UTD Unscripted: One night in Turin

Early on, Giggsy scored the opener and then, before half an hour had gone, Becks crossed the ball in towards me. I took on the overhead kick and I honestly couldn’t have struck it any better. You look back now and you think: ‘Bloody hell, I didn’t know I had all that in my locker!’ I’d tried it in training, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but to have tried that in such a huge game, such a great spectacle with those kind of players on show, and to pull it off… yeah, I was happy with that one. It’s just a shame the keeper saved it!

Obviously it would have been nice if that had gone straight in, but Scholesy scored from the rebound so that’s nearly a 100 per cent perfect moment. That’s the kind of goal you want to score, but I’ll take the 90 percent for it!

It was an unbelievable game and unfortunately we ended up drawing 3-3 despite that great start, but afterwards I knew that’s what football is made of: playing in that type of game.

Those games kept on coming that season.

Drawing 3-3 with Barcelona on that first night, then drawing in Germany against Bayern Munich, two big wins over Brondby, another 3-3 against Barcelona in Spain and then another draw with Bayern at Old Trafford. It was an unbelievable group campaign in the group of death, but we didn’t lose once. Then we beat a very strong Inter Milan side over two legs in the quarter-final; winning at Old Trafford and drawing in the San Siro.

As we went through the competition, the opposition was just brilliant all the way. We faced Juventus in the semi-final first leg at Old Trafford, they played very well and we just about managed to get a 1-1 draw ahead of the second leg in Turin.

This is back in the days when Italian clubs were known for their defensive play but also the brilliant, flamboyant individuals they had in their league; players like Zinedine Zidane, Edgar Davids, David Trezeguet and those types of players.