Manchester United, the final minute. A team and a moment to haunt Thorsten Fink’s dreams. As a player, he was 60 seconds away from winning the Champions League. As a manager, he was 60 seconds from the most famous victory in Basle’s history, coming from two down to win at Old Trafford. What excruciating torture can be visited upon a man in but one minute.At least here, the former Bayern Munich midfielder emerged with a point. This, he insisted in the aftermath of a breathless encounter, was a “positive experience.” Barcelona, 12 years ago, when he stood helplessly as Sir Alex Ferguson claimed that remarkable Champions League triumph, was a “purely negative” one.
Fink will take pleasure in the role reversal, a modicum of revenge giving solace for his team’s narrow failure to cling on to the spoils of their stunning comeback. He will delight, a little, that it was left to Ferguson to rail that his side had thrown away the game. Not quite punching the ground in despair, like Samuel Kuffour did in 1999, in the throes of agony, but close.
No wonder: on few occasions in his 26 years at Old Trafford will Ferguson’s side have allowed themselves to be complicit in such drama. This was a game the hosts had in their grasp inside 17 minutes, thanks to two Danny Welbeck goals. This was a game which should, by rights, have been one of those group stage gimmes which ensure the opening salvos of the world’s most self-satisfied competition attract annual opprobrium.
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