FRIENDLY matches are opportunities to look at nonfirst team regulars and 68,868 spectators spilled into the sunny streets around Old Trafford with the same thought: “That substitute wasn’t bad.”

Introduced with 25 minutes (including stoppage time) remaining, Manchester United’s fresh-featured and eager replacement forward sent an electric current through the action and turned the game. Of course he did. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says you could always tell what impact he would have when coming off the bench by the way he ran on to the field. If it was going to be a good one you would see a spring in his stride. On shot knees, with a 35-year-old’s shrinking muscles, Solskjaer bounded on to the turf yesterday. He got a standing ovation just for warming up but it will be a source of pride that he had the stadium on its feet not through sentiment but admiration once the football came to his feet.

There was to be no last, sweet goal for the Norwegian to savour. Fairytales are for the young, but ending his playing career with this final cameo a year after his last competitive appearance, there were still a few moments of goosebump-in-ducing virtuosity in the penalty box left for Solskjaer to produce. Leave them wanting more. “You never know,” smiled Sir Alex Ferguson when an interviewer joked about asking Solskjaer to play in United’s opening game of the Premier League season, at Newcastle. “If we brought him on in the last five or 10 minutes he wouldn’t let us down. He has a knack, it never leaves you,” said Ferguson, serious.

Being Solskjaer, being self-deprecating, the man himself had been worried about embarrassing himself yesterday. He wondered if he could last 20 minutes and didn’t want to be “crap” for the supporters who, turning out in a number only a few hundred short of the British record for a testimonial game, helped him raise close to £2m, from which he plans to build 10 schools in Africa through Unicef. His fears proved groundless, though it is true to say that as the final whistle trilled and he raised his arms in front of the Stretford End he looked shattered. Minutes later Solskjaer addressed Old Trafford via a microphone and, wet-eyed, said: “These last 25 minutes here I’ll remember for the rest of my life”.

You knew the substitute had something about him from the way he received his first pass, out on the right, and floated the ball over Espanyol’s central defenders to almost play Ryan Giggs in. The magic came in two puffs, a minute apart. It was 0-0, United had a free kick on the edge of the area, and Solskjaer chipped a disappointing effort into the wall. The stadium sighed but Frazier Campbell gathered possession, crossed to Giggs, a flick on found Solskjaer and, suddenly, a shot was screaming from the striker’s left instep towards the far top corner of Alvarez Cristian’s net. The goalkeeper stretched for a spectacular save.

Then, in United’s next attack, Solskjaer accepted the ball on the edge of the area, faked a pass to his right and checked inside before driving another shot towards goal. It was an even better effort than his first, struck with power and accuracy. Cristian just managed to block but its force meant he could not catch it and the ball spilled to Giggs, who could have scored.

United controlled the play but had not pursued victory with alacrity and an Espanyol side blessed with the technical proficiency expected of any leading Spanish side were threatening to spoil the party by scoring on a breakaway. There had been some niggle, principally involving Daniel Jarque, who seemed intent on hurting Carlos Tevez, and - as is his curious wont in friendlies - Paul Scholes.

Nani had thrilled sporadically during the opening passage, Scholes, Tevez and Nemanja Vidic missed chances but did well to fasten onto them none-theless. Of Ferguson’s youngsters, Campbell and Danny Simpson showed promise. There had not, though, been quite enough to satisfy a public seeking a party until Solskjaer bounded on and a few minutes after his brace of efforts, his influence helped Campbell score a winning goal.

One of Solskjaer’s first acts on entering the fray was to advise the young striker to start changing his movement. And so, with eight minutes left, Giggs sent a lovely pass through Espanyol’s defence and there was Campbell, having lost his markers by peeling to the flank, darting back to the middle to receive the ball and scoop a finish over Cristian. When legends talk, listen.

“Legend” is an overused word in football, but appropriate for Solskjaer, who is loved as much for himself as his achievements. His schools-building campaign will not stop following this testimonial. He is committed to keep helping African children, one day, to have built “20-30” schools in some of its poorest countries.

After the match he went to a studio inside Old Trafford and hosted a live telethon programme broadcast in Norway. “What he’s doing tells you about his humanity and the feeling he has for life. It’s the kind of thing you expect from Ole,” Ferguson said.

Solskjaer’s last steps wearing a playing jersey were around the perimeter of the pitch at Old Trafford, cradling his newborn baby, Elijah, and with his other two children, Noah and Karna. He received another standing ovation and United’s players were waiting to clap him down the tunnel. Everything important to Solskjaer was symbolised in that tableau: his family closest to him, his colleagues part of it, his public smiling. Good guys don’t always win, but they can never lose.

Real not giving up on Ronaldo

The future of United star Cristiano Ronaldo remains in doubt after Real Madrid boss Bernd Schuster maintained that his club were still pursuing a bid, believed to be around £68m, for the player. “We don’t have any doubts that the club is working hard to get a solution to this matter,” Schuster said yesterday. “It will obviously not be easy for him to come to Madrid but put the question to any coach and all of them would say they’d love to have a player like Ronaldo.” The Portuguese is understood to still hold out hope for such a move and it could trigger off a transfer chain that sees Robinho depart Madrid for Chelsea and United using the proceeds of a sale to up their bid for Spurs’ Dimitar Berbatov.

So farewell then, Ole

■ Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s testimonial yesterday came 12 years after he joined Manchester United, aged 23, from Norwegian club Molde for £1.5m. Although the striker usually started matches on the bench, he soon picked up the nickname, ‘the baby-faced assassin’, for his ability to plunder goals and his boyish looks

■ He won six League titles and two FA Cups at United. His greatest moment, however, came in 1999 when he came on to score the last-minute winner in the European Cup final against Bayern Munich in the Nou Camp, to give United an unprecedented ‘Treble’

■ In total, he made 366 appearances for the club, the last coming in scoring 126 goals before a knee injury ended his career in the summer of 2007. He holds the club record for most goals scored as a substitute. He also won 67 caps for Norway, with 23 international goals

■ Since retiring, he has been appointed United’s reserve team coach, and is also a UNICEF ambassador and the youngest recipient of Norway’s equivalent of a knighthood