DOWN MEMORY LANE : JUVENTUS VS MANCHESTER UNITED 1999 UCL SEMI-FINAL SECOND LEG.

     

Captain Fantastic 

  

Venue: Del Alpi,  Turin

Date: April 21 1999

Time : 1945 BST

Line ups:

Juventus: Angelo Peruzzi; Alessandro Birindelli, Ciro Ferrara, Marco Iuliano, Gianluca Pessotto; Antonio Conte, Didier Deschamps, Edgar Davids, Angelo di Livio; Zinedine Zidane, Filippo Inzaghi
Manchester United :

Peter Schmeichel; Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Japp Stam, Denis Irwin; David Beckham, Ronny Johnsen, Roy Keane, Jesper Bolmqvist; Dwight Yorke, Andy Cole Courtesy the hardtackle

Ryan Giggs was injured while Paul Scholes started on the bench. The Old lady of Turin had surprised Manchester United with an away goal in the first leg from Antonio  Conte.

Scholes equalized late in the second half to give Manchester United hope. The fans were not that hopeful, Juventus were by far the best team in Europe for the past six or so seasons.

This was their fourth successive semi-final having reached the final in the past 3 seasons, losing two and winning one in 1996.

For Manchester United they had never won a game in Italy, so the odds were stacked against them.

Juventus missed the services of Alessandro Del Piero due to injury but they had an able Deputy in Filippo Inzaghi.

For man united fans the first ten minutes were like a horror movie. Every hope they had seemed to evaporate, the chief tormentors being Zinedine Zidane and Inzaghi. The first goal came after six minutes meaning Manchester United had to score to atleast have any hopes of going to the final via penalty shootout.

Inzaghi scored the second goal four minutes later again from Zidane assist.

By now Manchester United hopes seemed dead and buried in the first ten minutes.

There are players who will never give up even if everything seems to be lost they will always have hope. Roy Keane , the captain had now to galvanize his troops or Manchester United be humbled.

What a way to do it but lead from the from. While the fans thought everything was lost the captain of the team still believed in his troops.

On twenty four minutes Roy Keane scored to half the deficit meaning Manchester United required only one goal to head to Camp Nou and it duly arrived from Dwight Yorke on thirty three minutes.

Andy Cole 

As Juventus searched for a winning goal in the second half they left gaps in defence which were later exploited by the best striking trio in Europe that time, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole.

Yorke was clean on goal five minutes to the end but he was fouled, the referee played advantage since the ball rolled to Andy Cole. Cole scored and Manchester United were on their way to Barcelona.

Highlights

Sadly Roy Keane picked up a booking which meant he would miss the final.