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On that day, April 5, 2009, the player scored a late goal in a crucial five-goal thriller against Aston Villa, a goal made even more iconic by commentary by Martin Tyler on "Machedaaa!"
Faced with a dangerous team from the Villa, who had already finished sixth of the season and would do it again, United entered the match after consecutive defeats in the Premier League. One was a disastrous and humiliating 4-1 home defeat by Liverpool, the other a shock over the 2-0 defeat to Fulham after the expulsion of Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes.
The Sir Alex Ferguson team then had to suspend these results for a fortnight, with the clubs' football having been put on hold to allow an international break.
Liverpool's victory at Old Trafford and the 5-0 win over Aston Villa had reduced United's game to the top of the Premier League by just one point. Earlier on April 5, Liverpool had recorded another victory against Fulham, the enemy of United two weeks ago, to score two points in advance.
United, the Premier League champion and European champion at the time, was under enormous pressure to end the situation and stop the slide. If they had lost this match against Villa and the momentum remained in the hands of Liverpool, who knows what could have happened.
Things seemed to be going well, at least when Cristiano Ronaldo converted an indirect free kick in 14 minutes, punishing Villa Brad Friedel goalkeeper for recovering James Milner's backhand pbad. John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor reversed the situation by scoring two goals for visitors on either side of the half.
United had to win, but it was strange to see Ferguson turn almost immediately to Macheda, while his team was lagging behind. There was still half an hour left to play, but Nani was hooked and the kid was gone.
It was a player who was still four months ahead of his 18th birthday and had just signed his first professional contract eight months earlier and had never been named to the bench for a first team match. He was a complete stranger.
United equalized in the 80th minute when Ronaldo swung one leg against the ball on the penalty box and beat Friedel with the low shot, his second of the match and his 20th of the season.
Still looking for the winner, Ferguson then removed Carlos Tevez to 18-year-old Danny Welbeck. With Rooney suspended and the record hired, Dimitar Berbatov injured, many would have expected Welbeck to be the first youngster to whom Ferguson had turned. He was older and more experienced than Macheda and had already scored for the first team of the season.
In the end, it was perhaps Welbeck and not Macheda who made the headlines for scoring the winning goal that day, but for a nice stop Friedel.
At the key point of the stoppage, Macheda received the ball, but failed to beat his marker as he turned to the goal. The lost ball fell on Ryan Giggs and the young United is shown again. When the pbad came, the easiest option would have been to take a touch to his left and maybe get a cross shot in the middle of the area where his teammates were waiting. Instead, the flawless confidence of youth inspired him to touch him at the back of the heel, right, and to launch a fluid effort for a curling in the bottom of the goal.
Friedel could not reach it as the ball flew into the net and Old Trafford made his appearance. Macheda then ran to the corner flag in a jubilant party, teammates thrilled and shocked, probably to the same extent, suspending him.
"I'm happy for my debut, I'm very happy," said the English teenager broke after the match doing his best to speak in front of Sky Sports cameras in the tunnel.
The three points ended United's losing streak and sent the team to the top of the Premier League standings. The victory also inspired a series of six straight wins in the league, while the club also continued to advance in the Champions League, reaching a second final in two years.
Liverpool continued to win as well, losing just two points in their last seven games. But by the time United face Arsenal at Old Trafford in the penultimate game of the season, he only had one point left to secure a third consecutive Premier League title.
Macheda himself has played three other Premier League games this season after his exploits at the Villa, scoring even more, although this time is a stroke of luck, against Sunderland in the next game.
The teenager then played 10 first-team matches in 2009/10 and 12 in 2010/11, but it finally became clear that his future would remain far from United. Borrowings in Sampdoria, QPR, Stuttgart, Doncaster and Birmingham followed, before his release in 2014 and his integration in Cardiff.
After only eight goals in Wales, Macheda took out a loan from Nottingham Forest (below), but he left English football a year later in 2016 when he joined the team. Serie B Novara in his country, Italy. This season, at the age of 27, he settled in Greece to sign for Panathianaikos and seems destined to continue his nomadic journeyman career.
Of course, with respect to his Manchester United cult hero status because of those who set a few seconds in April 2009, none of this is of any importance.
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