UNITED’S GREATEST EVER ESCAPE Yorke: I had no idea Keane and Scholes were out!
HOW FERGIE’S MEN TOPPLED THE MIGHTY JUVENTUS IN 1999. NOW CAN MOURINHO’S UNITED DO IT AGAIN?
TWENTY seasons have passed, but for a generation of Manchester United fans, the memories endure of the night Alex Ferguson’s side stunned a stellar Juventus team by recovering from 2-0 down in Turin to defeat the Italians on their way to an historic Treble.
It was a night famous for ensuring United’s first Champions League final for 31 years but also for the defiant performance of Roy Keane, who was cautioned when his side trailed, meaning he would miss the final. Paul Scholes also picked up a card to miss the Barcelona showpiece.
Here Sportsmail relives the Miracle of Turin with United’s iconic strikeforce of Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, who each scored, and Clive Tyldesley, the ITV commentator whose voice brought the match to millions of homes across the country.
PRE-MATCH: In the lead-up to the game, the odds were stacked against a United side who had been largely outplayed in the first leg at Old Trafford. A late Ryan Giggs goal had salvaged a 1-1 draw. The
Sportsmail headline on the day of the game read, “Written off, but Fergie may have the last laugh”. Cole and Yorke had both gone a month without a goal.
COLE: It’s not bad for us if it was only a few games! We knew we had to score. Juventus were the team to beat in Europe. We had played them before and never seemed to get the better of them. They defended very well — typical Italian team — but then had the creativity of Edgar Davids and Zinedine Zidane and the firepower of Filippo Inzaghi. The manager emphasised we had to go for it.
YORKE: Quite rightly people were not giving us a chance. You could not see United turning it around.
But the team spirit in the club at the time was ‘Wow’. United were the biggest club in the world to me, with the best manager.
COLE: I remember Alex said ‘Enjoy it’. We were desperate to crack Europe. We had come close before. We played Dortmund two years earlier, outplayed them, lost 1-0 each time. They went on and won it, so we knew we were at that level. We knew we had to beat a team of Juventus’s calibre to win it. I can’t remember any team having a route as tough as we did in 1999 — Barcelona and Bayern in the group, Inter Milan in the quarters, Juventus in the semis, Bayern in the final.
YORKE: I loved the manager’s philosophy — express yourself, enjoy yourself, play with a smile. Those were his words I remember. I was the marquee signing and I knew I had a responsibility to produce.
TYLDESLEY: It was the season I took over from the great Brian Moore as ITV’s main commentator and our viewing figures were incredible — 20million watched the final against Bayern Munich.
Alex had a particularly close bond with Brian and I inherited that. We routinely met in the Grill Room at Old Trafford a few hours before the game. Presenter Des Lynam was in those meetings, too. Sir Alex always gave us interviews at the start of the second half, which was recognition that this was going out to millions of people who could not go to Old Trafford.
My two biggest rollickings were from Alex, but he also framed my notes from his two European final victories and hung them in his office. He trusted me with information that terrified me on occasions. There were matchdays involving United when he gave me his line-up at lunchtime and then phoned at tea-time because there had been some change to it.
11 MINUTES: Manchester United go 2-0 down after a brace of early goals from Inzaghi. They are now 3-1 behind on aggregate.
YORKE: We were shell-shocked. Juventus got the perfect start. Everyone must have thought there was no way back. But if you gave it to us, we would give it back to you in no uncertain terms.
COLE: We had so much firepower. We had scored three at Barcelona in the group and two at Bayern. But to be at Juventus and have to score three — that was something else entirely.
TYLDESLEY: Gary Neville was marking Inzaghi like the best Italian defenders, grabbing him. But Inzaghi still broke free and scored. He was the ultimate scabby poacher.
It’s easy to say United had big characters but it didn’t appear they had a way back. Yet the game was so open — the match United wanted to play and the match Juve wanted to avoid.
