1999 Champions League Final vs Bayern Munich

Lore & Background

The two sides had played each other earlier in the competition, having both been drawn in Group D in the group stage; Bayern won the group, while Manchester United qualified for the knockout phase as one of the two best runners-up across all six groups. After beating Inter Milan in the quarter-finals, Manchester United beat another Italian side, Juventus, in the semis to reach the final; meanwhile, Bayern beat fellow Germans 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the quarter-finals, before overcoming Ukrainian side Dynamo Kyiv in the semis. 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.

In Their Own Story

The rain lashed against the Camp Nou pitch, blurring the lines as the referee signaled two minutes of injury time that stretched into an eternity. Bayern Munich players stood with arms raised in premature triumph, convinced the trophy was already theirs. In the technical area, Sir Alex Ferguson stared motionless at the screen, while on the bench, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær waited—legs coiled not from exhaustion, but from a terrifying, electric anticipation. The ball broke to Sheringham just inside the box; he didn't control it. He struck it first-time, the net rippling as silence instantly shattered into a deafening roar that physically washed over the German defense. Before Bayern could reset, the corner flag was taken. Beckham's delivery arced in, finding Sheringham again, who rose to head it across the six-yard box. Solskjær arrived like a ghost from the past, sliding in to slot home with surgical precision. The Camp Nou erupted in a sea of red and blue, while Bayern players collapsed to their knees in disbelief, their dream dissolving into nightmare in the space of ninety seconds.

Reader's Guide

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, against whom they had an overall winning record, with three wins, two defeats and a draw in their six matches, including a 10–1 aggregate win in the second round of the 1964–65 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and a 2–0 aggregate defeat in the 1996–97 UEFA Champions League semi-finals. 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.

Did You Know?

• The two goals were scored approximately 36 seconds apart: Sheringham at 90+1 and Solskjær at 90+3.
• The victory completed a treble of Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League, which was a first for an English club in that specific combination.
• The match was played on what would have been Matt Busby's 90th birthday.