Onana sparked wild celebrations at Old Trafford on Tuesday night, saving Jordan Larsson’s 97th-minute penalty with the game’s final touch to secure a 1-0 win against FC Copenhagen in Group A.
Failure to win would’ve left United on the brink of a humiliating early exit, having tasted defeat in their opening two matches against Bayern Munich and Galatasaray.
In the aftermath, several United stars took to their social media accounts to hail the 27-year-old goalkeeper and Harry Maguire, who netted the winner to continue his renaissance.
But Garnacho’s post drew controversy, publishing an image of the team celebrating Onana’s save with two gorilla emojis as the caption.
Garnacho deleted the post less than an hour later, but the Football Association is aware of the incident and has sought his observations on it.
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However, Onana has taken to X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram to defend Garnacho with a fierce response to criticism.
“People cannot choose what I should be offended by. I know exactly what @agarnacho7 meant: power and strength. This matter should go no further. AO24,” Onana wrote.
The Cameroon international included the same photo Garnacho used in his deleted post, plus a separate image of the pair hugging.
Garnacho, 19, played the final 30 minutes and should’ve scored twice before the late drama.
He first lost control of the ball after being sent through one-on-one by Bruno Fernandes before firing straight at Kamil Grabara from close range, despite having plenty of time and space on the counter-attack.
Despite Onana’s public defence and Garnacho’s quick deletion, the Argentinian ace could still be hit with a fine and ban.
In 2020, two months after arriving in England, Edinson Cavani was hit with a three-game suspension and £100,000 fine for using the word ‘n*****o’ in an Instagram comment thanking a young fan.
Cavani deleted the comment, loosely translating to ‘thanks little black boy’ or ‘guy with black hair’, and issued an apology.
But the Uruguayan veteran didn’t escape punishment by an independent commission after admitting an FA charge of misconduct for an aggravated breach of the rules relating to racism.