- 2 days ago
From rise, to ruin and finally redemption, Marcus Rashford's career has been anything but ordinary. As a Manchester United academy product he was supposed to be the star of the new generation, leading the Red Devils to Premier League and Champions League glory, but injury, setbacks and abuse at international level have taken his career path in a very different direction. Now, in LaLiga with Barcelona, he looks to have finally found the stage to show his very best self.
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00:00This is the story of how Marcus Rashford went from breakout star to cultural icon,
00:05from injury setbacks to international failure,
00:07and why, despite everything, his name still demands respect.
00:11But Rashford's free! And Rashford finishes!
00:15Rashford scores!
00:18Fernandes across to Rashford!
00:21Rashford!
00:24Now, in 2025, Rashford is no longer the teenage sensation with the weight of Man United.
00:30He's a Barcelona player, with the rare opportunity to rebuild his story on a new stage.
00:35But way before he arrived at the Camp Nou, he was a young first-team hopeful,
00:39preparing to sit on the bench for Europa League tie against FC Midtjylland,
00:43unaware that the evening's events would turn him into an overnight sensation
00:47and become the now-renowned starting point of his career.
00:52Towards Memphis, bouncing around, Mata to cut it back again,
00:56and Rashford has got the dream goal that he was looking for in his debut,
01:02and one he will never, ever forget.
01:06Clever movement so far from Manchester United, and there he is again, Marcus Rashford.
01:11He couldn't have even dreamt that last night.
01:15Two goals on his first night in senior football, and that was just the start of the week.
01:19Days later, Arsenal are the visitors in the Premier League, and again, there's two goals.
01:37Within a few days, the teenager from Withenshaw had gone from academy hopeful to United's greatest hope.
01:44But what stuck most wasn't just the goals, it was the utter fearlessness of his play at just 18 years old.
01:52He was running at defenders twice his size, finishing like he'd been doing it for years,
01:56moving with such confidence you'd never been able to tell that he was making just his second senior appearance.
02:01As with many young players who burst onto the scene at a young age,
02:05you've got to cut them some slack where not everything goes right.
02:08The early spark can fizzle, the output can vary sometimes minute to minute, never mind game to game.
02:12But with Rashford, this didn't really seem to happen.
02:15He wasn't just a one-week wonder.
02:18He went on to score the only goal in the Manchester derby that season,
02:21becoming the youngest player to do so in history,
02:23before leading the line in the 2016 FA Cup final, winning his first trophy.
02:28Even as Zlatan and Lukaku arrived at the club in the following years,
02:32Rashford still found himself getting regular game time,
02:35albeit in a left-wing position under Mourinho,
02:37where he scored in a Europa League knockout against Anderlecht and won against Celta Vigo,
02:42before helping United to lift that trophy in Stockholm.
02:46Now, there was care taken over his minutes at such a young age,
02:49something that Rashford had to contend with.
02:51But what was clear in these formative years was his knack for delivering
02:54when the stakes were high in the biggest moments.
02:58He wasn't polished yet, his decision-making sometimes raw,
03:01but he carried this United DNA.
03:03Bold, direct, unafraid.
03:05It was traits that saw him take the next step towards becoming a United legend
03:09one memorable night in Paris.
03:12Well, it looks like mission impossible for Manchester United
03:16with at least two goals needed tonight.
03:19It's Lukaku, and he's around the goalkeeper, and he squeezed it in!
03:22He's gone right away through, and ran for down with a tap-in.
03:26Oh, they've got another one!
03:28And it's him again, Romelu Lukaku!
03:31Penalty! It's a penalty to Manchester United!
03:34It comes down to Marcus Rashford against Gianluigi Buffon.
03:40How's your bottle?
03:43Oh, he smashed it in!
03:45United heading through to the quarterfinals.
03:49Marcus Rashford, the coolest man in the place!
03:52The winning penalty away at PSG in the Champions League knockouts.
03:55It was Rashford's defining moment.
03:57A statement that he wasn't just a prospect anymore,
04:00he was a match winner at the elite level.
