In May, Australian defender Harrison Delbridge received a message out of the blue from his agent.
It set off an extraordinary chain of events that would see him play against Premier League giants Manchester United in front of 80,000 people in Kuala Lumpur, go viral for a moment with Bruno Fernandes to the point he suspected his Instagram app might be broken, and actually emerge on the winning side.
“It was so out of nowhere. I cannot even tell you,” Delbridge recalled to football360.com.au.
“At the time I wasn’t playing any minutes. So my agent, I had a Korean agent and he just messaged me one day and in his form of English, the message said, ‘you will play in this game’. And I looked at it and I was like, what is this?
“So I was sort of thinking, they’re never going to let me go. But I went to one of our managers and said, ‘are you guys cool to let me go and play in this game?’ and they were like, they will have a meeting, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And they came back and were like, ‘yeah, you can go play’. That basically sums up my position at the club at that moment (not getting many minutes, frozen out by the new coach. Read more about that here).
🚨🇦🇺 OFFICIAL | The ASEAN All Stars have DEFEATED Manchester United 1-0. 🤯
Adrian Segecic assisted the winner. Kealey Adamson, Yaya Dukuly and Harrison Delbridge also featured for the All Stars. 💫 pic.twitter.com/CBEWj3zo8v
— AusFootHQ (@ALeagueHQ) May 28, 2025
“But it was so, so random. I got there and it’s players that I’m not used to playing against in that part of Asia. I flew in, landed, trained once and it was also trippy because it was a Korean coaching staff and the coach had been at Jeonbuk (Hyundai) before. So I was speaking Korean in Kuala Lumpur and I was just like: what is happening?
“But anyways, we rocked up to the stadium and there’s 80,000 people there. It was the hottest game. It felt like there was no air, like just no breeze at all. But it was an awesome experience.
“I was fully expecting United would come in off the season that they had – they really, really struggled – and I was expecting them to just put out like a bunch of young boys, but the lineup was fully all of their guys.
“I was standing next to Kobbie Mainoo in the tunnel – and they must’ve gotten some new Adidas jackets that they had to wear for the walk out – I said, ‘guys, warm enough?’ And he was having absolutely none of it.
“None of them wanted to be there, but still it was an awesome experience. It was really cool. It just came out of nowhere. I was kind of like, yeah, why not? I’m going to play in this game. Might as well, need some minutes!”
Delbridge was one of four Australians representing the ASEAN All Stars that day alongside Yaya Dukuly, Kealey Adamson and Adrian Segecic, who provided the match-winning assist as the English mega-club were stunned 1-0 in Malaysia.
Photo: Harrison Delbridge / Instagram
“It was just ridiculous,” he said.
“But a good experience playing against those kinds of players like Bruno Fernandes and (Rasmus) Hojlund, all those guys.
“It’s actually funny, when I was at Melbourne City, we had a strength and fitness coach named Ed Lang and I knew he went to United after he left Melbourne City.
“But then I was doing my warmup and I looked over and I saw him on the bench and I went over and he was like, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’
“It was a great experience. When you’re not getting many minutes, why not go and play against Manchester United in Kuala Lumpur? You might as well,” he quipped.
Incredibly, one of the craziest parts of the experience was still to come.
After the match, where he was the only member of the home side to play a full 90 minutes, Delbridge received a picture of himself shaking hands with Bruno Fernandes and thought he would casually post the photo to his Instagram account.
He woke up the next morning to realise the post had gone extraordinarily viral.
At time of writing, the image has received just under 118,000 likes.
“I have never seen anything like that,” he said.
“I know that those guys in those parts of the world, there’s a few clubs that have massive followings and everyone in the locker room was really friendly.
“So, I don’t know if someone else reposted it, but I just posted it and, it was a cool picture that someone sent me, me and Bruno Fernandes.
“So I’m posting that and then I woke up the next morning and looked at it. And my wife was like, ‘wait, what’s going on with your Instagram?’ And I was like, no, no, something must be wrong here. And it just kept going and going and going.
“I think because some of the other guys have big followings and they were commenting on it or something like that. That part of the world has one of the biggest Manchester United followings outside of England.
“The whole thing was just a whirlwind.
“And then I was back in training and the players were kind of like, ‘wait, where’d you go?’ The coach didn’t even say a word to me. He didn’t speak to me all year, but it was funny. Just straight back into things like normal.”
Explaining the story behind the image itself, Delbridge laughed: “I hacked him on the ankle and then instantly was like, s***.
“I was just shaking his hand saying sorry and he was laughing about it. So it was okay.
“Not every day you get to kick Bruno Fernandes!”