Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has heard the same phrase from Manchester United fans for more than 10 years now: “You gave me the best night of my life!” Off course, the supporters are referring to the best three minutes of their life, in which Solskjaer scored the shock injury time winner to lead Manchester United to European glory, with the soccer scoreboards showing 2-1 to the English team.

The day of the final seemed to drag on endlessly. Solskjaer could not sleep, as his roommate Jaap Stam was snoring too loudly. He called his best friend in Norway, and told him that he was sure that something big was going to happen that evening. For 90 minutes of the game though, it seemed that this premonition was mistaken, as Manchester United were largely outplayed by their German opponents. In the meantime, Solskjaer spent most of the final on the substitutes bench, hoping that Alex Ferguson would notice him.

At half time, the manager explained to Teddy Sheringham that he was coming on, but he did not approach Solskjaer. As the second half went on he became increasingly eager to get on the field, as he had scored 4 times in his last 18 minutes of play, and felt strongly that he was going to do something special that night.

He concentrated on the game though, and as always did not sulk about not playing. Ferguson said once that Solskjaer was his best substitute because he concentrated hard on the game when he wasn’t playing, and was fully ready when called upon. With this attitude his legs were light, unlike players who sit and sulk, and who enter the pitch with their head in a bad space.

Sheringham’s equalized in the three minutes of stoppage time at the end of the second half. Ironically, Solskjaer, who had come on only a few minutes before that, actually wanted to play in extra-time. On the replay, you can see that all the United players ran over to Teddy to celebrate, whilst Solskjaer ran straight back to the halfway line, in deep concentration about the impending extra half hour of the Champions League final. He had only just got onto the pitch, and he was going to savoir it. Then he ruined it all by going and scoring!

The soccer scoreboards showed that Sheringham scored with less than 90 seconds of the game remaining. Then Solskjaer won a corner, which Beckham took. Sheringham was at the right place to nod it on and Solskjaer stuck out a foot and sent the ball into the roof from just three meters out. 95 out of 100 times the ball would have gone straight to the keeper or onto the head of the player standing on the line, but this was meant to be, and in Solskjaer’s words, it was a preordained moment.

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