Graphic: rampaging Rooney

Easy like a Sunday morning, Manchester United were crowned champions of the world in Yokohama yesterday. Despite playing almost the entire second half with ten men after the dismissal of Nemanja Vidic, the central defender, United were never less than settled against Liga de Quito, the first Copa Libertadores champions from Ecuador, and won with a stunning finish from Wayne Rooney.

This has been Rooney’s tournament and that much was confirmed when he was given the Golden Ball award for best player, for which he was presented with a car, although not one he would be seen dead driving. Not that Rooney is in need of modern transportation anyway, his best work, as ever, being done on Shanks’s pony and running more smoothly than any limousine. It was not just that he scored again, his third goal in the tournament despite featuring for only 108 minutes, or the sublime manner in which he did so. No, the most impressive element of Rooney’s display was the work he put in to ensure that United went global with their domination of the sport in the year 2008.

At one time, with United already reduced in numbers Patrice Evra, the left back, went on one of his boisterous forward runs, only for the move to break down, leaving him hopelessly out of position. Who was it who chased the length of the field to cover as a full back? Rooney. Carlos Tévez was unhappy at making way for Jonny Evans, the reserve centre back, after Vidic was sent off, but the reality is that Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, had no choice but to remove a forward and on this form it was never going to be the Englishman.

Cristiano Ronaldo is still all tricks and flicks and the Japanese crowd oohed and aahed as if at a particularly extravagant firework display, but it is Rooney who is the shooting star of the United team this season and his finish, in the 73rd minute, was fittingly world class.

Michael Carrick slipped the ball to Ronaldo, whose sly pass to Rooney was as perfect as the brilliant low shot that went across José Cevallos, the goalkeeper, and into the bottom corner of his net. Mentally, Ferguson was already preparing for penalties by this time, because if United were unable to break down Liga de Quito with 11 men, he did not much fancy his chances with ten. Rooney changed that, as the greatest players will. “We had to be patient and hope that Cristiano or Wayne did something special,” Ferguson said. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

The Ecuadorean side were, it must be said, something of a disappointment, leading several observers to suggest that United will face a more ambitious team on Boxing Day, away to Stoke City. This is a little unfair. Liga de Quito accepted that they were underdogs going into this game and set out their stall accordingly. They were rugged in defence, and Alejandro Manso and Claudio Bieler, the forwards, gave United the occasional scare, but the midfield was inadequate by comparison and focused only on containment.

“They didn’t really want to play,” Edwin van der Sar, the Manchester United goalkeeper, sniffed. “When they broke, only four players came out and even in the second half they did not leave their shell.”

“We have played against better South American teams,” Ferguson said. “They had nobody even as good as Yasuhito Endo, the playmaker from Gamba Osaka.”

And, no, they did not. Endo was the best footballer United faced here; yet despite Liga de Quito’s lack of imagination going forward, it needed a wonderful save by Van der Sar from a long-range shot by Manso in the 89th minute to stop the game being decided from the spot.

“We came a long way to win this and I hope it will be a springboard for us,” Ferguson said. “The spirit of the team won the day. It would have been difficult to go back with beaten players, but we won it, and won it the right way, and there will be a bounce about the club and the players now. I said from the start that in 30 years I wanted people to look back and see our name on this trophy. I will not be around by then, but maybe I will look at it with pride tomorrow instead.”

So comfortable were United that they had to factor in their own difficulty, and did so after 48 minutes, when Vidic tangled with Bieler and, on getting up, used the Argentinian’s face as a launch pad. It was narky more than brutal, but once Bieler had finished rolling some ten yards away, Ravshan Irmatov, the referee from Uzbekistan, raised a predictable red card, leaving United to make frantic adjustments to their game plan.

This made for a quieter second half. Until then, a familiar curse of missed chances had afflicted United and Rooney, Tévez and Park Ji Sung went close on more than one occasion. Perversely, though, the best opportunity to score early fell to Liga de Quito, and Jairo Campos, the full back, is probably still wondering how he came to miss such an open target from such close range. It is to United’s fortune that he did, however, the Ecuadorean side looking one of those teams that know how to keep a lead once attained.

What they did not have is a player like Rooney. A match-winner of stunning individuality one minute and the most disciplined team player the next. This is the second tournament he has dominated, after the 2004 European Championship with England, and it will not have been lost on Fabio Capello, his international manager. Rooney is a big-game player and while Ronaldo mugged for the cameras with his Silver Ball, awarded to the second-best player in the competition, he knows that on this occasion he was outshone. “After I’d had a shower, I looked at my phone and there was a text from a friend saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re a world champion’ and it hit me,” Rooney said. “We came to win it, and we did it.” He made it seem so simple; probably because it was.

Liga de Quito (4-4-1-1): J Cevallos 6 J Campos 6 R Calle 6 N Araujo 6 D Calderón 6 N Reasco 5 W Araujo 5 P Urrutia 5 L Bolaños 5 A Manso 6 C Bieler 7 Substitutes: P Ambrosi (for Calle, 76min), P Larrea (for Reasco, 82), R Navia (for Bolaños, 87). Not used: A DomÍnguez, D Viteri, A Obregón, A Delgado, E Vaca, D Vaca, I Chango.

Manchester United (4-2-4): E van der Sar 8 Rafael Da Silva 6 R Ferdinand 6 N Vidic 5 P Evra 7 Anderson 6 M Carrick 7 Park Ji Sung 6 W Rooney 8 C Tévez 6 C Ronaldo 7 Substitutes: J Evans 6 (for Tévez, 51min), G Neville (for Rafael, 84), D Fletcher (for Anderson, 87). Not used: T Kuszczak, D Berbatov, R Giggs, Nani, P Scholes, D Welbeck, J O’Shea, D Gibson, B Amos. Next: Stoke City (a).

Referee R Irmatov (Uzbekistan) Attendance 62,619

Clash of continents’ combustible history

The dismissal of Nemanja Vidic, the defender, for elbowing Claudio Bieler was an echo of the club’s violent meetings with Estudiantes in 1968 in the Intercontinental Cup, the predecessor of the Club World Cup. Nobby Stiles was sent off in the first leg in Argentina, which the home side won 1-0, and George Best and José Hugo Medina were dismissed after a late flare-up at Old Trafford as the visiting team drew 1-1 to claim the trophy.