Teddy Sherinham, centre, celebrates with Ryan
Giggs, left, and David Beckham.
Ten years ago today, Teddy Sheringham's goal
sparked the remarkable comeback against Bayern Munich in
Barcelona
I had scored in the FA Cup final four days earlier and I thought
I would have a shout at starting at Camp Nou. I was quite upset
when the manager told me that I wouldn't be.
Bayern scored early but they kept on playing well. There is a
selfish element – I wanted to play a part and I wanted to be the
hero. I remember Sir Alex [Ferguson] coming up to me at half-time
and saying, 'I'm going to keep it the same but make sure you are
ready because if it stays like this for 10 or 15 minutes you're
going to be coming on'. I didn't want our team to score in the next
10 or 15 minutes. I wanted the team to stay 1-0 down so I would
have a chance to play in the Champions League final.
I did not realise it was so near the end until I saw Peter
Schmeichel coming up for the corner, then I knew there could not be
long left to play. The ball came in from Becks [David Beckham], it
went to the far post and Dwight Yorke headed it back before a
defender half-cleared it and it went to Giggsy [Ryan Giggs] on the
edge of the box. He scuffed his right foot shot and it came my
way.
I knew I was onside because they had a fella on the line. Before
I hit it he ran out, so when the ball came to me it looked like I
was offside but I knew that I wasn't. After I'd scored I went off
celebrating but I checked with the linesman to make sure he'd seen
it right.
A few seconds later we had another corner and Becks took it
again. I went to the near post and got in front of my man but I got
up a little bit early and realised I wouldn't be able to score, so
I flicked it on to the far post into an area where I knew one of
our players would be and Ole [Gunnar Solskjær] stuck out a leg and
put it in the top of the net.
It was a complete shock how we turned it around and to this day
people come up to me and tell me that by the time they had finished
celebrating the first goal we were celebrating the second one.
People watching it in pubs were still celebrating reruns of the
first goal and then were celebrating even more – some didn't know
there had been a second goal, it happened that quickly.
I've never celebrated on a pitch for so long, I think we must
have done three or four laps of honour. We really milked the
moment. We were not just celebrating the Champions League, we were
celebrating the previous 11 days, winning the Premier League and
the FA Cup. We chilled out in the bath after that for a while but
we made up for it that night, we were still partying at seven in
the morning. Without a doubt it was the most enthusiastic
celebrations of my career – we were celebrating winning the Treble,
so we made it one hell of a party in Barcelona.
Teddy Sheringham scored in the 1999 Champions League final,
played a decade ago today.
