Soccer/European Champions League/Stuttgart 2; Man Utd 1: The case for Manchester United's defence was indefensible last night. Battered and beleaguered, Alex Ferguson's players left Stuttgart with heavy legs and even heavier hearts after a second-half display that says little for their hopes of returning to Germany for the European Cup final next May.
With back-to-back games coming up against Rangers Ferguson will not regard the damage as irreparable, but United's manager is entitled to be aggrieved by the dishevelled defending that contributed to their downfall and Rio Ferdinand, in particular, will want to forget a traumatic evening.
Whereas Panathinaikos had let in four goals inside the first 45 minutes of United's opening tie, Stuttgart represented a far different proposition, unbeaten and yet to concede a goal in their opening seven Bundesliga fixtures.
The Schwabia region is also in the midst of Cannstatter Wasn, their equivalent of the Bavarian Oktoberfest, and 50,000 beery Germans ensured an atmosphere fitting for the first-ever Champions League tie in this stadium.
Usually such intrepid travellers, Ferguson's players had shown little signs early on of wilting. Ryan Giggs, in particular, seemed to relish the free role he was afforded behind Ruud van Nistelrooy, producing some of the few creative moments with his willingness to attack opponents and a succession of crosses of the quality that must make Ferguson wonder why the Welshman cannot do it more consistently.
In Giggs's usual position on the left flank, Cristiano Ronaldo had markedly less success. Despite seeing a lot of the ball, he found the Stuttgart right-back Andreas Hinkel, a 21-year-old newcomer to the German national team, a resilient and frustrating opponent. Ronaldo, unquestionably, has exquisite talent but since his introduction to the team he has failed to live up to the hype that accompanies being the most expensive teenager in the British game.
In mitigation, Ronaldo was not the only player to find his creative juices had temporarily dried up. At times Paul Scholes was disappointingly peripheral and United's only noteworthy chance of the opening period emanated from a van Nistelrooy run that culminated with him not getting enough leverage on his chip.
Despite the paucity of scoring opportunities, Ferguson was entitled to have been pleased by the composed passing of his players, their superior possession and neat movement.
As a spectacle, however, describing it as drab would be a compliment. Stuttgart had indulged in some mischief-making before the game, playing Liverpool's club anthem You'll Never Walk Alone, and the Bundesliga leaders played with the same lack of adventure for which Gerard Houllier's team is renowned.
Not once in the first half did they threaten to break United's resistance, but within seven minutes of the re-start they had scored twice while exposing some serious flaws at the heart of their opponents' defence.
Ferdinand, a centre-half who should have stopped making elementary errors by now, will wince when he sees how he was wrong-footed when Imre Szabics burst through and, on the edge of the penalty area, side-footed a precise shot beyond Tim Howard.
As if that were not bad enough, Ferdinand and Mikael Silvestre then found themselves out of position again two minutes later. This time Szabics squeezed a pass through for Kevin Kuranyi to exploit the fact John O'Shea had temporarily gone AWOL, running unchallenged on to the ball and floating his shot over Howard and into the goal off the underside of the crossbar.
United, the masters of the late recovery, gave themselves hope midway through the second half when Ronaldo won a dubious penalty for van Nistelrooy to rediscover the art of scoring from 12 yards.
Yet the damage could have been even worse had it not been for Howard saving Fernando Meira's penalty 12 minutes from time, so saving Ferdinand any further embarrassment. Ferdinand had been culpable with a foul on Kuranyi that, to add to United's woes, also saw the England international injure himself.
Alex Ferguson blamed "terrible" defensive blunders for his side's defeat. "We defended terribly for the two goals and if you defend badly in games of this nature you deserve everything that happens to you.
"From a position of control we surrendered within minutes and allowed Stuttgart to become strong." Ferguson added: "We committed ourselves to winning balls we shouldn't have been winning, all we needed to do was drop off to the edge of the box and be patient." Ferguson will have a worrying few days checking the fitness of Ferdinand after he limped off following the challenge which gave away a late penalty, which Howard saved.
Guardian Service
VFB STUTTGART: Hildebrand, Hinkel, Lahm (Gerber 71), Meira, Bordon, Hleb (Meissner 87), Vranjes (Tiffert 73), Soldo, Heldt, Szabics, Kuranyi. Subs Not Used: Heinen, Amanatidis, Centurion, Cacau. Booked: Tiffert. Goals: Szabics 50, Kuranyi 52.
MAN UTD: Howard, Gary Neville, O'Shea (Fortune 65), Silvestre, Ferdinand (Forlan 82), Phil Neville, Keane, Scholes, Ronaldo (Fletcher 90), van Nistelrooy, Giggs. Subs Not Used: Carroll, Butt, Bellion, Djemba-Djemba. Booked: Gary Neville. Goals: van Nistelrooy 67 pen.
Referee: Cosimo Bolognino (Italy)
