the thing into the top corner, and Romero was lucky to grasp the air around the ball. Hit, lad.
85 mins: Dortmund have a free-kick just outside the area, which Castro lines up....not very well, spanking the thing well over the bar.
83 mins: Meanwhile: rumbled.
Busted! State Department spokesman John Kirby catches a reporter playing Pokemon Go during a briefinghttps://t.co/aVGRrX0qeM
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 22, 2016
82 mins: Bailly is booked for kicking the ball away. Lads, this is a friendly.
81 mins: Close! Pulisic is given a bit of time on the edge of the United box and scoots a shot across goal, but it goes just wide of the post.
79 mins: And we’re back. Rashford is caught just offside when laying off down the right.
77 mins: Another water break. Everyone’s having a drink, and a thorough towel-down.
74 mins: Almost a moment of high comedy as Young is shoulder-barged off the ball on the touchline, reaches out and half-grabs the linesman’s shirt as he falls, before thinking better of taking the official down with him and letting go. Another change for United - Andreas Pereira replaces Valencia.
73 mins: Juan Mata: defender. A cross finds its way to the back post and United can’t scramble the thing away...until Mata pops up and nicks the ball off Mikel Merino’s toe. Smashing work.
71 mins: Things seem to be winding down, now. Which as they weren’t exactly too tightly wound up in the first place, is perhaps an indication that this isn’t the most high-octane game of football in the world. And of course it was never going to be such.
67 mins: A much needed dose of perspective from Illinois’s own JR: “It could be worse. For example, you could have had your car broken into overnight like me. Also, you’re getting paid to watch football.
“Lastly, a thought for your old nan who you have just shockingly slated on an internationally renowned website. That was uncalled for.”
True. Sorry nan. Although she doesn’t have the internet so she won’t find out about this, unless one of you grasses tells her. Hope they didn’t steal anything too valuable from your car, JR.
65 mins: United get in on the subs caper - Mkhitarayan and Blind off, Paddy McNair and Adnan Januzaj are on.
62 mins: Pray for the bloke with the sub board. Seven changes for Dortmund, then - Marc Bartra is coming on, he of the lovely eyes. Emre Mor is also coming on, their new signing from Nordsjælland, as is Nuri Sahin. I lost track of the rest. Sorry.
60 mins: Seven changes coming up, apparently. Advance warning: I might miss a couple.
GOAL! United 1-3 Dortmund (Mkhitaryan 59)
THE COMEBACK IS ON! IT’S SHANGHAISTANBUL! Lovely man Mata does a lovely thing by playing in Mkhitarayan when through on goal, so he could easily have scored himself, but the former Dortmund man is allowed to slot into an empty net.
GOAL! United 0-3 Dortmund (Dembelé 57)
Woof. That is the loveliest of stuff from Dembelé, running at Rojo, twisting the defender’s blood before whoomping a shot past Romero at the near post. Well played young man, well played.
56 mins: Chance for United - Mkhitaryan finds himself in some space, through on goal, but his shot is weaker than my nan’s tea and Weidenfeller saves with some ease.
55 mins: It’s been a tough year for everyone.
@NickMiller79 Mate are you okay? You appear to be losing your mind on the MBM. Stick the cricket on
— Bob Priestley (@BobJPriestley) July 22, 2016
54 mins: You can’t fault this crowd for enthusiasm - they go absolutely wild for an overhit pass from Herrera to Young. Or at least the bit of grass in front of Young.
52 mins: Dembelé takes the corner short, the defence push out, it’s played back to the young Frenchman, he’s offside. Pre-season!
51 mins: The players have passed the ball around for the first six minutes of the second half and almost nothing else has happened. Oh, hang on, as I type that Dortmund win a corner.
48 mins: Dortmund made a sub at the break too - the 17-year-old Dane Jacob Bruun Larsen replaced Felix Passlack.
46 mins: And we’re away again. What a time to be alive.
CHANGES! Marcos Rojo, Sergio Romero, Ashley Young and Marcus Rashford are all on for United, replacing Johnstone, Memphis, Jones and Lingard for the second half.
