My first European tie was nearly twenty years ago, we went out to Porto 6-5 on aggregate. Yet with the exception of the two games against Barcelona, the 5-2 win on a “cats and dogs” night in Stretford remains one of the greatest nights of football I’ve ever witnessed at Old Trafford.
Those who were there will testify to the passion, a cacophony of thunderous noise rolling down from the stands and terraces, an opposition frightened into thinking they might lose an unassailable lead, and a United team at their opponents’ throats for ninety minutes never once giving up on the impossible dream of victory.
When the referee finally called it a day the whole ground roared the team off the pitch, a mutual admiration forming in appreciation of the effort of the team and fans. We might have failed, but by fuck we didn’t half go down fighting.
That was what Europe was and still should be about, watching the cream of the continent’s football sides coming to fortress Old Trafford and having the living daylights scared out of them by a team pumped up on the adrenalin of fifty or sixty thousand mad Reds, screaming themselves hoarse in devotion to their team.