On The Spot: Sheringham discusses extra-time heroics to secure Treble
Manchester United’s 1999 Champions League final victory over Bayern Munich is one of the most dramatic moments in football history.
After trailing much of the game 1-0, United scored two goals in injury time to snatch a late win and secure an unprecedented Treble.
A key man that night in Barcelona was Teddy Sheringham, who scored the equaliser before assisting the winner after coming on as a second-half substitute.
LiveScore’s Killian O’Connor spoke to the Manchester United legend about his memories of that famous night.
What did Sir Alex Ferguson say before he brought you on as a substitute?
Just give it your best shot and go and try and change the game. That is all he said.
You had a half chance earlier in the half. Do you remember it?
I think you always think that. It's amazing what goes on inside your mind at those particular times. You try and slow things down to get yourself calm, to slot the ball into into the net.
You've done it a million times over years from being a young boy to a professional. You get yourself into a mode to slow yourself down so that you hit the best shot that you can.
Sometimes it doesn't happen. I had a little snatch at a chance and didn't quite catch it as well as I could have done. You think that might be the only chance that you're going to get so I was very pleased that another one came along a little bit later.
Were you aware of the time when you scored your equaliser?
I don't think I actually saw the board go up but when you see Peter Schmeichel coming up for a corner, you know that it's very close to being time up.
When he came up I was thinking: "Come on, we need to score a goal here.”
I think he went up as Becks [David Beckham] put the corner in, he went up for the header, two people clashed and it went to the far post. Yorkie [Dwight Yorke] nodded it back in, but it wasn't a great header.
[Stefan] Effenberg tried to clear it, he had a kind of panic and sliced it. It fell to Giggsy on the edge of the box who lined up a right-foot volley and, without swearing, I thought to myself: "Blimey, this could go anywhere."
Luckily for me, he scuffed it a little bit and it came rolling past me and I just did my best to get as good a connection as I could and screwed it, scuffed it off my ankle and onto my sock and into the net.
How were you feeling after scoring? Were you expecting to go and try and find a winner before the end of normal time?
After my goal, I just wheeled away in celebration and thought we've got extra time, now we've got another half an hour in this beautiful stadium. Let's go and enjoy it.
But 20 seconds later we're up the left wing, Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] tried to take the defender on, tried to cross it into the box for me, it hit the defender and went out and we had a corner.
So we're back in the same scenario but now, I'm feeling 10ft tall. I'm thinking to myself: "Put it into an area Becks, I will get across my man and I'm scoring here. I'm going make history and score two goals in this final.
"Just put it up there, put it up there somewhere. You know exactly where I want it."
As he ran up to take it, I made out to go to the far post then came across the near post and he's put in the most perfect ball.
But again talking about scenarios and trying to slow things down, I knew instinctively that if I tried to head it in the near post where I wanted it, where I had my visions of doing it, I'm up a little bit too early and I'm going to head it over the bar.
So all I can do to affect this game is to flick it into an area where hopefully someone else can do something about it.
As I got up, I just changed my mind, flicked it into the far post and as I was falling, I could see Ole hit it on his instep into the roof of the net and it was carnage from there.
What are your memories of the celebrations after Solskjaer scored the second goal?
It was probably the most excited 25 footballers have ever been in their lives. We were thinking we've done a burglary, nicking this game off Bayern Munich in the last seconds where they thought they'd won this game.
We celebrated for a couple of minutes and as we walked back to the halfway line for the centre, three or four other Bayern Munich players were on the floor.
[Samuel] Kuffour was smashing the floor with his fist. I remember the referee trying to pick one or two of them up and I wondered what he was trying to do, thinking: "Is he a Bayern Munich fan or something? Why is he trying to pick them up?"
But we got back to the halfway line and within 20 seconds, maybe not even that, the final whistle went and it was bedlam after that.
You know we all just ran around, jumping on each other and realise that we'd not only won the Champions League but we'd won the Treble.
We saw the celebrations at the final whistle. Did they go late into the night?
It was a little bit of a late one, yes. Probably one of the best celebratory nights we ever had. It was amazing.
Is it the greatest comeback in Champions League history?
Without a doubt. To be involved in it was immense. I get asked about it on average once a day.
I love re-running it because I know how much it meant to so many people. It is great to listen to their stories — where they were, talking about the goal, how it came about and celebrations after.
For me, it was what dreams are made of.
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