How many games actually played Manchester United?

The 2-2 draw of Manchester United in Lyon on Thursday in the Europa League was, according to some online sources, their 6,000th football match.

The club, originally called Newton Heath, has certainly made a long way since it was formed by the Department of Carriage and Vagons of the local railway company in 1878-UN record (for now) 20 high-level English titles, 13 wins in FA Cup and being three times European champion is not a bad curriculum. Not to mention all the other various trophies that have collected over the years.

But was the match in France this week really the 6000 ° of Manchester United? Otherwise, how many games have actually played and why is there any doubt about the official figure? And while we are there, did Wayne Rooney actually, don’t break, the record of Sir Bobby Charlton’s goals for the club?

Here, Atletico will try to explain.

Why is there confusion?

The crucial point is what games they count as “official” games.

In modern football it is largely obvious which to do and which are not: the pre-installation friendlies are not official games but, once they are out of the way, each game within some form of recognized competition (therefore excluding the winter friendlies) played by the first team of a high-level club is added to record books.

However, the problem of the fact that the United has reached 6,000 on Thursday matches concerns four deceased competitions in which the club competed and if they held (and continued to hold) an official status or not.

The competitions in question are the Watney Cup, the Anglo-Italian Cup, the Super Cup Football League and the Football League Centenary Trophy.

What were these competitions?

The Watney Cup was held before the start of the season from 1970 to 1973. With some exceptions, it was contested by the eight teams that had scored the largest number of goals in the first four divisions of England in the previous countryside. It presents two teams of each division, but not those who played in Europe, nor the promoted sides. The Manchester United played three games of Watney Cup in 1970 and another in 1971. They lost in the final against the County of Derby in the first year and in the first round against the city of Halifax in the second.

Bobby Charlton (Hands On Hips) and United’s beaten players watch Derby celebrate their success Watney Cup in 1970 (Dick Williams /MirrorPix /Getty Images)

The Anglo-Italian Cup, as the name suggests, was a competition between the Club of England and Italy. United played four games in 1973 (its fourth staging), with these games that take place between mid -February and early May. Tommy Docherty’s team has been eliminated in the group stage after two wins and two draws.

The Football League Super Cup took place in the 1985-86 season for the six British clubs that had qualified for the European competition but could not occupy their places due to the ban imposed by UEFA following the disaster of the Heysel stadium in May 1985. United again played four games in this competition and were eliminated in groups. These games took place from September to December (the competition was not staged again due to the lack of general interest).

And finally, the Football League Centenary Trophy was held during the 1988-89 season to celebrate 100 years from the foundation of the Football English League.

The teams they had finished among the top eight in the first division the previous campaign was in competition and the United lost against Arsenal in the final at Villa Park in October, which was the third and final game of the competition. Sir Alex Ferguson was the Manchester United manager for the three games, we will talk about it later.

So this reaches a total of 15 games. If all of them counts as officers, United played 6,015 games in their history and the number 6,000 was their 2-1 victory over the rangers in the Europa League at Old Trafford on January 23.

But how many of these games were really and remain, official fixtures?

The club, which did not comment on the reference point of 6,000 games, does not consider these official matches. The data on their website that describe in detail the number of games in which their previous players were involved do not include apparitions in these competitions.

However, Opta, the main sports data and world analysis company that provides statistics for the best football championships all over the world, count the 15 games played as adequate games. The English national football archive, an online database that lists any official game played in the history of the country, also ranking these competitions as officers.

This largely because they were not friendly and, apart from the Wather Cup, they were all played in the season.

Of the four competitions, the Watney Cup is probably the one with the largest questioning point suspended, mainly because it took place before the start of the season. However, even if the four united games played in the competition are canceled by the records, they are still on 6,011.

United lines up before the Watney Cup final at the Derby’s Baseball Ground in 1970 (Peter Robinson/Empics via Getty Images)

This not only puts United beyond the sign of 6,000 games, opts and the position of the English national football archive raises some eccentric puzzles. It would have meant that Ferguson was responsible for 1,503 games, not the 1,500 ordered who were advertised when he retired in 2013.

Also, from this verdict, Ryan Giggs did so Not Reject the 758 Charlton appearance record in the Champions League final of 2008-still behind six games at that point while Charlton played four times in the Wather Cup and three times in the Anglo-Italian Cup, then for a total of 765 united games.

It is worth stressing that the matches in war that took place both during the first and the Second World War, are, unlike these four competitions, universally considered unofficial.

Are there other implications when they include those games?

Well, in particular, it would mean Rooney – which marked 253 times for the club from 2004 to 2017 – only equal Charlton’s longtime record for the club. He hasn’t broken it.

Charlton’s total has long been accepted to have been 249 goals but, according to the national national football archive, scored twice in the Watney Cup and twice in the Anglo-Italian Cup through those seven appearances which, if those games were really official, means that English actually ended with 253 goals when he left the club in 1973.

The problem was raised in the media when Rooney marked his 250 ° for the club, but only for the two goals of the Anglo-Italian Cup of Charlton. Since Rooney reached 253, it has become a controversial point. At the time, United stated that Charlton’s two goals-senated during his last united appearance, a 4-1 victory against Hellas Verona in May 1973-did not matter.

However, during the research process of this article, Atletico He discovered that Charlton scored two goals in the Watney Cup against reading in August 1970 which, if counted, would have left the level of two men at the top.

More trivially, if you count Bryan Robson’s goal in the Football League Super Cup in 1985, it would mean that he scored 100 goals for United, not 99.

Rooney is presented with a gold boot from Charlton in 2017 after becoming the top scorer of the club of all time – but was it? (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

How do the other clubs see these competitions?

Interestingly, Liverpool took the opposite view to United. They have always claimed that Ian Rush has scored 346 goals for them, a total record that includes seven goals in the Football League Super Cup in 1986.

It may seem strange for an occasional observer who, in a sport also documented as football, two of its largest clubs do not agree on the state of the past competitions in which they participated. However, in the 70s and 80s, when companies like Opta did not exist, it largely depended on the clubs themselves – together with Rothmans’ soccer annual and newspapers – to record the results and details of the matches. So, without a central database on which to rely, comprehensible discrepancies have arisen.

It should also be noted that the state of the community shield formally the charity shield has caused similar problems in the past. The record of all times of Jimmy Greaves for Tottenham Hotspur was listed by the club, to be 266, but which excluded two goals in the 1962 setting against the city of Ipswich.

Harry Kane beat Greaves’ record in 2023 and ended with 280 goals, so now it is largely frivolous. Yet Opta, the English national football archive and almost all other clubs (including Manchester United), Do Consider the shield of the community as an official game.

The prolific Greaves between Ron Yeats of Liverpool (left) and Tommy Smith in 1965 (Alsport UK/Allsport)

Back to United. Were the games in these four competitions official?

Since mostly other clubs Do It counts the games in which they played in these competitions as officers and which also opts and the English national football archive make, it seems reasonable to conclude that all 15 games were legitimate and therefore the 6000 points were reached at the end of January. In the same way, we should conclude that Charlton actually scored 253 goals for Manchester United.

After all, the trophies were distributed to the conclusion of each competition. Do not count them, explains these tournaments from history without an incontrovertible reason.

However, rightly or mistakenly, Manchester United has long taken over the games in these four unofficial competitions, so they will barely tear their record books at any time soon.

And while clearly there are more important problems in the football of this, it is at least a curiosity that one of the most famous clubs in the world ignores four competitions in which their first team has played.

(Photo above: Peter Robinson/Empics via Getty Images)