An audience of 50,128 watched as the Manchester United Legends game against Bayern Munich All Stars finished with an aggregate victory to United after they won 4-2 on the day, and 7-5 on aggregate following the first leg match last summer.
Jorg Butt parried Dwight Yorke’s cross/shot into the path of Louis Saha who mishit his shot off the ground but still watched it go in past Butt after nine minutes.
Old Trafford witnessed a rare poor pass from Paul Scholes that contrived to hand the equaliser to Bayern’s All Stars as Alexander Zickler tucked away the ball into an empty net after Edwin van der Sar was caught cold by Scholes’ back pass in the 16th minute.
Zickler could have put Bayern’s All Stars into the lead after his shot hit the back post after the German weaved past Denis Irwin and Ronny Johnsen.
Paulo Sergio’s effort was wide before a flurry of late goals in the first half gave the scoreline more of the look of a charity match.
United took the lead when Ji Sung Park ran onto Quinton Fortune’s cross and his header was saved by Butt only for Dwight York to bundle the ball in on the line after 39 minutes.
Michael Tarnat levelled matters again into the 43rd minute when his free kick took a slight deflection off the United wall and beat van der Sar.
But United were not to be denied and Park’s lay off to Andy Cole who lifted the ball past Butt on the stroke of half time. The German almost pulled off another save but couldn’t get enough of his glove on the ball to parry it away.
Paulo Sergio’s free kick hit the bar on the hour with the follow up headed over by Zickler.
The festival atmosphere was confirmed with loud cheers for van der Sar’s replacement Raimond van der Gouw on the hour mark, followed by extensive Mexican Waves punctuated by a stunning save by the popular Dutchman after Marcel Witeczek tried his luck from the left channel.
United’s Legends had the better of the latter stages though and everyone got a run out with Paul Scholes getting the biggest applause of the day after he was substituted.
Jesper Blomqvist made sure of victory by converting Karel Poborsky’s cross from the right with seven minutes to go.
All proceeds of the game will go to the Manchester United Foundation’s work in the local community.