Ann Killion:
Manchester United beats Real Madrid at Levi’s Stadium, but marketing is the real winner.
Two of the most powerful brands in sports took the field at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday. And, in a fitting end, they kind of, sort of, tied.
Mostly even in apparent fan support. Probably in merchandise sales. And, sort of, on the field.
The score of the meaningless game was 1-1 after regulation. Manchester United ended up defeating Real Madrid 2-1 in penalty kicks after one of the worst displays of PKs in perhaps the history of soccer.
But no matter. There were stars on the field. There were jerseys and shields. There was branding.
Manchester United and Real Madrid are two of the three most valuable soccer teams in the world (FC Barcelona tops the list) and two of the top five most valuable sports franchises in the world (the Cowboys and Yankees are tops), according to Forbes magazine.
Though these clubs don’t have a traditional rivalry — different countries, different leagues — they have the type of rivalry that all alpha dogs have. They have competed for the same superstars: David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo are among the global brands who have left Manchester for Madrid.
And they are competing for the hearts and minds of global soccer fans, who number in the billions.
There were tens of thousands of them on hand Sunday. The official announced attendance was 65,109 and it was pretty real. The stands — save for the usual swaths of empty club seats on the sunbaked side — appeared quite a bit fuller than during any 49ers game last season that didn’t feature Tom Brady.
It was a hot day in Santa Clara, and fans on the Easy Bake side of the stadium weren’t the only ones unhappily dealing with the heat. The bench players for both teams, accustomed to being under sideline shelters that protect them from sun and rain, tried to take shelter under towels and jackets. I was told from a stadium source that the teams didn’t want the shelters. So the sunburns were on them.
The teams stopped for a water break midway through each half, which used to be something that U-12 teams did when playing in Stockton in the summer but is becoming more and more common. Though the English journalists noted that the warm weather was foreign for the Manchester players — it was raining and 60 degrees in Manchester on Sunday — most of the players on the field were from climes other than northern England.
It makes one wonder how those games at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will go.
That is one of challenges of this tour for the European clubs. They are dealing with heat, altitude, long travel distances. It will make playing back in their small countries and contained leagues seem relatively easy.
The superstar managers of the teams seemed OK with the conditions.
“Overall, I’m very happy,” said Real Madrid’s manager, Zinedine Zidane. “For our first game, we did quite well. We had no injuries. We competed well against a team that already has four or five games under their belt.”
Supposedly, the tour is about physical challenges and getting in shape. But in reality, it is about showcasing some of the biggest brands in sports for an American audience officials hope is hungry for high-quality soccer and groomed for fandom through increased access to the world’s best over the past decade.
The lineups Sunday were fairly star-studded, though the biggest star of the lot, Ronaldo, was not there. Excused from the tour, after playing in the Champions League and Confederations Cups, because of his newborn twins, he was actually in Singapore over the weekend.
Captain Sergio Ramos was also missing, because of injury, though Zidane said he is close to returning.
Still, Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric, Marcelo and Tony Kroos were all on the field for Real Madrid.
Real’s starting goalkeeper, Keylor Navas, was in the net, which might be one reason that the United States will play in the Gold Cup final on the same field Wednesday night. Navas is Costa Rican, but because he is on tour with his professional team, his backup — 35-year-old Patrick Pemberton — was in goal for Costa Rica in the semifinal Saturday. Pemberton gave up two second-half goals.
Manchester United fielded Michael Carrick, Marouane Fellaini and Marcus Rashford, the 19-year old who is slated to be England’s next big star. Manchester kept some of the other stars on the bench. The team is marking a new era without Wayne Rooney, who returned to his original team, Everton, this month. Recently signed Belgian striker Romelu Lakaku — who was brought in from Everton — was on the bench for the first half, but played in the second, when both teams made massive substitutions.
Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard scored the only goal in the run of play, in extra time of the first half. Casemiro scored on a penalty kick in the 69th minute to even the score.
The penalty kicks after time expired were a fiasco, with only Luis Miguel Quezada making one for Real and Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Lingard connecting for Man U.
Manchester manager Jose Mourinho wasn’t too concerned about whether his team won or lost.
“Far more important than the results is the work,” he said. “We’re trying different things. Players are getting their form.”
The two teams will meet again in two weeks, in the UEFA Super Cup in Macedonia. In theory, that Aug. 8 meeting will mean more than the one Sunday, on a hot July day half a world away from home.
But the subtext to what happened at Levi’s wasn’t results. It was marketing and branding, more powerful than any score.