04:03This was the night his reputation went global.
04:06And yet, from this point on, the way of expectation grew heavier.
04:10Every miss, every dip in form would be scrutinised twice as hard,
04:14especially in England.
04:15But let's be honest, the fans and the media aren't exactly the kindest,
04:20almost forgiving to their own, as Rashford was to find out both on and off the pitch.
04:25Rashford's England career runs pretty much parallel to his story at club level,
04:29and the two have seemingly always had an effect on one another.
04:33At the 2018 World Cup, he was the wildcard off the bench,
04:36and by Euro 2020, he was an established starter.
04:39And then Wembley happened.
04:40The European Championship final, the shootout, Rashford, Sancho, Saka,
04:45all missed and England lost.
04:47Instead of being remembered for helping the team to a final,
04:50Rashford was subjected to the most vile, disgusting, racist abuse.
04:55Losing in the final was, for England and pretty much anyone else,
04:58obviously not ideal.
05:00Losing on penalties was a tale as old as time.
05:03But what the final also represented was the culmination of what had been a turbulent time
05:07for everyone in the UK, where COVID had robbed most people of their lives as they knew it,
05:11and it amplified the struggles faced by millions up and down the country
05:14without regular income or access to healthcare.
05:17So this was the light at the end of the tunnel,
05:19a footballing success to bring the nation back together, if only for a month.
05:24It was the summer where quarantine was lifted and fans could attend football matches again,
05:28even if it was in smaller numbers than before.
05:30And then the loss to Italy.
05:32It just seemed like the frustrated football fan needed a face to turn their anger towards,
05:36whether it be a politician, a footballer, someone with any sort of celebrity.
05:42Which is unfortunately exactly where Marcus Rashford found himself by this point.
05:47He was a popular figure using his platform to force the government U-turn
05:51on helping to fight child hunger in the UK and to help feed millions of school children.
05:56He was given an MBE at 23.
05:58Critics said he was distracted, gave it this old stick to football rubbish,
06:02when all he was doing was standing up for himself and others like him.
06:05His response was always the same.
06:08This is who I am.
06:09This is what I stand for.
06:11For kids growing up on the stakes like Withenshaw,
06:12Rashford wasn't just a homegrown hero that had made it at United.
06:17He was proof that you could make it and still fight for the people who might not.
06:22Sadly, like in so many and too many cases,
06:25many of these racist offenders went unpunished,
06:27all whilst Rashford himself fronted up,
06:30owned the missed penalty and moved forward.
06:31Like Rooney vs. Portugal or Beckham in 1998,
06:35Rashford carried the weight of a nation's anger and survived it.
06:38Video aside for a second,
06:40did you know that the Premier League rights are worth an eye-watering £6.7 billion over the next four years?
06:46In the UK, there's 215 games live split between Sky Sports and TNT Sports,
06:51where subscribing to both would cost you upwards of £60.
06:53But due to the broadcast blackout,
06:56you still can't even watch the Saturday 3 o'clock kick-offs.
06:58Outside the UK, though, it's a very different story.
07:01For example, in the US and Australia,
07:03you can watch every single Premier League match,
07:05with subscriptions costing you less.
07:07But regardless of which service you have,
07:09if you're abroad at any point during the season,
07:11you can always use a VPN to unblock your usual streaming services.
07:15A little advice, though.
07:16Free VPNs aren't reliable for bypassing geo-restrictions,
07:20and they can even harm your internet security.
07:22So it's worth getting a good one.
07:24And according to our brainy office mates at TechRadar,
07:27NordVPN is the best on the market.
07:29And right now, there's a great deal that makes you 70% off.
07:33All you have to do is click the link in the description below and sign up to get started.
07:38That way, the next time you're travelling abroad,
07:40you just turn on your NordVPN and unblock your usual stream from anywhere.
07:44Right, back to the video.
07:46His career after this, though,
07:48felt like watching someone take a long while to get over a bad experience.
07:5221-22 was brutal.
07:54Injuries, form gone, confidence shattered, just five goals all season.
07:59Fans were divided.