Peeeeeeeeeeeeep: United 0-2 Dortmund
Only another 45 minutes to go.
45mins + 2: Herrera tries to set Memphis away, but the pass is so bad the Dutchman reacts with a sort of ‘Ah, come on mate...’ shrug and entirely sensibly gives up the chase.
45 mins: United try a passing triangle on the edge of their own box, which we can file under ‘maverick’. But in the end they only lose the ball when Mata is dispossessed further up the field. Three minutes added on.
42 mins: Oh that’s a splendid bit of goalkeeping - well, half a splendid bit of goalkeeping. Aubameyang is allowed to attempt a little lob, which loops over the out-of-position Johnstone, but he scrambles back to tip the ball around the post.
40 mins: Schmelzer heads a cross back to Aubameyang, who tries an ambitious old volley, but skews it well wide.
38 mins: A booking! A booking in a pre-season friendly! Sokritis deserved that one for it being so entirely pointless, mind, as he goes through the back of Memphis about 40 yards from goal on the left.
GOAL! Manchester United 0-2 Dortmund (Aubameyang 36)
Aubameyang goes straight down the middle, and United are in trouble now. Or at least they would be if this mattered in the slightest.
PENALTY TO DORTMUND!
35 mins: The ball strikes Valencia on the arm, after Aubameyang attempts something spectacular, miskicks, and the referee points to the spot.
34 mins: Everyone thoroughly hydrated, we’re back, back, back. What are we all doing with our lives?
31 mins: We’re having a drinks break. One of the many things that football can learn from cricket. This, tea, and playing in white trousers.
30 mins: Some of the crowd are clapping in a way that the echoey nature of the stadium makes it sound like rain on a tin roof. It’s oddly soothing.
29 mins: A ball over the top looks for the searing pace of Juan Mata. He does not collect the pass.
28 mins: “Wait a minute! What’s going on?” writes a baffled Charles Antaki. “I was snoozing happily at my desk till I saw Man U v Dortmund. Sadly not a random pairing of team names, but the MBM an actual match, sort of? In mid-July? Have we come to this?”
Sorry, Charles. I really am.
26 mins: Dembelé attempts either an ambitious hoofed show from way out, or a pointless looped cross towards Aubameyang. Either way, Johnstone pouches the thing with ease.
23 mins: Chance for United: Lingard finds himself in on goal after a defensive error, but he tries to pass the shot home and only succeeds in giving Weidenfeller a feel of the ball.
GOAL! Manchester United 0-1 Dortmund (Castro 20)
Whomp! Dortmund into the lead, and Johnstone’s evening isn’t getting better. Aubameyang welts it towards goal, Johnstone shovels it unconvincingly back into the business area of the attack, and Castro is there to bundle the rebound home.
17 mins: Another iffy moment for Johnstone, as he slices a clearance. Still not much going on here.
15 mins: United break away down the right channel and for a moment have three-on-one, but Memphis tries to tuck it inside to Lingard and it’s intercepted by Sokratis.
14 mins: Foul throw! Valencia fires one down the line but one leg was up in the air like he was practising ballet.
12 mins: The pitch looks a bit ropey. Valencia hooooooooooooofs the ball up to noted target man Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who in fairness does well to control it on his chest, but is muscled out by one of his old mates.
9 mins: Sam Johnstone creates a bit of inadvertent excitement by somehow making a frightful hash of a routine back-pass, miscontrolling the thing and only just skipping away from the advancing Aubameyang.
7 mins: If you’re interested in formations at this nascent stage of the pre-season, United are 4-2-3-1 with Jesse Lingard as the, ahem, ‘centre-forward’.
5 mins: Valencia gets a lecture from Jose Mourinho. That’s about the most interesting thing to happen so far. Oh, there’s a nice bit of skill from Memphis. And Kagawa knocks Bailly over. It’s all going off.
3 mins: Phil Jones’s hair is absolutely extraordinary. It’s a proper peroxide top, dark below, close-cropped number. He looks like someone who’s failed an audition for a Luc Besson film.
