The UEFA Celebration Match was a football match played on 13 March 2007 as a celebration of both the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which laid the foundations for the European Union, and the 50th year of Manchester United's participation in UEFA competitions. Representatives felt it would be more appropriate to celebrate the landmark using a football match rather than another form of celebration. A Europe XI managed by Italian World Cup-winning manager Marcello Lippi played against Manchester United at Old Trafford, Manchester. The match was televised live on BBC Three in the United Kingdom and also streamed live via the BBC website. The £1.25 million raised went towards the Manchester United Foundation. The match was officiated by German referee Markus Merk.
Read more about UEFA Celebration Match: Match Details
Famous quotes containing the words celebration and/or match:
“No annual training or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its scarfs and banners, could import into the town a hundredth part of the annual splendor of our October. We have only to set the trees, or let them stand, and Nature will find the colored drapery,—flags of all her nations, some of whose private signals hardly the botanist can read,—while we walk under the triumphal arches of the elms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father’s dead.
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
Shore his old thread in twain.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)