Page 116 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

seventeen

BEFORE the Moscow Champions League final of 2008, I was the reluctant holder of possibly the worst
record in penalty shoot-outs. I had lost two semi-finals at Aberdeen, a European tie at Aberdeen, an
FA Cup tie at Old Trafford against Southampton, an FA Cup final against Arsenal and a European tie
in Moscow through penalty shoot-outs. Six defeats and one victory was the inauspicious context to
Carlos Tévez placing the ball on the spot at the start of our shoot-out with Chelsea in Roman

Abramovich’s home town.
With those memories, you would hardly expect me to have been optimistic. All those earlier
disappointments were in my head as the game stretched beyond extra time and the match crept into the
early hours of the following day after a 10.45 p.m. kick-off. When Van der Sar saved from Nicolas
Anelka to win the trophy for us, I hardly made it off my seat, because I could barely believe we had
won. I stayed motionless for several moments. Ronaldo was still lying on the turf crying because he
had missed his penalty kick.

Our goalkeeping coach had compiled all the video ana-lysis we could possibly need, and was able
to pull the data up on a screen to show Van der Sar how each Chelsea player might take his spot kick.
For several days we had discussed the order in which our players would step up. They were all good,
apart from Ronaldo, who had been scoring them all season. Giggs’ execution was the best: hard and
low, inside the post. Hargreaves battered his into the top corner. Nani was a touch lucky because the
goalkeeper should have saved it and got a hand to it. Carrick’s was straightforward. Ronaldo

hesitated and stopped.
John Terry had only to knock his in to win the game for Chelsea. At that point I was still and calm,
thinking: ‘What am I going to say to the players?’ I knew I would have to be careful with my words in
defeat. It would be unfair to slaughter them after a European final, I told myself, because they had
worked so hard to get there, and these are deeply emotional moments for those in the thick of the
action. When Terry missed the tenth penalty in the sequence and we headed into sudden death, my
optimism returned. Anderson’s penalty, the first in the do-or-die stage, had lifted our supporters

because he had run to them to celebrate, and they were then buoyant again. The kicks were taken into
our end of the ground, which was an advantage.
In no sense was this a conventional European final. The time zone was the first quirk, which meant
the game had kicked off at 10.45 p.m. I always remember, too, that the rain had drenched me and
ruined my shoes, so I attended the victory party in trainers, for which I took plenty of stick from the

players. I knew I should have packed a spare pair of shoes. It was between 4 and 5 a.m. by the time
we sat down for the buffet. The food was poor but the players gave Giggs a wonderful gift to
commemorate him passing Bobby Charlton’s appearance record. This was his 759th game. On the
stage they all sang his name.