Giant inflatable footballs wrapped in the Champions League star hovered at dusk in the Manchester skyline and the terraces were painted in the familiar colours of red, white and black.
Only on this night, the colours at Old Trafford were shared by the red and black of AC Milan and the black and white of Juventus. The tifo the Italians brought in 2003 coloured a grey final that ended goalless after 120 minutes.
Red and blue Mancunian schoolboys have dreamt of scoring a European Cup final-winning goal at Old Trafford but the only man to have had the honour was born in Dvirkivshchyna and had to be evacuated with his family following the Chernobyl disaster.
At the Scoreboard End, occupied by the bianconeri of Juve, the striker stared down Gianluigi Buffon, looked repeatedly at the referee Marcus Merk, barely blinking, waiting for the whistle. The ball went one way and Buffon the other.
Herbert Kilpin, the Northampton-born founding father of AC Milan, vowed they would be a team of devils: "Our colours will be red like fire and black like the fear we will invoke in our opponents." Andriy Shevchenko did just that over seven years in Milan.
United supporters would have preferred it if Shevchenko was more clinical in the 2005 final in Istanbul, where he hit Jerzy Dudek at point-blank and his pitiful Panenka penalty completed Liverpool's comeback in Istanbul.
Shevchenko was a shadow of the Ballon d'Or winner on his next appearance at Old Trafford with Chelsea in 2006, burdened by a £30million transfer fee and being foisted on Jose Mourinho. That night, Shevchenko hit the second tier of the Scoreboard End.
When England fans gather in the pubs and lounges for tonight's European Championship quarter-final with Ukraine and see Shevchenko, many will judge him through a Premier League prism. In his homeland and Italy, Shevchenko is one of the greatest strikers to have enriched those agues.
Before Shevchenko had turned 23, he had claimed an exceptional hat-trick against Barcelona in the Champions League. for Dynamo Kyiv. He also saw off Real Madrid and Shevchenko won the Capocannoniere - Serie A's golden boot - in his first season.
Back when the Champions League was broadcast on terrestrial television, Shevchenko was already a household name for the insular islands in the west. Kyiv reached the semi-finals in 1999 and ITV showed highlights of their second leg defeat to Bayern Munich while United fans were frantically checking Teletext for flights to Barcelona.
Shevchenko navigated through Bayern's defenders with greater ease in Munich than Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole ever did in the Camp Nou. Alex Ferguson had assembled a quality quartet of strikers but Shevchenko was a generational talent.
Tottenham had a £5million bid accepted for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the summer of 1998 and Teddy Sheringham had been so marginalised by Yorke he entered the last month of the Treble season with two goals. Yorke and Shevchenko were the joint-highest scorers in the 1998-99 Champions League.
Shevchenko had visited Italy at the age of 10 and was smitten with its culture, so chose Milan. "I had the opportunity to play for Barça and Manchester United when I was 22, but I chose Milan," Shevchenko later said. "And the club was successful, winning everything possible – including the Champions League – and I won the Ballon d'Or. I'm proud of my career."
A year after Shevchenko's $25m transfer, United agreed a British record £18.5million deal with PSV Eindhoven for Ruud van Nistelrooy. Van Nistelrooy, already regarded as the best striker in Europe by Ferguson, attended United's Easter Monday win over Chelsea and a press conference was arranged at Old Trafford for the following day, only the chair reserved for Van Nistelrooy remained empty.
United had diagnosed a cruciate ligament injury, so Van Nistelrooy failed his medical and flew back to Eindhoven. He ruptured his cruciate in training the next day and the deal was delayed by a year.
Van Nistelrooy pillaged 150 goals in 219 games for United but Ferguson signed four other strikers in the Dutchman's five years. Diego Forlan, Louis Saha, Alan Smith, and Wayne Rooney all partnered Van Nistelrooy.
Shevchenko's agent, Oscar Damiani, touted the prospect in 2002. "Andriy could certainly easily move to United because he speaks the language.
"He does not appreciate this situation with AC Milan as they play with only one striker. He will make these things clear to his club."
In late 2002, Ferguson was still a stickler for his quartet quota of centre forwards despite the presence of Van Nistelrooy, Forlan and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. United's options were compromised by the Champions League ineligibility rules but Ferguson fretted over who would fill Van Nistelrooy's void if he ever succumbed to injury or suspension.
"Nobody wants to sell the players we want," Ferguson lamented. "I know what January is like. You think you are going to go for a striker and then find out he is cup-tied in Europe and that is a problem that has always been there.
"It is always difficult. They think it's easy but the sort of players we want are the sort nobody wants to sell.
"January has always presented that sort of problem for us. Nothing has changed unless you wanted just to bring in a striker who was only going to play for you in the league.
"To be honest I have never even thought where I might be looking and who would be available." Eventually, United plumped for Saha in January of 2004, when he was cup-tied for the FA Cup.
Milan appeased Shevchenko, paired with Filippo Inzaghi at Old Trafford in the Champions League final. The devil was in the details.
