Conceding early on debut was not the start Andre Onana had hoped for
Houston's NRG Stadium was the venue for Ederson’s debut for Manchester City in 2017 when the Brazil goalkeeper got off to a shaky start on his debut against Manchester United.
Ederson unwisely raced out of his goal in Texas that night to challenge Romelu Lukaku near the touchline, and the United striker got there first to score in an empty net from a tight angle.
It was an embarrassing start for Ederson and Pep Guardiola, not least because the City boss had brought in the Brazilian for his ability to command his box and play with the ball at his feet after bombing out Joe Hart.
It’s fair to say, the move hasn’t worked out too badly for Ederson and Guardiola having won 14 trophies together at the Etihad.
By comparison, Andre Onana conceding a goal little more than five minutes into his Manchester United debut at the same stadium against Real Madrid on Wednesday night wasn’t quite on the same scale.
True, it wasn’t the start Onana would have wanted, but he couldn’t be faulted after Jude Bellingham showed wonderful skill to control Antonio Rudiger’s pass and dink the ball over the Cameron keeper who had raced off his line to block.
Nor could Onana have stopped Real’s second goal in the dying minutes when he was beaten by a close range scissor kick from Joselu.
In between, he made two smart saves from Vinicius Junior and Joselu to keep United in the game.
There was probably more interest in the keeper’s ability with the ball at his feet, after United paid Inter Milan £47.1million to sign him having decided that David de Gea couldn’t give manager Erik ten Hag what he wanted in that department.
Onana certainly didn’t disappoint on his debut after just a week of training with his new teammates. He looked more than comfortable on the
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