In May, 1999, Manchester United were chasing soccer immortality. They won the Premier League by a point ahead of Arsenal and beat Newcastle United in the FA Cup final. They then headed to Barcelona to attempt something never achieved before in English football: winning the league title, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season. The Treble.
It looked as though Sir Alex Ferguson and his players would fall short. Mario Basler put Bayern Munich 1-0 up in the sixth minute, and United, without suspended captain Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, looked as though their race was run. As the clock ticked over 90 minutes, German fans inside Camp Nou were already celebrating, and ribbons in Bayern colours had been tied to the trophy for the presentation.
Then, in 60 seconds, everything changed. After a David Beckham corner, Ryan Giggs scuffed a shot goalwards, and Teddy Sheringham scrambled it past goalkeeper Oliver Kahn. Less than a minute later, Beckham swung in another corner from the left, Sheringham glanced it towards the far post, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer poked the ball high into the net.
The celebratory knee-slide, the anguish of the Bayern players, the "lion's roar" of the crowd — as remembered by referee Pierluigi Collina — instantly became part of Champions League folklore. It remains the most dramatic finish to a final the tournament has seen. Ferguson summed it up on TV afterwards: "I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell."
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