Chapter 504 - 110 — Copenhagen Away (II)
United had exactly the game they’d wanted now, Copenhagen forced to chase and leave gaps behind them.
Between the thirtieth and thirty-eighth minutes, Demien looked more dangerous with every passing sequence, Copenhagen no longer able to stay compact.
Falk jumped at him once. Demien turned away from it. Lerager stepped across to cover. Demien released Rashford into the space behind both of them, Rashford carrying toward the box, his final pass to Højlund arriving just behind him — the chance gone as quickly as it appeared.
On another sequence, Demien had shooting space of his own outside the area, considered it, then saw Højlund starting another run and gave it up instead. Højlund got his shot away, and Grabara turned it behind.
No hat-trick yet.
「MATCH MISSION PROGRESS」 「Line-Breaking Actions: 6/8」 「Clear Chances Created: 2/3」 「Defensive Recoveries: 2/4」 「Pass Accuracy: 95%」 「TEAM OBJECTIVE: Manchester United Lead 2-0」
Demien was dominating his responsibilities. United were dominating the match.
Everything was working.
Play had already been interrupted twice by medical stoppages in the crowd, stewards attending to supporters in the lower tier while both sets of players stood and waited, respectfully, for the all-clear before continuing.
Nobody made a spectacle of it. The stoppages simply added minutes onto a first half that had already carried more than its share of drama.
𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
Around the fortieth minute, United nearly found a third — Demien winning it back centrally and feeding Bruno, Bruno sending Højlund clean through, the shot going just wide under Diks’s recovering pressure.
United still looked completely in control.
Then, in the forty-second minute, everything changed at once, and Demien had nothing to do with any of it.
Rashford received near the right side with Jelert closing hard, tried to shield the ball rather than turn with it, and planted his foot to protect possession the instant Jelert stepped into the challenge.
His studs caught Jelert’s ankle high.
Jelert went down.
Play continued for a few seconds before the referee’s whistle cut through the noise.
VAR check.
United’s players gathered near the touchline, unsure what exactly was being reviewed. Demien had already turned to reposition for the next phase when he realized the whistle wasn’t restarting anything.
The big screen ran the replay twice — Rashford’s eyes on the ball the whole way, no malice in it, but the contact itself looked bad from every angle they showed.
The referee jogged to the pitchside monitor.
Parken got louder than it had been all match, sensing what was coming before it arrived.
Rashford waited several yards off, hands on his hips.
The referee came back and reached for his pocket.
Red card.
Demien saw it go up and looked immediately toward Ten Hag on the touchline rather than toward the referee — this wasn’t a decision he could argue his way out of, and he knew it. The football problem had just changed completely. United had been controlling eleven against eleven. Now they had to protect a two-goal lead for the rest of the half and all of the second with ten men.
Ten Hag reshaped them from the touchline immediately, no substitution available yet with halftime this close.
United dropped into a 4-4-1 without the ball, Højlund alone up front, Garnacho pulled left, Bruno shifted right, Demien and McTominay holding the center between them.
The freedom Demien had carried five minutes earlier disappeared entirely.
His job wasn’t to roam beyond Copenhagen’s first press anymore. It was to protect the middle, help whichever flank got overloaded, and get United to halftime with the lead intact.
Copenhagen recognized the opening just as fast — both fullbacks pushed higher immediately, Falk started dictating from deeper now that Rashford’s presence no longer occupied one side of United’s shape, Lerager attacked the box with more urgency than before.
Demien covered enormous ground trying to answer all of it — closing Falk, dropping to Lerager, recovering to Bruno’s side the instant Copenhagen switched play.
His stamina and pace let him affect almost everything.
They didn’t let him occupy four spaces at the same time.
In the forty-fifth minute, Copenhagen finally cashed in the extra man.
United forced the first attack wide. Demien was protecting the central cutback lane, and with only Garnacho and Bruno left to cover the flank, Ankersen found time and space outside that neither of them could close in time.
The cross came in.
Diogo Gonçalves reached it first and redirected it rather than shoot, intelligent enough to find the better option.
Elyounoussi arrived into the space behind United’s first defender, and Demien moved toward him a half-second too late to matter.
The finish went in first time, beyond Onana.
FC COPENHAGEN 1 — 2 MANCHESTER UNITED Mohamed Elyounoussi 45’
Parken exploded — not just at the goal, but at what it meant. Copenhagen believed now. Ten minutes ago United had looked completely comfortable at 2-0. Now every touch United took happened inside a wall of noise that hadn’t existed before.
Because of the earlier medical stoppages and the VAR review, the fourth official’s board showed an enormous amount of added time.
United couldn’t simply see out thirty seconds to halftime. They had to survive an extended spell down to ten men, with Copenhagen fully believing again.
Ten Hag shouted for the midfield to stop jumping into challenges unnecessarily.
Demien tried slowing everything down whenever United won the ball back. On one recovery, receiving under two Copenhagen players at once, he didn’t try to turn forward.
「TRAIT ACTIVATED」 「Press Resistant」
He shielded it, drew the foul, and left it exactly where it was while United’s shape crept back up the pitch — the kind of ugly game management that mattered as much as anything flashy he’d done all half.
Another Copenhagen attack came. Demien intercepted the first central pass.
「MATCH MISSION PROGRESS」 「Defensive Recoveries: 3/4」
He released Højlund, completely isolated against two center-backs with no support close enough to arrive in time.
Copenhagen won it back.
The correct action, made cleanly. Ten men against eleven simply made the next connection harder no matter who was making the pass.
Deep into stoppage time, Copenhagen sent one more delivery into United’s box.
United defended it initially, the ball ricocheting through a crowded penalty area before Maguire tried to block it at close range.
It struck his arm.
Copenhagen appealed instantly, arms up all across the box.
The referee let it play on for a moment, then stopped it for a VAR check.
Demien looked toward the official rather than anywhere else, already sensing what was coming.
Penalty.
From where he stood, the decision felt harsh — Maguire’s arm barely moving, barely a choice involved in where it ended up — but once the flag went up there was nothing left to argue.
Diogo Gonçalves placed the ball.
Onana set himself, waiting through the loudest few seconds Parken had produced all night.
Gonçalves sent him the wrong way.
FC COPENHAGEN 2 — 2 MANCHESTER UNITED Diogo Gonçalves 45+9’ (pen.)
Copenhagen celebrated like the match had restarted from nothing.
United’s players barely reacted beyond gathering themselves for the restart — halftime had to be seconds away now, whatever the board had said earlier.
Demien glanced once toward the empty space where Rashford should have been standing.
Twenty minutes ago, United had led by two and controlled everything.
Now they were level, and down to ten men for the whole second half.
The referee finally blew for halftime.
Fweeeeeetttttttt!
HALFTIME: FC COPENHAGEN 2 — 2 MANCHESTER UNITED
「HALFTIME MISSION UPDATE」 「Line-Breaking Actions: 7/8」 「Clear Chances Created: 2/3」 「Defensive Recoveries: 3/4」 「Pass Accuracy: 94%」 「TEAM OBJECTIVE: 2-2」
His own performance hadn’t dropped off at all. The match had simply stopped being something one player’s individual quality could fully control.
In the dressing room, Ten Hag went straight to the tactical board.
No shouting. No speech about the red card or the penalty or any of it.
He wiped Rashford’s marker off the board, moved the remaining pieces into their new shape, and looked at the room.
"We have to find a way to win this with ten," he said.