Barcelona. The Nou Comp.
Champions League Final. Wednesday 26th May 1999.
The fourth official’s board goes up saying three minutes of extra time. Alex Ferguson checks his watch. Manchester United are a goal down. Ferguson always remembers Jock Stein telling him: ‘‘Prepare equally for defeat as well as victory.’’ Maybe that time has come?
Still the red shirts keep pushing.
United are tired, close to exhaustion, but so are Bayern. They are almost out on their feet. So many times this season United have been down and out but from somewhere found the guts to win. This placed into them by their manager.
‘‘Don’t you ever give up. Don’t you dare!’’
They had been taught to keep playing their football, to focus and concentrate. Pass the ball and keep it red, be patient, to probe and wait for the chance. Nothing is ever over until the referee blows that whistle. Nothing until the man from Govan says so…
Nothing.
Then he would let them breathe. Then he would let them sleep. But god forbid they ever gave up. They had to run until, until they could run no more.
The red army in the Nou Comp haven’t given up because they know their team are capable of footballing miracles, and suddenly the roar grows even louder as Gary Neville wins a corner down the near side touchline. Ferguson is watching as if hypnotised. His eyes saying everything. ‘‘Don’t you lot come off this pitch beaten for I won’t allow it. Not tonight of all nights.
Not tonight here in Barcelona!’’
A huge green shirted figure races over the halfway line and into the fray. Peter Schmeichel has taken it upon himself to join the fight. Tonight, in his last game for the club, the big man has been made Captain, and should have stopped Mario Basler’s first-half free kick, but that’s past now, for many times Schmeichel has saved them. None more than the FA Cup semi-final replay against Arsenal. A fight to the finish, a battle of men with no quarter asked or given by either team or manager. Ferguson and Arsene Wenger sharing respect but at that time no friendship. The Dane’s last gasp penalty save from Denis Bergkamp giving United the initiative, even with only ten men to go on and win with a wonder goal from substitute Ryan Giggs.
Back to the Nou Comp,
the clock ticking forever down. David Beckham sprints across to take the corner. Beckham remembering everything he’s been taught at the club of his dreams. Every breath and every second matters. It’s never over. Never! Beckham, a cool and calm character, but mentally as tough as any player around. They went for his throat after the 1998 world cup but Manchester United, the club and supporters circled the wagons and protected him. Now the London kid with a United heart can repay them for everything by putting the corner on to the head of one of his teammates and keeping Manchester United alive in the European cup.
Behind Beckham, the crowd is a jumping, desperate, raging and demanding sea of red. From all corners of the world they’ve gathered. This isn’t just a football club it’s something almost spiritual. Reared on legends and fed on tales of glory and heroes.
‘‘Nothing is impossible,’’ Ferguson has drilled in to his players.
He too is infected after drinking from the well of this football club that survived an air crash and still marched on. Now he demands another more miracle.
For Manchester United is a special kind of red.
Blood red.
Even as the Catalan skies grow ever more black, Ferguson insists, he believes it can still happen and it must happen. For in this red world, in a single eye blink, despair can become delight. For his boys specialise in miracles and have mastered the art of breaking other team’s hearts. Thirty-one years is far too long to wait for MUFC, whose team have strained every sinew to get to this point. Now, it all comes down to the beat of a ticking clock speeding endlessly down and down…Too fast, much too fast.
In comes the corner and Dwight Yorke leaps at the far post to keep the ball in the six-yard box, but a Bayern defender scrambles it clear. Panic ensues, nothing remains of that legendary Teutonic calm, the Germans have gone and have nothing left. Time stops still as Ryan Giggs meets the ball on the penalty area edge and with his left foot mishits, only for the ball to land at Teddy Sheringham’s feet.
Teddy turns and fires low and true into the Bayern goal.
This is madness! Manchester United have done it again!
1-1.
Elsewhere they’ll be crying down on the Mersey because the Mancs have saved themselves again in Fergie time!
Fergie time!
Oh, they will be seething. Crying and wailing. Years of anger and frustration. So desperate for their great rivals to fail, already knocked off their perch and now screaming at the sour-faced Liverpool moon.
Alex Ferguson will never win the European cup they claimed. They laughed, they mocked and they scoffed. Well, Manchester United are still alive and back from the dead. Bayern have hit Schmeichel’s bar, his post, but have been unable to finish them off. United still have teeth and have bit deep and now cue the sheer, unadulterated madness unfolding around the Nou Comp.
How many times can they continue to do this?
How many times?
Ferguson is embraced by Steve McLaren. The boss had been on the pitch punching the air. Salvation. As he glanced to his left all the United substitutes had careered off to join in the celebrations.
The Munich players are on the floor. Their coach and a good friend of Ferguson’s, Ottmar Hitzfeld, is clearly devastated. But he feels no pity. Later they can share a glass of wine but at that moment he wishes him nothing but more agony on the pitch. Nothing but a footballing plague and pestilence upon his vanquished Bayern household.
They’re finished, Ferguson knows this, broken, they’ve nothing left.
McLaren urges him to get the player’ heads sorted for extra time, but Ferguson senses blood. Sheringham’s equaliser is nothing but a mere aperitif. Something else is coming, it’s going to happen. He just knows it!
He can feel it….
Manchester United attack again and win another corner. The Stars in the Catalan heavens have turned red and a shooting star blazes across the jet-black skies. Good evening Sir Matt, happy birthday, took your bloody time!
It’s time to end this.
Schmeichel looks across to Ferguson seeking permission to go upfield once more, but is told no! This is crazy. This is surreal, this is Manchester United. Never surrendering and never giving up. Beckham’s corner goes into the near post for Sheringham to flick on and then just an explosion of sound!
A thunderous roar the likes this grand old stadium has never heard. The Substitute Ole Gunnar Solskjaer slides to his knees to be pounced on by red shirts. Ole has made dreams come true. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has put the ball in the German net from six yards and the Bayern players are lying on the floor like they’ve been machine gunned. The referee Pierluigi Collina is helping them to their feet but they are reluctant to stand. The great Lothar Matthaus sits looking into space as though forced to watch his house burn down. Matthaus was magnificent before being substituted. He ran the game, a class apart. But Bayern got cocky, their supporters celebrating with ten minutes to go.
What were they thinking?
Surely they knew that was akin to pulling a tiger’s tale whilst trapped in its cage. United were always going to get them in the end. For they were over confident, do that against this team and they’ll crucify you with rusty nails.
In time added on with neither the time to spit on the floor or write your name on a piece of paper left to play, this is Alex Ferguson’s impossible dream come true. A symphony of beautiful madness!
This is how you win a European cup. Nobody had ever done it like this before. No one. Not Stein, Paisley or Clough. A glorious three minutes of wonder in Barcelona where the impossible dream comes true. You couldn’t write it!
The final whistle!
Across the Nou Comp daubed red and white are faces etched with looks of incredulity and elation. There are as many tears as smiles.
Here in Barcelona, Manchester United have won the European cup!
Oh what a night!
A writing blog 