Alejandro Garnacho scored his first senior goal to help Manchester United produce one of the narrow football results of the midweek action in the Europa League. As a result, United comes in second place in Group E, trailing Sociedad on goal differential, and will now face a third-place Champions League team in a two-legged play-off round in February. United needed to defeat Sociedad by two goals at San Sebastian in order to pass Sociedad, and they got off to the perfect start when teenager Garnacho handled Cristiano Ronaldo’s lovely through ball before advancing and scoring in the 17th minute. The 18-year-old scored, passing George Best to become United’s youngest non-English goal scorer in a European match.
Ten minutes after the Argentine’s miss, Ronaldo almost missed a wonderful opportunity to increase United’s lead just before halftime when he hoisted his shot over the crossbar. David de Gea’s superb double saves guaranteed that United had the necessary lead at halftime, but despite the arrivals of Marcus Rashford and substitute striker Harry Maguire, they were unable to score the crucial second goal after the break. On Monday, the play-off draw for the Europa League will be held. United will learn who they will play in the following round as the runners-up, and prospective opponents include Ten Hag’s former team Ajax, Barcelona, and Juventus.
The draw for the Europa League play-offs will take place on November 7 at noon at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. To play the eight third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage, the eight Europa League group runners-up will be seeded. The eight Europa League group winners are exempt from the draw and receive byes to the round of 16. They will be seeded and matched up against one of the eight playoff-round winners on February 24. However, neither the play-off round nor the round of 16 can match up two teams from the same national association.
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