Man Utd in spot-kick defeat
Manchester United´s youngsters covered themselves in glory but still lost out on penalties to Bayern Munich in their Champions World series match on Sunday.
After the game had finished goalless, United debutant Alan Smith and team-mate John O´Shea both missed spot-kicks to hand victory to their German rivals.
Smith, a £7m buy from Leeds, started in the absence of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Phil Bardsley and Chris Eagles were among the kids on duty for United.
Also in action in front of a 58,121 Chicago crowd were Paul McShane, Jonathan Spector and Keiran Richardson.
United captain Roy Keane started the match as sweeper against a Bayern side who fielded a number of top names.
Jonathan showed great potential.... he has great awareness of his defensive duties and coped very well
Sir Alex Ferguson hails Jonathan Spector
In contrast, Keane and Smith, who partnered David Bellion up front, were the only big names in the United team.
Not surprisingly, the Premiership club struggled until the youngsters found their feet.
But once they had established themselves, Djordic stung the fingers of Oliver Kahn with a shot from distance in the 38th minute.
Bardsley had a chance on the stroke of half-time but his effort cleared the bar.
And Richardson rattled in a shot at the start of the second half that was scrambled away to safety.
United goalkeeper Roy Carroll was tested for the first time in the 54th minute, saving Piotr Trochowski´s powerful strike.
O´Shea made a surprise appearance in the 69th minute when he came on for Eagles.
He was not expected to feature until the Celtic game on Wednesday after a recent knee operation.
Unfortunately for the Republic of Ireland defender, his penalty miss in the shoot-out proved crucial.
Of the youngsters, United boss Sir Alex Ferguson singled out centre-half Spector for praise.
" Jonathan showed great potential," Ferguson told MUTV. " He has great awareness of his defensive duties and coped very well.
" Playing 90 minutes with Roy Keane is worth 20 games with some others and Roy´s composure will have got through to him."
Ferguson also hailed the performance of striker Smith, saying: " It was hard for Alan, he had a tough job up front on his own but he did exceptionally well."