“Basler”, replied my Dad, still not daring to alter his gaze.
“ That’ the one”, I replied, “Basler, will miss it!” I added in a triumphant manner.
Then, as if he was waiting for me to finish prophesising his kick, Basler stepped up to the ball and launched a daisy-cutter, which skimmed across the ground, thorough the wall, eluded the goalkeeper and nestled in the back of the net.
The opposite end of the stadium erupted into cheers and cries of ecstatic excitement and no doubt joy. The silent German fans were no longer silent, they were loud. They were so loud, yet we were so quiet; it made the bitter disappointment much worse. My dad his shook his head, which like many other nearby supporters was now buried in his hands and resting on his lap. It was like he was trying to hide his embarrassment (for he is a loyal supporter) but he still displayed his dismay and anger to the surrounding crowd. However, I just stared at the huge shimmering patch of grey, and longed that I was celebrating an early goal, and not regretting one.
My Dad, forever a pessimist in all situations of this nature, emerged from his arms and began his ruthless analysis of the goal.
“Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful”, he said in a “know it all” fashion, to confirm that he was more angry than disappointed. “ What the hell was going on there? A huge hole in the wall so he could just smack it in the net. Only 6 minutes gone and …”
“Yes”, I stressed, as I blessed a chance to interrupt his angry rave. “Which leaves 84 minutes for us to get an equaliser. We’ve got plenty of time!”
Although both of us were bitterly upset, this truth seemed to ease the disappointment of this early setback, and fill us with hope that United could score and level the match.
The friendly atmosphere that existed only a few minutes ago had now gone, and it’s replacement was a strongly hostile one, with German jeers and chants from the opposite side of the crowd, which had now stopped shimmering and now appeared, strong and invincible, with its concrete like colour. Their sense of victory was much stronger than ours, and the chants were rapidly extinguishing my hope and pride in my team. Thankfully however, the chants died out when United won a corner, which seemed like hours later.
“We might score here,” suggested the man to my right, to whom I had become completely oblivious to, along with the rest of the stadium. Since conceding the goal, the only people I was aware of were me, my dad and the huge unbreakable German “wall”.
“No chance”, I half-heartedly replied, knowing I was denting his hope, like the German jeers had mine, with my bitter response.
“Don’t be so doubtful!” interrupted my Dad, who was frowning at me in such a way that I couldn’t distinguish whether he was disappointed with my attitude or with the current state of the match. However, for as long as I could remember, he had been the pessimist, whilst I had always been “ blinded by the false hope that is optimism” as my dad called it.
Either way, I watched the corner with renewed enthusiasm, but when it was immediately cleared by a tall German defender, I soon sank back into my seat.
Half Time. United had created very few chances, but inspired by yet another pep talk from my Dad, I began to believe United still had a chance to equalise as long as they scored soon, before the Germans became ultra defensive in their play.
Early into the second half, the nearby-United fans, including us, started cheering and chanting, and in about 30 seconds, it seemed nearly all United fans were cheering with us.
“Well, if they still believe, so do I”, I thought to myself.
Then during our out of tune but very loud performance of “GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED”, Beckham, who had been flamboyant all night, whipped in a deep cross towards Butt. The cheering immediately stopped, and to use an old phrase, you could have heard a pin drop. Everything seemed to slow down as Butt controlled the ball on his chest and volleyed the ball past the keeper.
Every single person in the crowd was on their feet, and broke their silence with either gasps of anguish or relief, as the ball flew into the net. The side netting that is. Butt had miss what can only be described as “ and absolute sitter “. An easy chance missed but I had a dreadful feeling that it would be our best one of the night.
With over an hour gone, I was slowly regaining my pessimist viewpoint and acting like we had already lost.
“We might as well give up now and go home” I replied as once again a United attack failed to create a scoring opportunity.
“It’s not over yet!” stressed my Dad as it became more and more obvious that I believed the match had become an irretrievable contest.
Moment s after my Dad had finished speaking, the Bayern Captain, Scholl, received the ball on the edge of our area, and hit the ball cleanly with the outside of his foot. The ball flew like a bullet from a gun through the air, and was forever curling away from the goalkeeper, whose face displayed the same expression of suspense as everyone else in the stadium. The ball however, curled just too much and clipped the post, the sound of which echoed around the now silence stadium, before being drowned out by the huge sighs of relief and aguish.
Rapidly losing faith in my team, the tall Bayern centre forward, Carston Janker (renowned for his opening goal in Germany’s 5-1 thrashing by England)receiving an unnacurate cross with his back to goal, performed looping bicycle ( or overhead ) kick lobbing it over our goalkeeper. The German crowd erupted as the ball sailed over the goalies head and outsretech palm and my heart stopped. The ball scrapped the underside of the bar and kindly bounced back up for the United keeper to appreciatively clutch the ball to his chest and was met with a huge collective sigh of relief from the United faithful (except me that its, for I had yet to open my eyes and was certain that it was a goal and that we had just lost the European Cup).
As the clock hit 90 minutes, the agony was becoming too much to endure. Only 3 minutes of stoppage time and since United had struggled to create chances all night, I could see my dreams evaporating in front of my eyes.
United managed to win a corner, which even our Goalkeeper came up for as if too confirm that this was an urgent last minute opportunity.
As the cross came in, the crowd fell silent as the ball arrived at our goalkeeper’s head on the edge of the area. Our goalkeeper. In the opponents area.
“Never” I thought to myself as he swung is head towards the ball.
Never was correct, as the ball bounced of his nose and ran weakly into the area.
“All over” I told myself as the ball trickled towards Giggs after a deflected clearance.
Giggs I remembered was a United player, just as he smacked the ball in a similar way to Scholl’s earlier shot. Unfortunately, the cries of hope soon stopped as the ball swung away from the goal, only for it to be met with a stab shot from Sheringham.
The next 5 seconds were pure delight and jubilation as the ball hit the net. The situation had been rectified and the feeling had only just begun to sink in when United kicked off and almost immediately won another corner.
“I can’t believe it”, I gasped to my Dad. “ We equalised! It looked…”
“Sssh!” interrupted my Dad as Beckham ran up to take the corner.
The ball agonisingly whipped into the area seemed to spend a n eternity in the air, before rapidly dropping only a yard from the goal line.
The ball bounced across the goal, mystifying defenders with its bounce and curl, towards the outstretched leg of a German defender, and the United substitute Ole Gunnar Solsjaer.
The entire crowd was on tenterhooks and was once again plunged into silence.
The ball span off Ole Gunnar Solsjaer’s outstretched boot and away from the goal, only for it to fly into the top right hand corner of the net.
This was the best moment of my life to date and was made even better by the fact that I had still been smiling from our goal 45 seconds earlier. The goal completed the late resurrection and made my dreams of the previous years of following United a reality.
The final whistle blew and was met with screams of joy and fulfilment and wails of anguish from the Bayern concrete wall, which I’m glad to say, was shimmering more than ever. It was the most melodramatic victory in European football’s history and to cap it all, United had won the treble on what would have been Sir Matt Busby’s 90th Birthday
The experience of having a sudden change from extreme depressive, to ultimate happiness has made me a generally much more optimistic person and has given me more believe into the statement “Anything is possible”. It has also made me a much more determined person as I have seen the rewards that the United teams’ determination brought them (and me) and also the punishment of a lack of determination to Bayern Munich. It has also made me a more faithful person and I tend to stand by things that I believe in now, when previously I probably would have given up.
By Chris Smith
