Ferguson:
''Milan have a lot of other good players too. It's a fantastic experience they have in their team. But I think we'll be better than the last time we played them and hopefully they won't be as good.''
This was a reference to the second round two years ago, when Milan won 1-0 in each game.
More:
''We'll get chances, just as we did against Milan last time.
"The vital question is whether we can we take our chances.
''But the players are all chipping in with their share. Cristiano Ronaldo has 21, Wayne Rooney has 20, Louis Saha 13 and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer 11. We have 19 different goalscorers this season.
"Players such as Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo were not ready for those kind of nights and found it difficult against experienced and accomplished opponents.
"As far as a lot of the players were concerned in that tie they were just setting out on a learning curve in Europe.
"How different they looked in the 7-1 win over Roma - boys had become men. It was a maturity that has developed through the squad."
More still:
"On present form I would say that Ronaldo and Kaka are currently the two best players in the world.
"Ronaldo has been fantastic for us this season, while Kaka is a great talent.
"There are other wonderful players on both sides, but Ronaldo and Kaka do stand out."
Giggs:
"This is what we wanted because the last couple of years it just hasn't happened for us.
"The seasons have just petered out really so this is all a bit of a contrast to that.
"This is what we want at this club, to be involved in three competitions.
"When we won the Treble in 1999 we expected to kick on from there. We didn't do that. But hopefully, now, this can be our year again.
He added: "My drive has never really been about the buzz of winning. I am driven by the fear of disappointment and losing.
"The winning buzz fades quickly. the main thrill is making it to the top. When you are there it's like, 'OK great, but what now?'"
Rooney:
"The difference now is me and the other young lads have matured.
"In some games we realise now that you have to be more disciplined and can't score at every opportunity.
"We've started doing that more this season, whereas in the past two we'd maybe been a little naive and tried to score every time we went forward. I think we've grown up as a team in the big games.
"This is still a young team, and the experience of the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville has been invaluable.
"They have been through it all so all the young ones listen to them when they are talking and giving advice.
"You can't afford to be complacent in any game, but we understand our roles and our jobs, and what we have to do to have a chance of winning the league. Hopefully we can do that going into the last few games.
"We've been at the top for a while and have never been either over- confident or naive about it. We know we have to do our jobs right, and so far it's been really good.
"Hopefully that can carry on. It's in our hands and it'd be a shame if we didn't take advantage of it."
Van der Sar salutes Milan midfielder Clarence Seedorf:
"Clarence is a tremendous player.
"He is the only player to have won the Champions League with three different clubs, which is a great achievement, and he is still only 31 now.
"I only played with him at Ajax for a couple of years but I have known him for a much longer period through our time with the national team.
"He has had a great career and he is still going strong, so he is definitely someone we will have to watch on Tuesday."
Goalie says he wants more than just the title:
"It is always difficult to say what would mean more.
"Maybe the English lads want the Premiership because it is such a long time since we won it.
"Of course, it is a very important trophy but the Champions League is not something you win a lot in your life.
"I suppose the difference is that we are not yet up for the Champions League prize. We are still only in the semi-finals whereas we are already there in the FA Cup Final and we are well positioned in the league."
Celtic manager Gordon Strachan who lost to Milan in the last 16:
"Manchester United are a far more exciting team than AC Milan. It will be a close-run thing but United have got the players to do it. But AC Milan have got an incredible determination not to be beaten. That's what really struck me in our tie with them.
"Most of all, though, they've got Kaka. He is their matchwinner - he's two-footed, he's really quick and he's lethal. But if United do their homework on him, and on Pirlo's free-kicks, which I'm sure they will do, they'll go through to the final.
"Fergie is a legend. If you look at any team that has picked up Trebles, they've always done it with legendary managers. I definitely think United can win all three trophies.
"I'm not sure if they're better than the side who did it in 1999, but they've got the two things you need to win the Treble - a legendary manager and an incredible squad.
"Look at how they smashed Roma in the quarter-finals. Roma were doing brilliantly in Serie A but United played magical football that night.
"Nobody can stop Ronaldo at the moment. I can see him doing really well against Milan.
