Champions League Quarter-Final 1999 vs Manchester United

Lore & Background

Manchester United and Bayern Munich had only met twice in competitive matches before the final, both meetings coming earlier in the 1998–99 season and both finished as draws. Manchester United's only other German opponents in their history were Borussia Dortmund. Bayern Munich had an equally narrow advantage in their 22 matches against English opposition, with seven wins, nine draws and six defeats, including a win over Leeds United in the 1975 European Cup final and a defeat to Aston Villa in the 1982 final. Including the victory over Leeds in 1975, Bayern Munich had won the European Cup on three occasions going into the 1999 final. With three victories in a row from 1974 to 1976, they became only the third team to achieve such a feat after Real Madrid (1956 to 1960) and Ajax (1971 to 1973). They had also finished as runners-up twice: in 1982 against Aston Villa and 1987 against Porto. Although Bayern had been waiting 23 years for a European Cup title, Manchester United had had to wait even longer, as their only victory had come in 1968 against Benfica at Wembley in extra time. Their manager then was Matt Busby, who had been seriously injured 10 years earlier in the Munich air disaster, which killed eight of his players on the way back from a European Cup tie in Belgrade, before rebuilding the team to become European Cup winners. Busby died in 1994; the day of the 1999 Champions League final would have been his 90th birthday.

In Their Own Story

The atmosphere at Old Trafford was suffocating as extra time wore on. On the pitch, Rivaldo's earlier celebrations were now distant memories; Barcelona held a precarious lead that evaporated with every United attack. The Catalan defense, exhausted and stretched thin, began to fracture under the relentless pressure of Sir Alex Ferguson's men. When Sheringham found the net, the Old Trafford roar threatened to swallow the stadium whole. Then came Solskjær. In that final minute, the dream of a semi-final vanished, replaced by the hollow silence of a bus ride home from Manchester.

Reader's Guide

In the quarter-finals, Bayern Munich were drawn against Group F winners and fellow German side 1. FC Kaiserslautern, while Manchester United were paired with Group C winners Inter Milan. Two Yorke goals gave United a 2–0 win in their first leg at Old Trafford, while Bayern beat Kaiserslautern by the same scoreline at the Olympiastadion through goals from Élber and Effenberg. In the second leg, Nicola Ventola pulled a goal back for Inter, but Paul Scholes secured United's passage to the semi-finals with a late away goal. Meanwhile, Bayern won convincingly at Kaiserslautern, as goals from Effenberg, Carsten Jancker, Mario Basler and an own goal from Uwe Rösler gave them a 4–0 win, 6–0 on aggregate.

Did You Know?

• Referee Pierluigi Collina has cited this match as one of the most memorable of his career, and described the noise from the crowd at the end of the game as being like a 'lion's roar'.
• The victory completed a treble-winning season for Manchester United, having already secured the Premier League and FA Cup titles in the preceding 10 days.
• Bayern were also playing for a treble, having won the Bundesliga and reached the DFB-Pokal final, although they went on to lose that match as well to Werder Bremen on penalties.