Manchester United’s win may herald start of new glory and end of old football

It wasn’t a classic final. It’s hard to imagine anybody, not even the most devout of Manchester United fans, watching it back over and over, relishing the key moments.

Here’s the bit when Antony jinked about a bit and got fouled. Here’s the bit when Rafaël Varane won a header in a crowded box. Here’s the scrappy bit when Lisandro Martínez broke up an attack. If you like angry men shouting at each other in Portuguese, then you’ll have loved this: otherwise it was a game of note less for what it was than for what it meant.

This mattered. That’s why it was so tetchy. More than 40,000 Newcastle fans had poured south and engaged in a great celebration of their identity in Trafalgar Square. Their resources mean that these occasions should become increasingly common, that it shouldn’t be another 24 years before they’re in another but, for now, a final is an event to be experienced to the greatest possible degree: it may still be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Success is more familiar for Manchester United, but it had been six years since they had won a trophy and, anyway, this seems different. For the biggest clubs there are pots picked up almost by accident, just by hanging around in the right areas with enough good players, and there are those that feel as if they may be extremely significant, part of something special, and that’s where United are now under Erik ten Hag.

Finally, a decade after Sir Alex Ferguson retired, they have a leader capable of initiating a period of prolonged success. It’s possible that this final could stand, like Manchester City’s victory in the FA Cup final in 2011, like Chelsea’s victory in the 2005 League Cup final, like their own victory in the 1990 FA Cup final, as a major landmark: the start of a