Manchester United 4 - 3 Real Madrid | 20 Years On

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Good article in the Athletic today for those who are subscribed.



Still remember the shock over Beckham not starting. Crazy night where Ronaldo reigned surpreme.
 
Knew Beckham was gone when he didn’t start this game, but man what an impact he had when he came on. Him and the Ronaldo hat trick and standing ovation are the two things I remember from this game.
 
crossy1686 said:
Knew Beckham was gone when he didn’t start this game, but man what an impact he had when he came on. Him and the Ronaldo hat trick and standing ovation are the two things I remember from this game.
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He did the same thing with Rooney a decade later - started welbeck in the hole against Real Madrid to prove a point, and it was working until the ref got involved.
 
Remember the pain as an 11 year old kid going out in this game. That Madrid team were like gods to a young lad though.
 
Poor goals to concede, That first by Barthez on the near post.

At least we showed character and quality going forward, created a bucketload of chances that night, Madrid were on the ropes
 
Still one of the best games of I've ever seen.

Football was just better back then.
 
You know it's a mad game when John O'Shea nutmegging Figo wasn't even in the top 5 most memorable moments.
 
The difference between the 2 sides in the tie was literally Casillas. He was superhuman in that 2nd leg.

Barthez was terrible in both legs.
 
P-Nut said:
Remember the pain as an 11 year old kid going out in this game. That Madrid team were like gods to a young lad though.
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Felt the same. I don’t think I’ve felt the same aura about another opponent since. Maybe Barca when we beat them in 07/08 semis.
 
I was also around 11, one of the first seasons I properly remember tbh.

Was gutted to go out but also in complete awe of Ronaldo.

Also had Beckham on my shirt - great impact when he came off the bench but everyone seemed to know he was gone.
 
That Ronaldo performance! To think he was boo'd by the Madrid fans the week before
 
It was a great second leg and we had a lot of chances. Veron seemed to want to win the game by himself at one point. Beckham really should have started

The first leg was a disaster; I remember Barthez clearly handling the ball outside the area at one point that we got away with.
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
The difference between the 2 sides in the tie was literally Casillas. He was superhuman in that 2nd leg.

Barthez was terrible in both legs.
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I remember in the first leg Barthez getting lobbed by Figo. He should’ve done better with the Ronaldo effort at his near post too. I never warmed to him being our keeper really. If you’re only 5’11” you’d better be good at getting down to stuff, and he just wasn’t.
 
I forgot just how many chances we had in this game! We were quite wasteful, could've been completely different if we were more clinical and we had a semi decent keeper in goal.
 
it is no coincidence that the best European spell under Fergie came when we finally had a defense that was up there with the best in the game, 2006-11. 99 might have has Stam, but moving forward with guys like Brown/Silvestre, Johnsen, Berg, Phil Neville, O'Shea, Heinze and struggling to replace Schmeichel held that team back from building on that success. Rio couldn't do it all by himself.


The first defeat to Madrid in 2000 was a throwaway, and they lacked the belief they could beat the 2003 version even though over the 2 legs Utd had far more chances and were let down terribly by Barthez.

Also 20 years, feck off.
 
The Barthez Clown era :annoyed:
I wonder how many goals this guy conceded outside of the box.
 
This is the first Champions League knockout I can remember watching. Great game, they don't make them like they used to!
 
One of my unpopular opinions is that the Ronaldo hattrick is very overrated. A good keeper would have saved the first goal easily and been in a better position for the third.

I think Barthez got permanently dropped the very next game and replaced by Andy Carrol.
 
Ayoba said:
That Ronaldo performance! To think he was boo'd by the Madrid fans the week before
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I never quite understood the hype over that hat trick. Stick a decent keeper in nets and he only scores one. The third goal hits the net less than half way down the goal and isn’t even in the corner. A keeper who isn’t a midget saves that with ease.
 
The Law of Denis said:
One of my unpopular opinions is that the Ronaldo hattrick is very overrated. A good keeper would have saved the first goal easily and been in a better position for the third.
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This is true. However what’s also true is that the game itself wasn’t much of a contest after the first goal, which made it 1-4 on aggregate, and by the time we’d “won” the game, all their top players had be taken off and we were playing for pride.

As such, the whole “one of the greatest games” thing flatters us enormously.

Certainly a great night for the collection of players on display, and a goal fest between two of the greatest sides at their peaks, but I’ve always considered us celebrating it a little bit cringe… like saying the PSG game where we fluked a win in the round of 16 against a side who’d never got beyond the semis was one of our “greatest European nights” - it’s always just slightly rankled me.

But admittedly that’s a bit grinchey to most
 
As someone who attended the game as a very young man, I can only say that this was like a high level game of basketball, Beckham was on the bench, some players at their peak of the power some started fading. United had Scholes, Giggs, RVP. Real Figo, Zidane, Carlos and Ronaldo.

Beckham Vs Carlos when he came on was majestic, Beckham
Solo goal proved he was world class that day and Fergie made one of very few big game mistakes. Ronaldo vs Rio not so much,United won the battle but lost the War, wow what a game !
 
Imagine if we had kept Stam and signed Van der Sar to replace Schmeichel. Our defence those few years really cost us at times, and I loved Barthez as a kid at the time!

In 02/03 I think Scholes was our best player so missing him alongside our own choice of not starting Beckham was always going to make it a difficult task. Had those two started I still don't think we would've progressed as our defence was just too shaky. We made Ronaldo look a lot better than he was at the time.
 
I was there, but still have little memory of it beyond the Ronaldo standing ovation.

The only other memory I have of that game was a handful of our fans letting off some steam from getting knocked out by chanting 'Galatasaray' down the steps. Lovely fellas.
 
Fair few chances missed by Ruud and Ole judging by the highlights…

Beckham’s FK best goal of the night though
 
Barthez last game for us I think that was as Carroll played in the last three PL games.
 
Scholes in the 1st leg:



Some forget how agile Scholes was. He didn't always need a passing option to get away from pressure. A few of these turns left Madrid players in the dust.
 
The young me was so happy with that win even though we went out. Had to prove a point about United for my teammates who were all massive fans of the galacticos. Crazy that it's been 20 years already.
 
Woziak said:
As someone who attended the game as a very young man, I can only say that this was like a high level game of basketball, Beckham was on the bench, some players at their peak of the power some started fading. United had Scholes, Giggs, RVP. Real Figo, Zidane, Carlos and Ronaldo.

Beckham Vs Carlos when he came on was majestic, Beckham
Solo goal proved he was world class that day and Fergie made one of very few big game mistakes. Ronaldo vs Rio not so much,United won the battle but lost the War, wow what a game !
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Wow!
 
There just seemed to be a bigger pool of world class players back then. Nowadays it's all about systems with most players being cogs in a machine rather than brilliant individuals given license to do their thing and entertain us.
 
Ugh the shaky as feck Barthez days. I remember him being a particular annoyance in the first leg. Didn’t he blatantly handle the ball outside his box in the first half and get away with it?
 
I remember being at this match on the Stretford End. The next day I couldn’t work out why I had bruises across both thighs. It was from standing up and leaning so hard on the seat in front for the whole match! I also remember shouting at Veron for losing the ball and just shaking his head . Also Ronaldo (Brazilian) getting a standing ovation.
 
sullydnl said:
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I don't have an athletic subscription so I can't read through it but I'm really not sold on the idea that a quarter finals in the champions league, no matter how entertaining it was, changed the sport forever :lol:
 
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