The last time Manchester United contested an FA Youth Cup final, Warren Joyce was part of the staff helping to prepare a team featuring players who would go on to carve out illustrious careers in the game.
Joyce was managing United's reserves in 2010/11 - what is effectively now the Under-23s team - and he worked with Paul McGuinness, who guided the youth side to Youth Cup glory that season, beating Sheffield United 6-3 on aggregate in the final.
Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard were in that team, as were Sam Johnstone, Michael Keane, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Will Keane and Ravel Morrison. Harry Maguire started both legs for the Blades.
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It's a reminder that this prestigious competition can often be the start of the journey and when United fans look back on their return to the final this season, they might scan the teamsheet and see a host of familiar names in years to come as well.
Joyce will again play an integral part in the final, but this time he will be in the opposition dugout at Old Trafford, in charge of Nottingham Forest Under-18s, who will seek to upset the odds in what is now a one-off game on Wednesday night.
Joyce's record in youth development is exceptional but since he left United in 2016 the academy has seen its fair share of ups and downs. While the conveyor belt has generally kept on rolling, results have suffered. There was an ignominious relegation for the Under-23s and a series of surprising Youth Cup defeats.
But Oldham-born Joyce has been at Old Trafford for some of United's previous games in this competition this season and he believes the academy is back on track.
"It’s not about results but they’ve got to win and win the right way, they’ve got to learn that, win the right way and do the right things," Joyce told the Manchester Evening News .
"When things were won there, they were won by young players, who were younger than everyone else because the best players were either in the first team or out on loan, there’s got to be that conveyor belt."
Alejandro Garnacho is the star of the show for United, the 17-year-old winger has already made his first-team debut and has been called up by Argentina recently.
Garnacho was signed from Atletico Madrid two years ago and right-back Marc Jurado was signed from Barcelona in the same summer. It highlights why United are favourites, but Joyce believes this is a club that has never lost its local flavour.
"The disparity between the money spent on players and wages [between Forest and United] is phenomenal. It’s massive, massive differences. But I was at Manchester United for a long time and there were a lot of local lads who came through there who didn’t get paid a lot of money," he said.
"It matters how you conduct yourself, the way you are, the culture you’re involved in and the demands you put on yourself every day.
"We’re coming to one of the biggest clubs in the world, with their own fans on their own ground with everything loaded against us. They’ve got a lot of international players, well-coached and well-drilled, but we’ve got to give the best version of ourselves."
What has Joyce made of United during their run to the final under Travis Binnion?
"They’ve got some very good players. A host of good players. We can only worry about ourselves. We’ve played City recently, beat them, Liverpool recently, beat them, Chelsea recently, beat them," he said.
"We’ve got our own way, we’re probably not expected to win any of those games. We jumped up a category at the start of the season and it was really hard for the boys, but they’ve adapted and developed, they know what they are and what they’re good at.
"United have a host of players, I’ve watched them play a few times and it’s a different team every week because they’ve got that many players. We’ve had most games where we’ve played the same team in every game because that’s what we’ve got."
The final is sure to stir memories within Joyce, 57, but he insists the game is not about him. He joined Forest last summer and has built on the outstanding youth foundations built at the club by Gary Brazil.
If the United line-up on Wednesday will have a sprinkling of international stardust, Forest's team is one hewn in the East Midlands.
"The reality is, of the starting XI, eight of them are local first years, one schoolboy, two second years from Ireland, so there are nine lads from Nottingham in the team," said Joyce.
"To compete with the biggest in the country in the first year in Category One football they’ve done unbelievably well to get where they are."
More than 55,000 tickets have been sold for Wednesday's final, which will set a new Youth Cup attendance record, and how the two teams react to such a big crowd in an iconic stadium could play a part in the outcome.
"It’s a great learning curve, a great test, you need different tests for players to break through to the first team, this is one academies can’t manufacture because it’s the realism of the pressure of playing in front of a crowd that the top clubs have in all their home games," added Joyce.
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