Jon Mcleod
Andrew MacdougallFinal word on the weekend - Macheda's magic and Shearer's woe
On Saturday night, as he waited for sleep to come, a little-known 17-year-old will have run through all the possibilities of the next 24 hours. He will have thought of playing football, scoring spectacular goals and hearing his name praised by tens of thousands of people. He will have carefully constructed the most fanciful of scenarios and dreamt up the most extravagant details in his mind. And then with a smile, dismissed it all.
If sleep ever came to Federico Machedo on Sunday night, it will have been brief. The young Italian, without a name in football, scored a wondrous injury-time winner against Aston Villa in front of an Old Trafford crowd of 75,409, ensuring Manchester United retained pole position for the Premier League title with what could be the most decisive moment.
Where his career goes from here is anybody’s guess. His late, late shot at glory was preceded by some heavy touches and muddled thinking, but he has attributes of great strength, form in the reserves and so much time. In years to come his debut heroics could be looked back upon as an extraordinary peak to a career drowned out by unenviable expectation or the first evidence of a precocious talent. Either way for now Machedo will just be thinking of the next 24 hours.
Elsewhere in the Premier League, it took 56 minutes for Alan Shearer’s halo to slip as Newcastle