Cole had a chance between the two Juventus goals. The game took on a life of its own. As Bayern discovered, United could rip a trophy out of your hands just as you were ready to collect it.
24 MINUTES: Roy Keane pulls a goal back with a thumping header. He is booked soon after for a late foul on Zidane — a caution that rules him out of the Champions League final. TYLDESLEY: I called it as a ‘captain’s goal for Manchester United’. It was Keane in a nutshell.
Determined, but also a very skilful header. I have got to know Roy now on ITV.
His hard-to-please and hard-tofrighten persona was underlined by the fact he was utterly unaffected by the booking. It didn’t rattle him. He could score a goal or injure a player and be the same in the next minute.
He is a bloody single-minded competitor. It is an extraordinary quality. It is the golfer who doublebogies and plays the next hole as normal, the tennis player who double faults and then aces. He is a fascinating individual. I like him — he is self-deprecating. If some stranger comes up and says, ‘I remember you clattered someone’, he will always say, ‘Hey, I could play a bit, too. I did pass it and score a few goals, you know’. He is a modest individual in that it is all history now and it is gone.’
COLE: Roy was immense. It was as if he said to himself, ‘I’m not going to get to the final, but I’m going to make damned sure my teammates will be there’.
In the dressing room afterwards, he was OK. He was disappointed he would not be involved, but he was fully part of the celebrations with everyone.
YORKE: I had absolutely no idea Keane’s booking meant he missed the final. It was only when the manager was naming the team for the final on the Tuesday that I realised Scholesy — who later got booked to miss the final — and Keane were not playing. I was in a world of my own. We were training every day, I did not have a clue and then it was just, ‘S***, the skipper’s not playing’ and then, ‘S***, Scholesy’s not playing!’
34 MINUTES: Cole’s cross sets up Yorke for a headed equaliser. United go in front on away goals.
COLE: The partnership clicked between us when we played at the Dell against Southampton. The manager stumbled upon it because it was not the plan. Alex had tried to bring in Patrick Kluivert, who chose to go to Barcelona.
At the start of the season, Dwight played alongside Ole Solskjaer, Teddy Sheringham, Scholesy and Giggsy. I finally got my game. That was my chance and everyone went mad for it.
There was a big chance I could have left the club at the start of the season. Aston Villa tried to get me as part of the Dwight deal, but that did not materialise and I waited my turn. I never confronted Sir Alex.
YORKE: Coley took me under his wing. He told me the areas of Manchester I needed to avoid. He invited me into his home for dinner and cooked me West Indian food, some chicken and rice. He told me, ‘Don’t go into Moss Side at certain times, go to that place for your haircut’.
Why would he do that if I had come in to take his place? It was the mark of the man. He did not fear the challenge and did not shy away from being kind to me. I was incredibly touched by it. Then the friendship off the pitch translated on to the field and it got stronger and stronger. We are still so close now.
83 MINUTES: United score their third goal through Cole after Yorke dribbles past three defenders and is brought down by goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi.
TYLDESLEY: I shouted, ‘Full speed ahead Barcelona’ as Cole tapped in the winner. I’ve never scripted action from games.
The final goal was decisive. It put United two clear. I could be triumphal on behalf of Manchester United. But I was just an observer, a messenger for those people who couldn’t be there. It all became front page news and the images from the final were incredible.
The vivid nature of the German fans and Bayern players (in the final). I don’t like nationalistic stereotypes but English football had suffered so dramatically at the hands of German teams. I avoid words like disaster or tragedy about football but those pictures were as though Bayern players were witnessing a car crash.
YORKE: My personal journey from the Caribbean to the Manchester United dressing room already had me pinching myself. Knowing me, I probably gave the bloody shirt from that night away! It was one of the performances of my career. But then it was, ‘How do we top that?’ It was always the challenge.
I honestly thought I could retire after the Treble. Where do you go from there? We won three titles in a row after that, but everything seemed to feel like a bit of a failure after the Treble.