Manchester United’s Manuel Ugarte was the unlikely match winner as he smashed home a winner in the 101st minute of action to give Uruguay a 3-2 win over Colombia in World Cup qualifying.
The Uruguayan has had an up and down start to his Old Trafford career with some poor performances to start off the season.
Lately though, he seems to have found his feet and will hope that the arrival of his old manager, Ruben Amorim, will be the shot in the arm his United career needs.
He was originally left out of the starting eleven and was only brought on in the 68th minute of play, being given a score of 7.1 on Sofascore.
Before the goal, he had a quiet game, only having 10 touches of the ball and completing seven out of nine passes for a pass completion rate of 78%.
The usually combative midfielder was not his usual self in this regard, only competing in one ground duel and winning his one aerial battle.
Nonetheless, a very subdued performance was sparked into life in the dying embers of the contest.
After conceding an equaliser in the 96th minute of play, Uruguay frantically launched the ball forward in Montevideo and former United man, Facundo Pellistri, won the ball and knocked it down for the onrushing Ugarte to smash the ball into the net from the edge of the area to send the arena into raptures.
It was the defensive midfielder’s first goal for his country in his 27th appearance and incredibly, was his first strike since the 2021/2022 season with Sporting Lisbon.
Whilst Ugarte’s main strengths are to press and win the ball back in the middle of the park, he will be hopeful that this crucial last minute goal will give him the confidence to launch his United career.
The win for La Celeste means they leapfrog Colombia in second place in the league table and are now only three points off Argentina at the top of the tree.
Ugarte will hope to gain a start in his nation’s next match when they travel to Brazil on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning UK time) in a mouth-watering tie.
Featured image Ernesto Ryan via Getty Images
Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
