In the dressing room, as his side prepared for the cauldron of the Stadio Delle Alpi, he urged his troops to play with freedom: “It doesn’t matter if Juventus score because after drawing one-one in the first leg, just one away goal puts the ball back in our court.”
Ferguson wasn’t reckoning on the Italians - buoyed by a dominant first-half display at Old Trafford - going two goals up inside 11 minutes. The 3-1 aggregate deficit was made all the more formidable by the fact that the Bianconeri had not been eliminated from European competition since 1993.