Man Utd have a patchy Champions League record, but Michael Carrick made no attempt to play down what the competition means ahead of their return.
Wes Brown and Michael Carrick with the Champions League trophy
Michael Carrick knows what it takes to win the Champions League
View Image
It is typical of Manchester United's recent Champions League record that they make their return to the competition after a 1,003-day absence on a Thursday night, with a fixture that wouldn't look out of place in the Conference League.
'Only United' was the view of one staff member when the fixture list came out, but the good news is that the schedule does go up a level after the visit of Sabah FK, a club only founded in 2017 and who will bring 300 supporters from Baku.
Bayern Munich, Roma and RB Leipzig will visit Old Trafford, while there will be trips to Atletico Madrid, Como, Sporting CP and Villarreal. At the end of it all, United will expect to be in the knockout stages, ideally via the top eight, or in a worst-case scenario the top 24 and a play-off round.
It is debatable whether that extra fixture truly counts as a knockout game, and for United to achieve what they want to this season, they have to go beyond that round. Carrick made little attempt to play down expectations on Wednesday.
The fact that Bruno Fernandes, now a Ballon d'Or nominee, has played just one knockout tie in his six-and-a-half years at the club says it all. When that was put to Carrick, he suggested this team were more than capable of achieving the kind of success that would convince Fernandes - and other A-listers - that their futures would be at the club.
Carrick certainly understands how the Champions League can define reputations. He won the competition with United in 2008 and played in another final in 2011 and said he felt not being in it for so long had only reinforced how special it was.
"It's a magical competition," he said. "It's where we all want to be. When you're out of it, you realise how special it is, and when you're in it, you want to make the most of it.
"I think we've all seen some special, special nights and felt some special things in this competition over the years. It's where we want to be, it's what we want to get back to, and it's the best competition to challenge yourself and to push against the best.
"It's challenging yourself against the elite, the very best, and I've said it before, I think over a long, long, long period of time, this football club's been used to challenging with the best and being the best.
"It's not something that you can take for granted, what it takes to be there and what it takes to stay there. And we've missed out on it for a number of years, and now we're back, so I think it means a lot.
Content cannot be displayed without consent
"It's where we want to be every single year and it's where we should expect to be, without being ahead of ourselves."
United's recent record in the competition and their patchy start to the season mean they won't be considered one of the favourites to lift the trophy in Madrid in May, but Carrick was refusing to write off the possibility of achieving something special.
"I don't think it's a kind of going, 'If we get to a certain stage, that's a success, and if we don't, it's not'," said Carrick. "We've got to embrace the new challenge that we face as a group.
"I think we're capable of doing some really good things in this competition and going further down the line in this competition, and then who knows when it gets to that stage. I'm not writing anything off."
Carrick will be taking charge of his second Champions League fixture, having beaten Villarreal 2-0 in El Madrigal in November 2021, when he stood in for three games after the sacking of his close friend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
He also played 70 games in the competition as a player, with the highlight coming in Moscow in 2008 when he scored in the shoot-out as United beat Chelsea. Although defeats to Barcelona followed in the 2009 and 2011 finals, the win in the rain in Russia remained a career peak.
"As a one-off feeling and instant kind of emotion, definitely winning the Champions League is the best feeling I've been lucky enough to have as a footballer," he said.
"I think on top of that, probably over time, the longevity and playing over a period of time gives you a lot of satisfaction as a footballer to have a career, but to win the Champions League for me was the ultimate and was the best feeling I've had.
"Be nice someday to feel that again."