Sunderland Shock Manchester United, Face City in Final

 2-2(pen.)

The second leg of the Capital One Cup semifinal between Manchester United and Sunderland took place today at Old Trafford.  Sunderland came into the match with a 2-1 lead having beaten United in the first match of the semifinal.  Manchester City already won the other spot in the final beating West Ham United 9-0 over their two semifinal matches.

Manchester United found a groove late in the first-half and scored on a set-piece.  Danny Welbeck was able to get a flick on a corner-kick to setup defender Jonny Evans.  Crashing the back-post, Evans finished with a header to level the aggregate score (37').  

The second-half of the match was played out with either side taking the lead and extra-time was therefore required.  Away-goals were not a factor in regulation, but now in extra-time, United's away goal in the first match gave them the lead.  Sunderland therefore had to score to keep their hopes alive.

No goals were scored in the first-half of extra-time, but in the last moments of the second-half two miracles occurred.  First Sunderland scored the goal they needed when defender Phillip Bardsley's shot ended up in the net.  Bardsley found a window to shoot and sent a weak rolling shot towards goal.  Keeper De Gea had the shot covered, but was not sure-handed and let the ball slip out of his grasp and into his goal (119').  

The late goal by Sunderland seemed like a death-blow to United and the fans started heading for the exits.  However they came running back to their seats when Hernandez saved them from defeat seconds later.  Januzaj played a ball across the face of goal and Hernandez was at the back-post to smash it home (120 +1').  

The late equalizer gave United a chance to win in a penalty shootout, no one more thankful than keeper De Gea.  Unfortunately for United the two hour match had taken its toll and their finishing from the spot was quite bad.  Januzaj and Rafael had their shots saved and Welbeck and Jones missed the target completely.  Sunderland only scored two of their penalty kicks, but it was enough to advance to the final.

The final will be played at Wembley Stadium on March 2nd.  It won't be an all Manchester final, but Manchester City are the easy favorites to win that match-up.  Anything can happen of course and Sunderland have shown serious resilience in their run to the final.