Two goals down after 11 minutes.
A European final disappearing into the Turin night.
And then the captain decided Manchester United were not going home.
On 21 April 1999, Manchester United travelled to the Stadio delle Alpi knowing victory over Juventus would take them into the Champions League final.
What followed became one of the defining nights of the Treble season.
Filippo Inzaghi scored twice inside the opening 11 minutes to put Juventus in command. Roy Keane dragged United back into the contest, Dwight Yorke equalised and Andy Cole completed an extraordinary 3-2 victory.
United were going to Barcelona.
Their captain wasn’t.
And somehow, that only makes what Keane did that night even more remarkable.
One obstacle still stood in the way
By April 1999, something extraordinary was developing.
United remained in contention for the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League, but European football had provided repeated frustration during Sir Alex Ferguson’s attempts to take the club back to the summit of the continent.
Juventus were particularly familiar opponents.
The Italian giants had reached each of the previous three Champions League finals, winning the competition in 1996, and United had faced them in both of the previous two European campaigns.
The first leg of the semi-final at Old Trafford had ended 1-1. Antonio Conte put the visitors ahead before a late Ryan Giggs equaliser kept United alive heading to Turin.
One match now separated Ferguson and his players from the Champions League final.
Eleven minutes later, the dream appeared to be collapsing.
The nightmare start
Inzaghi struck after just six minutes.
Then he scored again five minutes later.
Juventus 2-0 Manchester United.
United were suddenly staring at a 3-1 aggregate deficit.
In a stadium where they needed one of the great European performances in the club’s history, they had instead suffered the worst possible start.
It would have been easy to panic.
This United team didn’t.
And the player who started the fightback was exactly the man you would expect.
The captain responds
Twenty-four minutes had been played when United won a corner.
David Beckham delivered.
Keane met it.
Goal.
2-1.
It wasn’t the winning goal. It wasn’t even the equaliser.
Yet it has become perhaps the defining image of the comeback because of what followed.
Keane wasn’t simply captaining United that night.
He was driving them.
Whatever shock the opening 11 minutes had inflicted was disappearing.
United believed again.
And ten minutes after their captain scored, the tie changed completely.
Yorke makes it level
In the 34th minute, Dwight Yorke scored.
2-2.
From two down on the night and two down on aggregate, United had dragged themselves level before half-time.
At that point, the away-goals rule meant United were heading through.
The momentum had completely shifted.
But between the two United goals came the moment that transformed Keane’s performance from merely outstanding into something enduring.
The yellow card
Keane was booked in the 33rd minute.
Under the competition’s suspension rules at the time, that yellow card meant he would miss the Champions League final if United reached it.
The biggest club match of his career was suddenly beyond him.
There were still almost 60 minutes to play.
It is what happened next that lies at the heart of the story.
United’s captain continued.
The knowledge that he would receive no personal reward in Barcelona didn’t stop him helping everybody else get there.
Keane remained at the centre of United’s performance as they fought to protect their position in the tie and push for more.
There would ultimately be no final in Barcelona for the captain.
But without his contribution in Turin, there may not have been a final for United either.
United go looking for the winner
At 2-2 on the night, United had achieved what had looked almost impossible after 11 minutes.
They could have protected it.
Instead, they kept going.
Yorke and Denis Irwin both hit the post during a match in which United threatened to increase their advantage.
At the other end, Peter Schmeichel was required to make important saves.
There was no comfortable route to Barcelona.
United had to take it.
Cole sends United to Barcelona
Seven minutes remained.
Andy Cole scored.
Juventus 2-3 Manchester United.
The comeback was complete.
The team that had reached three consecutive Champions League finals had been beaten in Turin.
United had won the tie 4-3 on aggregate.
For the first time in Ferguson’s reign, Manchester United were heading to a Champions League final.
Barcelona awaited.
The performance that defined Roy Keane
Plenty of footballers have produced spectacular performances in huge matches.
What makes Keane’s night in Turin different is the story surrounding it.
His team were two goals down.
He started the comeback.
Then he received the yellow card that ensured he wouldn’t be able to finish the European journey himself.
And he carried on.
No final.
No chance to walk out in Barcelona.
No possibility of lifting the European Cup as captain on the night United might win it.
His job instead became making certain his teammates had that opportunity.
The Turin performance has subsequently been celebrated as arguably Keane’s finest hour in a United shirt.
It is difficult to find another match that encapsulates his importance to that team quite as completely.
From Turin to Barcelona
Thirty-five days later, Manchester United faced Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou.
Keane wasn’t the only absentee.
Paul Scholes had also received a suspension-triggering yellow card in Turin and missed the final.
But United had reached Barcelona.
And the Treble was still alive.
Turin therefore occupies a special place in the story of 1999.
Barcelona provided the immortal ending.
The Nou Camp gave United the trophy.
But before there could be Teddy Sheringham, Ole Gunnar Solskjær and injury-time history, there had to be Turin.
There had to be Cole.
There had to be Yorke.
And above all, there had to be the captain who discovered midway through the match that there would be no final for him and responded by making absolutely certain there would be one for everybody else.
Two down. Three back. Barcelona booked.
Roy Keane wouldn’t play in the final.
But his fingerprints were all over United’s place in it.
Written by Paul
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