Manchester United produced an impressive comeback from two goals down to beat Hannover 4-3 in Germany.
Rooney double before Kagawa scores to win seven-goal thriller
Manchester United produced an impressive comeback from two goals down to beat Hannover 4-3 in Germany.
Wayne Rooney scored twice and provided the assist for two others, including Shinji Kagawa's late winner, as the Red Devils dug themselves out of a hole in the AWD-Arena.
Hannover took the lead when Anders Lindegaard could only parry Jan Schlaudraff's effort from distance and Artur Sobiech was there to slot home the rebound against the run of play.
United had dominated the early stages with Michael Keane missing two clear-cut chances to open the scoring just moments before the hosts went one goal up.
But it did not take too long for Sir Alex Ferguson's team to level things up and it was no more than they deserved.
Nani, who had just switched to the left, cut the ball back for Rooney and Ron-Robert Zieler pushed the forward's left-footed shot into the path of the alert Javier Hernandez.
Thereafter United seemed comfortable with Michael Carrick prompting attacks from centre-back while Tom Cleverley and Kagawa did the work of three men in the centre of midfield.
Two goals down
But a headed goal from Karim Haggui just after the break was quickly followed up by a delightful back-flicked finish from fellow substitute Mohammed Abdellaoue to leave United two down.
Rooney curled home a brilliant free-kick to reduce the arrears midway through the second half and the visitors then pushed for the equaliser by bringing on Antonio Valencia and Anderson.
That left United with Carrick and Keane in the middle of defence and Valencia at right-back and their ambition paid off when Zieler hauled down Rooney to concede a penalty inside the final 10 minutes.
The England international converted to equalise and then played in Kagawa to finish deftly - silencing the home crowd and giving a timely reminded that United can produce dramatic comebacks of their own after the horrors of the final day of last season.
