Remember the name: Cüneyt Çakır

For almost an hour, Manchester United were tactically perfect against Real Madrid. A Gonzalo Higuaín cross which evaded everybody and a rightly disallowed goal aside, United nullified the much-vaunted counter-attacking threat of José Mourinho’s outfit that undone a diminished Barcelona twice in the space of five days. Enter Cüneyt Çakır.

Within minutes of the Turkish referee’s bizarre decision to send off Nani, the first line of the Wikipedia entry under his name read: “is a corrupt Turkish UEFA Elite association football referee.” Judging by the manner in which Sir Alex Ferguson raced down the steps of the dugout to confront the fourth official it wouldn’t be too surprising to find he had changed the entry himself on somebody’s smart phone.

Most people probably would have struggled to pronounce Çakır’s name before this tie, but before the final whistle had even gone in Old Trafford the letters forming his name were flowing from the finger-tips of not only angry United fans but also sympathetic neutrals.

Republic of Ireland fans will remember him as the man who sent off Keith Andrews at Euro 2012 in the dying minutes of the dead rubber game against Italy. Observers at the time said it was harsh, with Andrews himself insisting he felt the referee had been “unfair” for most of the game. Chelsea fans will recall him as the referee who sent off John Terry in last season’s Champions League semi-final against Barcelona at the Nou Camp – a decision he got right, incidentally. Here, he got it wrong.

When Nani saw that ball flying down the left wing, there was only one thing on his mind: counter-attack. Nani left the ground to control the ball, but his eyes never left the ball during its flight because how could he hope to control it if they did? When Álvaro Arbeloa saw that ball coming down his side, he also had only one thing on his mind: stop the counter-attack. His eyes didn’t leave the ball either because how could he ever hope to cut out a ball he isn’t looking at?

Conclusion: accidental collision. Refereeing decision: stop play, make sure Arbeloa is ok and either warn Nani about raising his foot so high or, being the disciplinarian that Çakır is, book him. Sending Nani off in this instance isn’t the action of a disciplinarian but a totalitarian enforcer who probably had a secret police waiting outside the stadium to take Nani to some hidden footballing bureaucracy to answer for his heinous crime. Not only was it a bizarre refereeing decision, it was also a terrible footballing one as it ruined the game.

More importantly, though, United’s rhythm had been crucially disrupted. Fifty-seven minutes of intense concentration and tactical discipline on United’s part were consigned to memory as within nine minutes, Luka Modric had fired in a thunderbolt – a goal worthy of such an occasion – and Cristiano Ronaldo had gotten his goal on his return ‘home’. United only recovered from the shellshock of twenty treble-defining minutes when Mourinho sacrificed Mesut Özil for the robust Pepe in order to see the game out.

And the irony of all this is that Arbeloa could have been sent off himself for his awful challenge on Evra in the first-half, which had all the maliciousness that was lacking in Nani’s attempt at controlling the ball in the second. But Çakır saw fit to only book him.

Numerous chances came and it looked as though United could salvage redemption from the clutches of Çakır’s ‘fussiness’. Robin Van Persie and Wayne Rooney came close. And then, inexplicably, the referee allows Diego Lopez to turn Old Traffrod into his own Theatre of Dreams, in which he dreamt Van Persie had pulled out a rifle and gunned him down in the penalty area. Thankfully for Madridistas everywhere, Lopez shook off the shrapnel to make a good save from Vidic’s late header – how the Serbian must wish his first half effort had gone in off the post instead of coming back off it.

It is a shame for football that incidents like this are allowed to overshadow games of this magnitude. While some predicted fireworks and a goal-blitz, it was always more realistic – given the result of the first-leg and judging by the manner in which Madrid swept aside Barcelona twice in the last week - that this was going to be a game of cat-and-mouse. It was that way for an hour, as United prevented Xabi Alonso from getting a foothold in the game and Ronaldo from flourishing in the place he once called home.

Mourinho afterwards said the better team had lost. Make no mistake, Madrid were impressive in capitalising on both their numerical advantage and on United’s dazed demeanour in the aftermath of the sending off. But we’ll never know if United could have remained the better team for the full game.

In the end, what was supposed to be an intriguing battle of two of the game’s most intelligent managers – who, it seemed from their body language together on the touchline, were mutually aggrieved by what had transpired – has been decided by a man who seemingly cannot understand the difference between intent and accident.