Mancunia FC 1–2 Pendle Athletic: a timely arrival

Opinion

It is a particular kind of misery to be Mancunia FC. To play eighty-nine minutes of football only to find the result slipping away in the final breath is a tradition they seem determined to uphold. Honorio Otálora provided the killing blow in the 90th minute on Friday 7 August, ensuring Mancunia could leave the pitch with nothing but a sense of vague disorientation.

Otálora is, by all accounts, a one for the future. He spent most of the afternoon behaving like a bag of sand, drifting unnoticed through the midfield. Then, with the clinical indifference of a man checking his watch, he found the net just as the Mancunia defenders decided it was nearly time for a tea break. It was a precise, cruel piece of work.

Pendle Athletic will claim this is a turning point. They will talk about character and the grit required to win away from home. In reality, they simply had one player who remembered where the goal was located while everyone else was thinking about the commute home. Mancunia, meanwhile, have a knack for making a defeat feel like a personal failing.

There is little time to reset. The league does not care for mourning periods, and Pendle will be looking forward to the next fixture with a renewed, smug confidence. Mancunia have to figure out why they keep letting the door swing open at the exact moment the match is ending. Typical, really.