"There is a song called It Could Have Been Me, about a girl watching a wedding saying it should have been her getting married. But I don't think that, not at all.
"We did as well as we could against both AC Milan and Man United. We narrowly lost at Old Trafford and beat them at our place. And Kaka did us in Milan. There was a handball involving Paolo Maldini when we were denied a penalty. But to beat teams like that we need more quality.
"AC Milan have a lot of stars but they are good athletes, physically very strong. I think they will play with one striker at Old Trafford on Tuesday. "It will probably be Filippo Inzaghi. He can doing nothing at all for 89 minutes then suddenly he scores a goal.
"I think they'll play with Kaka and three strong midfield players behind him. They will try to smother United in midfield."
Milan's Kaka:
"Manchester United are a great team, but Milan are not afraid of any side in the world. We respect them yes, but we are not afraid.
"We have a tremendous record in the Champions League. We have played 10 finals and won six.
"Our semi-finals with United will be as good as any knockout games you could wish to see."
Alessandro Nesta:
"I faced him two years ago and at the moment he really is at the top of his game.
"It will be tough, but you can stop Cristiano Ronaldo with organisation and by closing him down immediately.
"We watched the Roma game and that night everything went United's way, scoring seven goals with as many attempts. Those are special evenings, but in the first leg you could not see such a vast difference between the sides, so we will go there looking for the win."
The Indie:
In an era when the expansion of the Champions' League can bring clubs to lucrative televised prominence even if they do not win their domestic title, there is something stirring about the great names of European football being thrown together, as Manchester United and Milan will be at Old Trafford and the San Siro stadium over the next fortnight; all the more so at a stage of competition like this one, when it really matters.
In this particular case, the surprise is that such distinguished clubs should have been drawn together on only three previous occasions, and always in a straight knockout. While it need not worry United that they have been eliminated each time - the first occasion having been almost half a century ago in the immediate aftermath of the Munich air disaster - the relevance of the previous statistics may be that in only two of the previous six games have the Italians conceded a goal.
Two seasons ago, in the first knockout round, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Ruud van Nistelrooy and the rest could not manage to score in the course of three hours' football. Six or seven of that United team - though not, of course, Van Nistelrooy - should be lining up in Manchester on Tuesday, and it is the improvement that they have made collectively and individually over the past two years which encourages a belief that history can be defied this time.
Sir Alex Ferguson has pointed to the obvious improvement in his younger players, notably Rooney and Ronaldo. But would anyone dare say that players like Giggs, Scholes or Alan Smith (now used in his proper position as a striker again) are in worse form than they were then?
Giggs, the wisdom of the years aiding his conversion to a thrillingly effective central midfield player, even picked out an unheralded star performer from the pitiless 7-1 destruction of Roma in the last round: "I don't like to single out individuals' performances, but I thought Darren Fletcher was probably man of the match," he said. "He's a young player who's had a lot of injury but is coming back to his best and was outstanding. Cristiano and Wayne have scored the goals they have threatened to do. They'll be difficult games, but if we play like that [against Roma], it doesn't matter, we should beat them."
What is refreshing for United and their followers, after nothing more than one FA Cup final to excite them at this time of year in the past few seasons, is for April and May to promise so much. As Giggs, seeking a record ninth Premiership title, says: "The last couple of years, it hasn't happened for us. The seasons have just petered out really, so this time it's a bit of a contrast to be involved in three competitions. When we won the Champions' League in 1999 we expected to kick on from there. We haven't done that."
After defeating United two years ago, Milan went on to beat their co-tenants Internazionale and then PSV Eindhoven before collapsing against Liverpool in the final. After Istanbul, they will not underestimate Premiership grit, and the majority of that team will be seeking to exorcise the English ghosts; only Andriy Shevchenko, Hernan Crespo and Jaap Stam have subsequently left. What has also happened to the club is the trauma of the match-fixing scandal, costing them eight points that handicapped this season's Serie A challenge. Still, they sit in fourth place, a 5-2 win at Ascoli in midweek ensuring that Champions' League status should be maintained next season and removing some of the pressure from their coach, Carlo Ancelotti.