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 Ferguson's gamble hits the jackpot Solskjaer, Sheringham come off bench to provide win
Posted: Monday May 31, 1999 12:10 PM
BARCELONA (CNN/SI) -- There he stood on the sidelines, Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson, the riverboat gambler trying to decide which cards to play in the biggest hand of the night. The two aces that he pulled off the draw were simply perfection, enabling his club to shock Bayern Munich in stoppage time with two goals in the final three minutes of the Champions League final. Years from now, when people discuss Man U's 2-1 win, they may recall the goalscorers, but will they remember how they got there? Ferguson made two moves on Wednesday night and both worked to perfection, getting Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on the field to bring United one of the most astonishing victories ever seen in a match of this stature. If the result had taken place in a Sunday morning league match in a local park it would have ranked as quite some achievement. That it should happen in front of 90,000 incredulous fans in the Nou Camp stadium and an estimated 500 million television viewers around the world lifts the game into the realms of folklore. Possibly the goals did not come earlier because, for the first 70 minutes of the match, Ferguson appeared to have got his tactics wrong. Deprived of his driving force and captain Roy Keane and enterprising midfield creator and poacher Paul Scholes due to suspension, Ferguson's options in midfield were restricted. Knowing that Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld planned to man mark his creative wide men David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, Ferguson shuffled his side -- initially to little effect. He switched Giggs from his usual position wide on the left to wide right and moved Beckham into a central role alongside Nicky Butt. Jesper Blomqvist started wide on the left -- but the side was unbalanced. Beckham -- the best passer of the ball in the club according to Ferguson -- failed to make his forward passes count, Giggs turned Michael Tarnat inside out with his trickery but failed to find any accurary with his crosses, while Blomqvist spent most of his time on the pitch running into blind alleys. After 67 minutes Sheringham, who came on as a substitute in the FA Cup final against Newcastle United on Saturday, scoring one goal and creating another, replaced the ineffective Blomqvist and joined Andy Cole in attack. That allowed Dwight Yorke to drop into the midfield role Beckham had been in -- with Beckham moving wide on the right. Almost immediatly Manchester United began to look and play like Manchester United. Suddenly its territorial advantage began to give the club the opportunity to exploit the Bayern back line. Sheringham's little linking passes and Beckham's more effective crosses began to unsettle the Germans and although no goals came immediately, United clearly held the upper hand going into the final minutes. With 10 minutes to go Solskjaer replaced Cole and Bayern had even more problems to counter. Then, with only seconds remaining Sheringham struck home the equalizer from close range after Bayern failed to clear a Beckham corner. Less than two minutes later Solskjaer stabbed the ball past Oliver Kahn for the winner after Sheringham had nodded on another Beckham corner. Before the match Ferguson said whoever was going to win it would need some luck to go with whatever other qualities his team might possess. Lady Luck certainly smiled on him at the end, though she took her time.
Reuters contributed to this report. | |||||||||||||||||
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