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Benfica, Estadio da Luz; the very names are magical. Vivid memories of time and place are associated with tragedy; the Munich air crash, President Kennedy’s assassination, the Twin Towers’ collapse. For United fans my age there is a joyous one. Where were you on 9 March 1966 when you first heard the news?

The team upon whose mighty works we fans had looked and despaired and whom our team dismantled that night with five goals in mesmeric, breathtaking, balletic perfection of the beautiful game, have not been Champions of Europe since. Five times defeated finalists; how painful must that be!

The day is long gone when the ageing maestro Francisco Gento swallowed the disappointment of European Cup Final defeat and walked over to Eusebio to offer him his legendary number eleven shirt in homage to the teenager’s brilliance. Yet Portuguese football has become strong again and Benfica, runners-up in their league last season and still unbeaten this, are no mean side, especially at home where attacking principles are immanent and they were seeking their seventh consecutive win in this competition.

United have history in Portugal. Not only the scene of our greatest flourish it is also that of our most humbling European defeat at the hands of Sporting Club in 1964 when we became the first side to lose a three goal first leg lead. Our greatest European Cup Final was against Benfica. Estadio da Luz, named not by some marketing director but after the local parish church was the setting for Eric Cantona’s United debut (Eusebio’s testimonial in December 1992) and for our ignominious European exit in 2005. Up the coast, of course, it was a performance in a hastily arranged pre-season friendly in 2003 which persuaded our astonished players to tell Ferguson to sign the young Cristiano Ronaldo.

This country, this City, and particularly this Cathedral, as their fans call it, therefore made an appropriate setting in which to open this season’s European campaign, even if the match itself was unlikely to match the history.

Having swept all opposition aside in the league so far with a side based upon talented youth, Sir Alex Ferguson weighed up his options and resorted in greater degree to those players more experienced in Europe. Seven of the starting line-up also started in last season’s European Cup Final and Darren Fletcher’s return from illness was most welcome. Five of these were getting their first competitive starts this season.

Our most valuable experience in these situations, a mean central defence, was indisposed and behind its inchoate replacement Ferguson selected Anders Lindegaard in goal. Sir Alex became extremely tetchy when Kelly Cates with a microphone afterwards asked if Lindegaard, having done so well, would play against Chelsea. It was a perfectly reasonable question; surely his ire cannot have been because she is Kenny Dalglish’s daughter? In maintaining his understandable refusal to acknowledge publicly David de Gea’s little moments our manager protesteth too much methinks.

We began well enough with Antonio Valencia on the right wing speeding past his man; goalkeeper Artur plucked the cross out of the air with Rooney waiting. But soon our midfield looked sluggish and devoid of inspiration. Worse, most of our players at one point or another carelessly ceded possession. When we did move forward it was generally through long passes to the lone striker and they were not getting through. Rooney had to fall back in search of the ball. It was difficult to tell whether it was lack of match fitness among so many, or the re-adoption of the lone striker formation, but the performance was reminiscent of last season rather than reflective of this. When our manager declares a draw the fair result you can guess it was a touch fortunate.

As Benfica took a hold of the match Nicolás Gaitán looked particularly dangerous; fortunately his first shot was over, his cracking volley whistled wide. When Michael Carrick became the latest to give away the ball Gaitán produced what looked like a killer ball for Ruben Amorim but Jonny Evans intercepted at a stretch and Lindegaard saved the resulting drive from Óscar Cardozo.

It was ineluctable that the goal should come from the same source. Gaitán’s cross from the left was superbly controlled with the outside of his foot for Cardozo on the edge of the area. Evra was slow to come to Evans’ help and Cardozo turned our young Irishman and drove a fine goal inside Lindegaard’s right hand post; 24 minutes 0-1.

Things looked dark for a while as the local support reached full volume. Chris Smalling was the last man and did very well to tackle Gaitán. When Ryan Giggs gave the ball away it was Valencia who rescued us, when Fábio da Silva’s mistimed clearance fell to earth it was Smalling who blocked the shot.

The equaliser was intersilient. Fábio’s challenge broke up a Benfica move on the half way line, Carrick found Valencia with a short pass and Valencia delivered the ball for Giggs’ diagonal run. A day short of seventeen years ago he had scored his first European goals, against Gothenburg. A spirit of activity and life that fades not, he needed one touch in a twenty yard run to the edge of the area and with his second touch, as the defender came hurtling out, he reversed a balladromic drive of great ferocity inside the post; 42 minutes 1-1.

Fortunate to be level United might have scored again immediately when a move between Evra and Rooney swept the length of the field and Giggs’ cross was met at the far post by Ji-Sung Park.

We played further up the field for a while after the interval and had some good moments; Valencia’s cross shot traversed the goalmouth with nobody quite sharp enough or well placed enough to convert it. Park was robbed of the ball just as he got through to shoot, then made a great run along the bye line; how was his cutback not read by anyone? Rooney found Giggs whose dance took him past three defenders on the edge of the area only to see his shot hit the spread goalkeeper and drift wide.

The better chances fell to Benfica. When Valencia lost the ball we were lucky that Cardozo used his hand to control the cross. When Pereira got through on our left his shot came off both posts but he was offside. Benfica brought on Nolito, a young man recruited from the Barcelona reserves who has become the first Benfica player since Eusebio to score on each of his first five appearances. You could see how.

When Gaitán put him through his shot from the left had goal written on it but for a magnificent save by Lindegaard, then our understudy goalkeeper did well to get to a freakish bounce as he broke clear. We were still facing a long half hour as the pressure and the atmosphere built. The withdrawal of Fletcher and Valencia for Nani and Javier Hernández looked optimistic at best in the light of the defensive reputations of the new arrivals.

Nani, however, did his bit with an immediate and important tackle and he headed clear two corners. We were finding it difficult to escape our half of the field and Lindegaard had to save twice from Gaitán, the second an excellent tip over from a dipping drive. When Phil Jones came on for Fábio and crossed for Park after a Giggs-inspired move it was welcome respite.

We have, I suspect, none of us sought appropriate counselling after the trauma of those late goals in the Alliantz sixteen months ago and as this match reached its climax it was heart-in-mouth time as Nolito tricked his way from the touchline past Nani and Carrick and seemingly half the team, only to scuff his shot as the ball broke to him off Smalling. Other than an optimistic forty five yard lob from Cardozo, though, this was their last throw.

The record books will show a creditable draw in what looks on paper the most difficult of our group matches. It certainly was not easy and not for the first time in United history survival was largely thanks to a Welsh winger and a Danish goalkeeper.

Paul Andrew James