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Edinson Cavani (v.) In his best game for United so far, in November at Southampton
Photo:
Mike Hewitt / Getty Images
Ole Gunnar Solskjær looked around the stadium and started grinning as he described what his striker Edinson Cavani would expect in the next 90 minutes.
Cavani will now experience "real English football," said the Manchester United coach.
He said that in freezing temperatures at Burnley Stadium, an industrial city in the north whose football team is known for their destructive, tough play.
That was last Tuesday.
Manchester won the game 1-0 and achieved something that fans of the record champions had to wait a long time for: United became leaders in the Premier League.
The last time that was at such an advanced point in a season when the coach was Sir Alex Ferguson, in 2012/2013, the season in which United were champions for the last time.
In the afternoon (5.30 p.m., TV: Sky) the club could expand the top of the table - but also lose.
In a direct duel against pursuers Liverpool FC.
Cavani didn't score against Burnley, but he was still important for the team's success.
Since joining the Red Devils at the beginning of the season, he has become a crucial piece of the puzzle on the offensive.
And he also became part of the smoldering debate in England about racism in football.
Cavani, 33, came to United on the last day of the transfer window, he was described as a panic buying: old and yet expensive, with no match practice because he had previously had to watch Paris Saint-Germain for a long time.
He scored his last goal in February 2020.
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Cavani in the PSG jersey in 2017: for the French, he scored 200 goals in 301 appearances
Photo: JB Autissier / imago / PanoramiC
Criticism of his sporting ability was silenced at the latest when he was substituted on at Southampton at the end of November when the score was 2-0 and United led to victory with two goals and one assist.
An Instagram post after the game then triggered a much more weighty form of criticism.
"Gracias, negrito," Cavani had written, apparently addressed to a friend.
"Thank you, little black guy."
The English FA opened an investigation, at the end of which Cavani was suspended for three competitive games and fined more than 100,000 pounds.
The punishment was again criticized from South America.
The FA, so the allegation, had ignored linguistic peculiarities of the continent in its judgment;
»Negrito« is a common nickname there and not racially intended.
Only: You can mean something as a nice thing or even a compliment and still be racist.
And whoever gives a nickname based on biological characteristics gives it an inappropriately high meaning.
The FA does not give a good picture
Nevertheless, the FA does not give a good picture in the Cavani case.
Cavani's seemingly authentic remorse was evidently not assessed as mitigating the penalty.
The same association refrained from punishing Crystal Palace's Wayne Hennessey in 2019 after he appeared to make a Nazi salute in a photo.
The FA was convinced by Hennessey that he didn't even know what a Hitler salute was.
While Hennessey went unpunished, Cavani had to watch three games.
Against Burnley he was allowed to play again for the first time and experience real English football.
And Cavani coped with the hardship on the pitch.
Above all, however, it gave United's game in the opposing penalty area a quality that he had missed last season.
Because Cavani's greatest strength are his runs in the sixteenth.
There is a pattern in which he moves, and you can see it again and again: As soon as his team moves forward on one side of the field, he strolls to the other side in the penalty area, creating a great distance between himself and them Ball carrier.
As soon as a cross appears, Cavani ignites;
he sprints towards the first post and does two things:
He puts himself in a good position to shoot - almost all Cavani goals resulted from one-contact shots from a fairly close goal distance.
It leaves a space behind.
Because the sudden sprint to the first post causes at least Cavani's guard, sometimes even a second defender, to run with the striker.
This opening of the gate benefits Cavani's teammates, who wait for Cavani's sprint to then advance into the space.
In Paris, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé benefited from it, in Manchester it is Anthony Martial, Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford.
United shot on goal 13 times in Burnley.
Cavani was involved in more than half, either as a shooter or assist, or by opening up rooms.
The game in Burnley was also only the third game in which he was allowed to play over 90 minutes.
Cavani has made 15 appearances, with a total of 682 minutes in which he scored four goals and provided two assists.
The fact that he didn't play more often is due to the fact that he seems to have lost speed over the years, especially over longer distances.
The workload, which Cavani had always distinguished, also seems to have shrunk somewhat.
Both would be particularly important in the afternoon.
The game England football has been waiting for
Then England's football gets a game that it has had to wait a long time for in this constellation.
United competes at Liverpool FC, it is the duel of the two most successful clubs in English history and at the same time the clash of two arch-rivals.
The special thing about the game this time around is the table situation: Liverpool are second, United first.
This has rarely happened in England.
It was clear that champions Liverpool would play for the title even after almost half of the season.
But United?
You could call it a surprise.
Game data suggest that United's lead in the standings is also due to some fortunate circumstance.
That the competition from Liverpool and Manchester City could escape the Red Devils in the coming weeks.
And that the only really sustainable plus is the offensive.
In fact, the team scores more goals on average than last year.
But she also lacked a real center forward on the team.
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