The Sunday Times - 25th April 1999
Hugh Ilvanney

Manchester United are entitled to feel like a high-jumper who has just done a personal best and is then asked to clear the raised bar with lead in his shoes. Whatever they do in Barcelona on May 26 is unlikely to be more dramatic or admirable than their feat of coming from two goals behind to beat Juventus last Wednesday, but there should be no doubt that the handicaps they carry into the European Cup final create a challenge even more daunting than anything they faced at kick-off time in Turin. Anybody who objects to such an assessment should answer one simple question: Would that unforgettable night in northern Italy have taken the shape it did without the contribution of Roy Keane?

Now United are forced to confront Bayern Munich in the final with a midfield deprived not only of Keane but of Paul Scholes, who was sure to have been a vital element of the reorganisation required to compensate for the Irishman's absence. The immediate reaction must be sympathy at the personal level. It would be impossible to exaggerate the disappointment of being denied a part in the greatest occasion the two players' careers at Old Trafford have yet produced. But talk of appealing against the cautions they received at the Stadio Delle Alpi, and which meant automatic exclusion from the action in Spain, was never realistic. Their offences were far from heinous but both could be interpreted by a severe eye as justifying the referee's punishment, and overturning his decisions was not a serious option for Uefa.

Contemplating this latest test of his resourcefulness and resilience, Alex Ferguson could be excused for thinking that his route to the trophy he most covets has been mapped out by John Bunyan. Of course, Ferguson has the kind of upbeat approach to problems that would define the going in the Slough of Despond as nothing worse than good to soft and he reported himself "fresh as a daisy" as he prepared for a League match at Leeds today that is the next stage of his attempt to land an outrageous treble of Premiership, FA Cup and European Cup triumphs. When Ladbrokes rate United's chances of bringing it off at a miserly 5-2, they are recognising, above all, the extent to which the manager has implanted his own self-belief in the very marrow of his team.

Football has rarely offered a more memorable demonstration of competitive conviction than his players provided in Turin. Their achievement went far beyond refusing to be broken by going two down in 11 minutes in a country where their club had never recorded a victory. What impressed was not so much their fightback as the composure, style and faith in their passing game that made their surging retaliation sufficiently heart warming to win applause from many who had previously wished them nothing but ill. Left on the ropes by Filippo Inzaghi's body blows, they did not resort to the equivalent of closing their eyes and swinging wildly. Instead, having steadied themselves after that disastrously nervous start, they immediately upped the aggressive tempo of their play, but always with a concentrated emphasis on calculating penetration.

They realised that they had to deny Zinedine Zidane and Edgar Davids the space that had enabled Juventus to establish a disdainful ascendancy in the first half at Old Trafford and, even while the scoreline still showed the odds stacked heavily against them, Jaap Stam and Ronny Johnsen took turns to press boldly into advanced positions to harry the Italians. "We were willing to risk one-against-one at the back to apply the methods we knew could win us the match," Ferguson told me afterwards.

The controlled nerve that ran through United's performance was breathtaking. In the depths of adversity during those early minutes and on through the later, different form of anxiety that came with being in charge of their own destiny at 2-2, they believed in themselves so unmistakably that they destroyed first the confidence and then the coherence of the opposition. The hour and a half would not have been misrepresented if they had finished with a 4-2 or 5-2 result. "Congratulations - you outclassed us," Roberto Bettega, a Juventus giant of former days, told Ferguson later.

For the Scot, the indelible memories he took away from the night were made sweeter by the grace and civility he found on all sides at the stadium. Before the game, Juve players sought him out to shake his hand and everything about the club commanded his admiration. "There was such a contrast with the feeling I had at Inter Milan," he said. "There was the sense of pride and professionalism a genuinely great football institution should convey. There was absolutely no nastiness, not one dirty dodge in the game. Win or lose, I would have felt we were dealing with true professionals." Their conduct was made all the more laudable by the discomfort they endured. Whereas United, collectively and individually, grew to heroic dimensions as the match progressed, Juventus presented an astonishing picture of disintegrating morale and panicky responses to pressure. Nobody exemplified the completeness of the English team's recovery better than Stam. After finding the determined, muscular forays of Inzaghi hugely troublesome at the start, the Dutchman rose inexorably to the towering standard of excellence that has become his norm. Plainly, he should be a leading contender for one of the main footballer-of-the-year awards that are shortly to be announced.

