Sir Bobby Charlton speaking about Man Utd's 1999 UCL win in his 'greatest ever interview'
A recently-resurfaced interview of Sir Bobby Charlton discussing his memory of the 1999 UEFA Champions League final has gone viral.
On Saturday, Charlton’s family announced that the 86-year-old had died in the early hours while surrounded by loved ones.
The issued statement read: “It is with great sadness that we share the news that Sir Bobby passed peacefully in the early hours of Saturday morning. He was surrounded by his family.
"His family would like to pass on their thanks to everyone who has contributed to his care and for the many people who have loved and supported him. We would request that the family's privacy be respected at this time."
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Following his death, fans have flooded social media to pay their respects and highlight their favourite moments from the Manchester United legend’s career.
One of which is a video of Charlton reminiscing on the Red Devils’ 1999 UEFA Champions League win over Bayern Munich.
The video interview was taken in 2000 and sees the star regurgitating his version of what went down in Barcelona.
Opening the clip, he said: “We were playing against Bayern Munich and we were a goal down with two minutes to go. And I thought, ‘If we can just get the ball into the box’.
“You can call it blind faith what you want, but I thought if we can just get the ball into the box and we can get a goal it’ll give us that little bit of extra time — we’ll win this still.”
He continued: “I was convinced that we could win. And then the ball came across and because it was two minutes from the end Peter Schmeichel - the goalkeeper - came up and I don’t know what it is about the Germans, they could be very orderly and disciplined but it threw them completely.
“They had all the plans for who they were going to mark but suddenly there’s this great big blonde goalkeeper, this Dane came up and it threw them completely.”
Charlton continued to say that Schmeichel’s presence seemed to sow ‘disarray’ amongst the team’s defence.
“Four of their defenders had gone with Peter Schmeichel and then the ball fell to Teddy Sheringham and he didn’t hit it well but he hit it goalwards… And then you see the back of the net and I’m up, and I can’t remember.”
Laughing, Charlton said that he had to apologise to some people in front of him for jumping over them at the time of Sheringham’s goal.
“I tried to keep myself cool, and while I was actually thinking ‘keep cool, keep cool’, we went and got a corner. David Beckham knocks the ball across, Teddy Sheringham helps it on. [Ole] Gunnar Solskjær knocks the ball into the net.
Charlton said that when the Norwegians’ ball struck the back of the net in the third minute of extra time the ‘world went still’ and said that he was in ‘paradise’.
The Ashington-born manager then claimed that he didn’t know what he did for ‘about five minutes’ before dashing up to the stands of Camp Nou to see his family.
“Suddenly the world was great again and I thought ‘There is nothing ever going to be better than this’.”
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Topics: Champions League, Football, Premier League, Man Utd
Ella Scott