08:00Some wanted him drop permanently, sold.
08:02Others pleaded for patience.
08:04He was often booed at Old Trafford,
08:06and it looked like his United story might be drifting away.
08:09But under Eric Ten Hag, he came alive again.
08:1222-23, 30 goals across all competitions.
08:15The best season of his career.
08:18He dragged United to the League Cup, their first trophy in years.
08:21For the fans, it was a little bit complicated.
08:24He was no longer the untouchable golden boy.
08:26But like Rooney, he kept writing comebacks into his story.
08:29That relationship of love, disappointment, then redemption,
08:32it's part of what makes Rashford feel so Manchester United.
08:36The truth is, though, that form is fragile.
08:38The following saw a dip.
08:40United struggled.
08:41Rashford looked isolated again.
08:43And criticism resurfaced.
08:44Was he inconsistent or simply human?
08:47I think a major sticking point for so many fans at this stage
08:50was the new contract he'd signed in 2023.
08:52A five-year deal worth £325,000 per week.
08:58It placed him as one of the league's top earners,
09:00and given the impression that he was the present and the future of the club.
09:03So for that money, you'd expect a lot as a fan.
09:06I get it.
09:07You'd expect more than some inconsistent performances.
09:09The red card versus Copenhagen.
09:10The birthday bash in the wake of a Manchester derby defeat.
09:14He called in sick for an FA Cup game,
09:16which led to Ten Hag again having to discipline him.
09:19And then as new manager Ruben Amorim came in,
09:21it was a matter of months before Rashford was frozen out of the squad altogether
09:24for being someone who doesn't give the maximum every day,
09:27according to Amorim.
09:29The writing was on the wall,
09:30but after an uninspiring loan to Aston Villa,
09:33nobody could have predicted where he would end up.
09:36When the news broke,
09:59it all felt a bit surreal, to be honest.
10:02Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United Academy kid,
10:04the face of the club for almost a decade,
10:07leaving Old Trafford for Barcelona.
10:10Not as a prospect, not as a gamble,
10:12but as a statement signing.
10:13From the moment he walked out in those famous colours,
10:16it looked ripe.
10:18He's floating between lines,
10:19linking with Jamal and Pedri,
10:21pressing high, playing with joy.
10:24The goals at Newcastle in the Champions League,
10:26the complete epitome of what you'd expect from him.
10:29Of course, it's early days,
10:30we all know that,
10:31but sometimes you can just feel when a move fits.
10:34For the first time in years,
10:36the noise has somewhat faded.
10:38No tabloid headlines,
10:39no tactical blame games,
10:41just pure football.
10:42And maybe that's all he ever needed,
10:44a place to play.
10:45Marcus Rashford of Barcelona
10:46isn't a farewell to his United story,
10:49it's the start of something new.
10:50A reminder that through all the chaos,
10:52he's still got chapters left to write.
10:54So where does that leave Marcus Rashford?
10:56A decade on from that dream debut,
10:57he's evolved from the academy prodigy
10:59to a symbol of a generation.
11:01He's been a match winner,
11:02a campaigner,
11:03a target,
11:04and a hero,
11:04sometimes all in the same season.
11:06His story's never been simple,
11:08but that's what made it real.
11:09Across more than 460 senior appearances,
11:12he's scored over 160 goals
11:14and provided 70 assists.
11:16He's lifted an FA Cup,
11:17two League Cups,
11:18a Europa League or Manchester United.
11:20For England,
11:20he's got over 60 cap
11:21and scored 17 goals.
11:23For all the noise,
11:24all the criticism,
11:24man,
11:25all the pressure that's followed him
11:26since he was a teenager,
11:27one truth remains.
11:29When Marcus Rashford is playing freely,
11:31when he's fearless,
11:31when he's direct,
11:32when he's got the ball at his feet,
11:34he changes football matches.
11:36Marcus Rashford,
11:37respect the name.
11:38But Rashford's free!
11:40And Rashford finishes!
11:43Rashford scores!
11:45Fernandes across to Rashford!
11:48Rashford!
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