It’s difficult to think of a more memorable first team debut than Federico Macheda’s for Manchester United.
The picture was as follows: Manchester United had to beat Aston Villa at Old Trafford in order to leapfrog Liverpool into 1st place of the Barclays Premier League table. However, United were 2-1 down with an hour gone facing a third league defeat in a row.
This prompted Sir Alex Ferguson to bring on untested 17 year old Federico ‘Kiko’ Macheda into the fray with the hopes of 75,000 inside Old Trafford and many millions around the world on his shoulders.
By the 89th minute, United had equalised thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo scoring his 15th league goal of the season 9 minutes earlier. In almost a sign of desperation, another teenager had been brought on for United in Danny Welbeck replaced the largely ineffective Carlos Tevez. But by this time, Manchester United fans were already mourning Liverpool staying at the top of the League table for another week, as if being trounced 4-1 by their bitter rivals 3 weeks before wasn’t bad enough.
The events that followed Danny Welbeck’s introduction, however, would stay in the Manchester United faithful’s mind forever and for all the right reasons. United were on the counter, desperately still trying to find the winning goal. With almost 92 minutes on the clock Macheda had the ball just outside the box, but was tackled and the loose ball was picked up by Ryan Giggs. Giggs returned the ball to Macheda who, with his back to goal, turned inside the defender and unleashed an unstoppable strike into Brad Friedel’s goal. Old Trafford had erupted.
Manchester United returned the top of the table and were now on course to win their third Premier League title in a row and equal Liverpool’s record of 18 English League titles. And Federico Macheda had gone from relative unknown to Manchester United cult hero in the space of 24 hours.
Macheda was rewarded by being given a place on the bench for Manchester United’s next two games – the Champions League quarter-final first leg vs Porto (he didn’t feature and United drew 2-2) and the next Premier League match away to Sunderland.
The situation was, again, the same as the previous week’s. As Liverpool had convincingly beaten Blackburn 4-0 earlier, United needed a win to return to the summit of the Barclays Premier League table. And again, United faced themselves needing a goal after Kenwyne Jones’ 55th minute goal cancelled out Paul Scholes’ opener. On came Macheda on 75 minutes in place of Dimitar Berbatov.
Just fourty-six seconds after Macheda’s introduction he had struck again, this time flicking Michael Carrick’s shot into the net and United went on to win the game 2-1. It was extraordinary how the 17 year old Italian had played in total just over 45 minutes of Professional league club football for the biggest club in the world, and he had managed to score 2 goals (and gain 6 points) for them already.
Kiko played twice more for United in 2008/09, scoring no more goals but his name in the Manchester United history books were assured with his contributiin of two vital goals that led to United ultimately being crowned the Champions of England once again.
Since then, Macheda has only scored twice in 22 games for Manchester United, one being a consolation in a 2-1 defeat against Chelsea in 2009/10 and the other instigating a comeback against Aston Villa from 2-0 down in 2010/11. With mostly ineffective and underwhelming performances, many feel that the fame and limelight coming with the nature of his introduction into professional football got to his head. Of course, being thrust into stardom at 17 years old would take some getting used to for anybody.
With the emergence of Javier Hernandez into the Manchester United team this season and Michael Owen having more of an impact of games, Macheda slipped down to 5th in the United attack’s pecking order. Sir Alex Ferguson thought the best thing to do was to send him out on loan in order to get some playing time, and with reports of him feeling homesick too he was loaned to Italian club Sampdoria.
Macheda started off well, scoring in his first start for the club (and his second appearance), which was in the Last 16 of the Coppa Italia. After several months at the club Macheda seemed integral to Domenico di Carlo’s team, especially with the voids left by the departures of Antonio Cassano and Giampaolo Pazzini.
With League performances being average, di Carlo was subsequently sacked as Sampdoria manager and the more defensively minded Alberto Cavasin took the helm. Macheda and the club have since struggled due to the change of management, with Sampdoria being relegated to Serie B and Macheda only having the one goal to show from his 16 appearances. It is uncertain where Macheda will be next season, as his agent has admitted he could stay on loan at Samdoria and other sources claiming he doesn’t feature Sir Alex Ferguson’s long term plans.
And with Manchester United’s strike department looking fairly healthy at the moment, after Dimitar Berbatov and Javier Hernandez both scoring 20+ goals this season, Wayne Rooney re-establishing himself as one of the world’s best since the turn of the year and both Danny Welbeck and Mame Biram Diouf impressing on their loan spells with Premier League clubs (and scoring 6 goals each), it’s hard to see just where the dejected looking Macheda, who was once being touted as ‘the next big thing’, fits into Manchester United’s future.
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