A crowd of 58,228 packed into a wet Optus Stadium to watch Manchester United and Aston Villa play out an entertaining draw in the second and final game of ICON’s Festival of International Football.
Jadon Sancho’s volley and an own goal by Matty Cash had United two goals up at the break but Leon Bailey’s solo effort and a Callum Chambers header with the last action of the game made it 2-2 in front of what is a new record attendance for a football match at the venue.
The game was in doubt due to the heavy rain that fell in Perth over the last 24 hours but the pitch passed an inspection two hours before kick off.
Managers Erik ten Hag and Steven Gerrard fielded very strong sides from the outset, and there was considerably more early action than in the previous night’s game between Crystal Palace and Leeds United.
Both teams came close to scoring in the opening stages with Villa goalkeeper Emi Martinez saving superbly from Harry Maguire and Sancho, while Cash flashed a low shot just wide of the post at the other end.
It was United who opened the scoring in the 25th minute when Bruno Fernandes released Marcus Rashford. He played in the overlapping Luke Shaw and the left back’s cross was volleyed home by Sancho.
They continued to dominate and should have doubled their lead but Sancho took a heavy touch from Fernandes’ cross with the goal at his mercy.
It was 2-0 just before the break when Fred fed Sancho and he crossed to Rashford whose first time strike was going wide until it struck Cash and rebounded into the net.
Villa striker Ollie Watkins had a golden chance to reduce the arrears three minutes into the second half but his curling shot went wide.
Just moments later, Villa got their goal when Leon Bailey picked the ball up on the right wing and drove towards goal. He bamboozled Victor Lindelof with a series of stepovers before placing the ball beyond David De Gea’s reach into the bottom left corner.
It was almost 2-2 on 54 minutes but Bailey’s well struck shot from 25 yards was deflected just over the crossbar by Anthony Martial.
Bailey continued to cause United all sorts of problems and he was in on goal just after the hour mark and rounded De Gea but Harry Maguire was on hand to block his finish.
In true friendly style, both managers rang the changes with 25 minutes or so remaining, giving the crowd a chance to see some fringe players in action.
The quality of the pitch deteriorated even more in the closing stages, making difficult to string more than a handful of passes together.
However, Villa put together one final onslaught on the United goal and were rewarded when Calum Chambers rose highest to head home the equaliser from a corner.
“It was very difficult to play football tonight – the conditions were extremely tough for both sets of players,” said Gerrard afterwards.
“I was really pleased with a lot of our defensive shape first half but we got one or two things wrong and conceded goals on the back of that.
“We weren’t good enough in possession to create in the first half. Second half was totally different. I thought our performance deserved to take something from the game.”
For United, it was a disappointing end to what has been a good tour of Singapore and Australia – they won three and drew one of their four games.
“First half was a decent performance, 2-0 up, but, the second half, we came back out of the dressing room, we had control of the game and we gave it away,” said Ten Hag. “That’s not good so that is a lesson.
“For the players, for the team, I think we make a lot of progress, a lot of positive aspects. I would say also, at the end, a setback, but it’s also part of the season, a season is not always going up, you also have to have setbacks and have to deal with it.
A combined crowd figure of 92,147 watched the two games at Optus Stadium this weekend, short of the 105,480 total attendance for United’s games against Leeds and Perth Glory at the same venue in 2019.
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