Football team, with time almost up, getting free (7)
I believe the answer is:
manumit
'free' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'football team with time almost up' is the wordplay.
'football team' becomes 'manu' (short for Manchester United).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'time' with its last letter taken off is 'tim'.
'tim' backwards is 'mit'.
'manu'+'mit'='MANUMIT'
'getting' is the link.
(Other definitions for manumit that I've seen before include "deliver" , "release" , "Set free from slavery - anti-mum (anag)" .)