1999 Treble Season

Lore & Background

Manchester United and Bayern Munich had only met twice in competitive matches before the final, both meetings earlier in the 1998–99 season and both finished as draws. Including the victory over Leeds in 1975, Bayern Munich had won the European Cup on three occasions going into the 1999 final. Manchester United's only victory had come in 1968 against Benfica at Wembley in extra time. The day of the 1999 Champions League final would have been the 90th birthday of former manager Matt Busby, who had been seriously injured 41 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.

In Their Own Story

Rain lashed against the Camp Nou roof, turning floodlights into hazy halos over the pitch. In the tunnel, the air hung heavy with wet grass and desperation. Roy Keane stood arms-crossed, a mask of grim fury; Peter Schmeichel paced like a caged lion. The scoreboard read 1-0 to Bayern in the dying seconds of injury time. Then came the whistle for stoppage: two minutes left. A corner cleared, the ball fell to Sheringham at the edge of the box—a flick, a volley—and suddenly, the impossible felt real. The roar that erupted wasn't just noise; it was history being rewritten in real-time.

Reader's Guide

In the final, injury time goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær cancelled out Mario Basler's early goal for Bayern to give Manchester United a 2–1 win. 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.

Did You Know?

• Manchester United had faced other German opponents before the final, such as Werder Bremen in the 1993–94 UEFA Champions League.
• 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.
• The 1999 final was the second Champions League season to feature clubs that had not won their national leagues the year before, and Manchester United and Bayern Munich were the first such clubs to reach the final.