So, too, should Keane and Dwight Yorke, who were others deserving of particular tributes on an evening when it would have been hard to over-praise anybody in a red shirt. Yorke's front-line ally, Andy Cole, made a big impact on Italian observers with his pace, resolution and probing liveliness but his partner did even more to terrorise the Juventus defenders. Dropping deep - whether to link smoothly in the preliminaries to an assault, or collecting the ball to turn and jink threateningly into the enemy box - he was electric and unsubduable, and his headed equaliser was a goal that only a forward of exceptional intelligence and vitality would have delivered.

As Cole's cleverly placed but unforceful cross fell into his path, Yorke instantly identified the need to impart violent propulsion to the ball and he did so, in mid-air, with a remarkable athletic spasm of his body. It was the strike of a natural finisher and the asset that he and Cole constitute for United must be regarded as one of their best hopes of surviving the loss of Keane and Scholes for the assignment at the Nou Camp. If Bayern are consistently uneasy at the back, there will obviously be less leisure for Stefan Effenberg and Jens Jeremies to plot mischief in the middle of the park.

In acknowledging that Ferguson's decision to give Cole and him a short rest from the domestic programme had sent them out fresh and hungry on Wednesday, Yorke was endorsing a principle his manager has applied with every club he has supervised. Having once been a prolific goalscorer himself, Ferguson is satisfied that when a front-man has a drought it is often helpful to withdraw him briefly from the firing line. He will be trusting now that Yorke and Cole have had enough respite to let them sustain a destructive edge throughout the demanding month ahead. Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are distinguished understudies but only Bayern will want to see them at curtain-up on the big stage in Spain.

Already the Germans have enjoyed more good fortune than they could expect by having Scholes and, more significantly, Keane removed from the reckoning. Those who suggest that the champions-elect of the Bundesliga are equally diminished by the loss through injury of Bixente Lizarazu, their marauding left-back from France, and Giovane Elber, their Brazilian striker, have an unconvincing argument. Keane (notwithstanding the respectable case that can be made for Peter Schmeichel in goal) is the most important player in the recent history of Manchester United, a captain who is not only the principal wellspring of the team's combative energy but the fulcrum of their movement when they are at their best.

Since he has curbed his susceptibility to red mists to the point where his disciplinary problems tend to arise from mistimed tackles rather than alarming violence, and has become almost philosophical in his reaction to referees' interventions, none but the blindly bigoted could question his right to be bracketed with the most influential footballers currently active. Neither Lizarazu nor Elber would qualify for that description. He has the attributes to dominate a European Cup final and it is unutterably sad that he will be a spectator in Barcelona.

Nobody, other than the player himself, will be sadder than Ferguson. Since midweek, he has not stopped eulogising what Keane did for United in Turin. "The minute he was booked and out of the final, he seemed to redouble his efforts to get the team there. He showed that concern for others which separates truly special people. I didn't think Roy could go up any further in my estimation than he was, but he did in that game. I have been privileged in my time as a manager to work with some individuals who had no need of Alex Ferguson, players with such inner resources that they don't have to draw any strength from a manager. Willie Miller at Aberdeen was like that, and Bryan Robson in my earlier years at Old Trafford. Roy Keane is certainly in their category.

"As you develop a team, you try to get your drive and ambition and the playing principles you believe in to enter into their personalities. You hope they will soak up your values, as if through their pores. But, if you are lucky, you encounter one or two men who are natural mirrors of your commitment, who are such out-and-out winners that you consider it an honour to be compared with them. That's how I see Roy Keane."