1 min: We are away. Schmelzer celebrates by hoying the ball straight out of play. Eric Bailly then plays Phil Jones a hospital pass which he just about escapes from.
As an aside, because everyone takes things far too seriously, there must be a winner in this one: if it’s level at full-time, we’ll have penalties.
For those of you watching in black and white, United are wearing blue and Dortmund their traditional yellow.
The players...they are emerging. Antonio Valencia is the United captain for today, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
In defence of Shinji, from Christopher Dale: “I always felt Kagawa was the victim of two developments at Old Trafford, the signing of van Persie, and Fergie’s retirement.
“Van Persie was signed as a short-term solution to give Fergie a last league title, with Kagawa a long-term target intended to play behind Rooney. With RvP in the squad, and Rooney pushed back to 10, Kagawa tended to be played wide, which minimised his impact.
“Had Fergie not retired in 2013 and been succeeded by managers committed both to the cult of Rooney and to signing a new first team every summer, Kagawa might have got a run at 10 in a settled and decent team, rather than playing across the front four in a struggling United side.
“He bears some blame, but was very unlucky at Old Trafford.”
On Alex Shaw’s cumulative fees question, we’ve had shouts for Andy Carroll, Nicolas Anelka and Fernando Torres. Any advances?
Mark Judd’s all misty-eyed: “Ah Shinji, that’s all I’m going to say. I was rather hoping my daughter would marry him, she speaks Japanese, works in Tokyo so there is still hope. He was wasted at United.”
The love affair between some United fans and Kagawa is a rather sweet, if slightly curious one. Because let us be frank: he was largely no good there, and you can’t blame that all on being misused.
A word from your friend and mine Alex Shaw: “Maybe one for the floor before kick-off: André Schürrle surpasses Mesut Özil as the most expensive German player in cumulative transfer fees (€92.5M)
“That’s the Dortmund angle covered. But who is the Premier League’s most expensive player in cumulative fees? Robbie Keane must be up there at around £51m. (Needs to move more than once to count)“
While we’re waiting for this one, treat yourself to a Golden Goal: here’s Rob Smyth on Roberto Baggio’s belter for Juventus v Inter in 1992.
Breaking news
Borussia Dortmund verpflichtet @Andre_Schuerrle https://t.co/2Nwqrix5Rw pic.twitter.com/BNKHDXEgIh
— Borussia Dortmund (@BVB) July 22, 2016
(For those of you with rusty German, that’s BVB announcing the signing of Andre Schürrle. So Reus, Götze and Schürrle behind Aubameyang. Tasty.)
I’ll level with you, I haven’t the first idea how that Dortmund team is going to line up: bloody attacking, is the best I can give you at the moment.
As for United, there’s no Wayne Rooney, or any of the Euro 2016 lot, aside from Marcus Rashford on the bench, but that’s not too far away from a side that could start a few Premier League games in the coming season, a few notable exceptions aside.
Team news
Manchester United
Johnstone; Valencia, Bailly, Jones, Shaw; Blind, Herrera; Mata, Mkhitaryan, Lingard; Memphis. Subs: Romero, McNair, Rojo, Tuanzebe, Januzaj, Pereira, Young, Keane, Rashford.
Borussia Dortmund
Weidenfeller, Schmelzer, Sokratis, Bender, Rode, Kagawa, Castro, Passlack, Ramos, Dembélé, Aubameyang.
Preamble
Hello! What are we all doing here? It’s a sickness, this. We’re following a pre-season friendly that means the square-root of chuff all, from the other side of the world. It’s not as if we’ve had a summer devoid of football, and this is a welcome sip of water in a bone-dry desert, either. This is Manchester United v Borussia Dortmund, and it couldn’t matter less.
But this is still football. Some football is better than no football, this is something upon we can all agree. This is football for football’s sake, and it’s still magic.
So what will we learn from this? Well, more or less nothing, obviously, but that’s not important. We don’t have to learn things from every game of football we watch. We are not doing a GCSE English class here, or watching an episode of Ricki Lake. So let’s just enjoy watching a bit of football, shall we? Teams will be with you shortly.
Kick-off: 13.05 BST
