Ryan Giggs couldn't help grinning after grabbing three
goals in the Reds' closing Asia Tour match and no wonder... "I've
never scored a hat-trick for United so it was a first."
The Welshman's triple helped his team to beat
Hangzhou Greentown 8-2 and thrilled the local fans who were excited
just to see him come on as a substitute for the final thirty
minutes.
"I think when the lads arrived here, both at the airport and the
hotel, the support was just unbelievable," reflected Ryan on
MUTV.
"It was great to put on a show for them. There were some good goals
tonight. In fact, we’ve scored a few goals on this tour, hopefully
that can continue in pre-season and into the new season. Scoring
goals gives you confidence… it’s certainly given me some!"
While Ryan showed some wonderful awareness and ability on the ball
to register his hat-trick, he picked out Michael Owen's
second goal - United's fourth - as the best of the bunch.
"It was great skill from Berba for Michael’s second goal. When
Berba’s on the ball, you know when to run because you know that
he’s going to give it to you. So that’s what MO (Michael Owen) did
and it was nice to see it go in.
"Michael has just proven on this tour what we all knew anyway,
that he’s a goalscorer. He scores all types of goals – headers,
finishes inside the six-yard box, volleys like tonight’s – he’s
done really well so far."
Even though United have won all four pre-season matches so far,
scoring 19 goals in the process, Giggs knows there is still plenty
of hard work ahead before the league campaign kicks off on 16
August.
"Boca Juniors are up next," said Ryan, looking ahead to the
midweek Audi Cup in Munich.
"We’ve played Boca before and we know what they’re all about.
They don’t do friendlies - it will be 100 miles an hour from the
start.
"Then we’ll play either Milan or Bayern Munich. So from now on the
games get tougher, with Valencia (at Old Trafford) and Chelsea in
the (Community Shield) also still to come so we’ll have to step it
up."