It was going to be the pinnacle of Park Ji-sung’s career. Manchester United would be taking on Chelsea in the Champions League final in Moscow.
The South Korean was Sir Alex Ferguson's Mr Dependable, playing every minute of United’s quarter-final against Roma and semi-final against Barcelona. He played three different positions across those four crucial ties to help his side reach their first Champions League final in nine years.
In his own mind Park had earned the right to play in his first Champions League final. This would be his big chance on the biggest stage of all, in the first all-English European Cup final.
Despite his role as the dogged, man-marking, ball-winner in midfield, he had only picked up one yellow card in the knockout stages. Suspension would not be an issue, and he had avoided injury. He was the man in possession, having started United’s previous match - a 2-0 win over Wigan Athletic which secured the Premier League title on May 11.
He was all set.
But then came the conversation no player wants to have.
Park would not be included in the squad.
Not only had Sir Alex Ferguson opted not to include him in the starting XI, he could not find any space for him on the substitutes’ bench either. Park was the only change from the team which played Wigan game 10 days earlier.
Owen Hargreaves, who had played right-back in both legs of the semi-final against Barcelona and had come off the bench against Wigan, was given the nod to play on the right of midfield of Ferguson’s 4-4-2 formation.
Hargreaves started alongside Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes and Cristiano Ronaldo in United’s midfield, with Anderson, Ryan Giggs, Nani and Darren Fletcher the midfielders given places on the bench.
Park was out.
The 2008 Champions League final would not be one of his defining games after all. What the Korean media still refer to as “the Moscow nightmare” had begun.
When asked by FourFourTwo magazine recently to pick the five games that changed his life, Park did not choose the match which gave him his most prestigious medal. Pointedly perhaps, the only United game he selected was another win over Chelsea: a 2-1 victory in May 2011 which helped them on their way to the Premier League title.
With Park watching on, Ronaldo’s towering header was cancelled out by Frank Lampard’s close-range equaliser before Didier Droga was sent off and the penalty shoot-out arrived.
Ronaldo had his attempt saved by Petr Cech, but Hargreaves, Anderson, Giggs and Nani all converted under pressure in the pouring rain as Edwin van der Sar’s save from Nicolas Anelka saw United triumph 6-5 after John Terry’s miss.
They had their first Champions League trophy since the historic Treble of 1999. There was pandemonium on the pitch, but mixed feelings in the stands for Park.
“It was in Moscow that I had one of my saddest moments when I found out I wasn’t in the squad for the Champions League final against Chelsea,” he told United Unscripted last year.
“Everyone was great, but I still remember Patrice [Evra] and Carlos [Tevez] in particular, they definitely gave me comfort.
"I was sad, obviously, but they just hugged me, then I could read their faces how they felt disappointed for me and how sad they felt. They wanted to share the occasion with me, with their friend, so I felt really appreciated by their behaviour and their expressions on their faces.
“But what can we do? I was disappointed before, then once the game started I was just praying for us to win. That’s our situation. The atmosphere in our dressing room was like that. After everything, we won the Champions League so nobody can blame anybody.
“The party afterwards, I half enjoyed it, half didn’t enjoy it. It was a strange feeling. I could understand it in my head that we were champions of Europe but I couldn’t really feel it in my heart, so it was mixed feelings.”
Chelsea manager Avram Grant understood Ferguson’s thinking behind Park’s exclusion, which ultimately bore fruit with those picked ahead of him all making their mark in the shoot-out.
"In the semi-final against Barcelona, who pass well, Sir Alex needed a hard worker to chase,” he told the Guardian in 2009. “But he played 4-4-2 that night against Chelsea, he wanted something different."
Ferguson, understandably, was more upset about having to make such a difficult decision.
“It was a really great bunch of players with a great attitude about them and a good, strong squad,” he later told MUTV.
“My problem in the 2008 final, maybe I even regret it to this day, was I left Ji-sung Park out completely in the final. He'd played such a great role and that's the problem when you get to these finals.
"At Wembley [in 2011] I did it to Dimitar Berbatov and he took it badly. He didn't deserve it. No player deserves to be left out of the final.
"That's why we try hard at these European seminars with the coaches to try to get 11 subs in the final. You've got four or five sitting in the stand who made fantastic contributions in getting there."
Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, it is tempting to consider the factors behind Ferguson’s omission of Park. While it ultimately had no effect on the outcome of that night in Moscow, it certainly did have an impact on Park himself.
Grant speculated that Ferguson “wanted something different” against Chelsea, but his selection of Hargreaves to play in front of Wes Brown doesn’t quite tally with that assertion. Had that been the case, wouldn’t Nani - an out-and-out attacking right-winger - have got the nod?
So what was the reasoning behind Ferguson’s selection? Could it be that Park’s professionalism and humility actually worked against him? Forced to sit in the stands, the South Korean was hardly the type to kick up a fuss or derail the squad morale. He was a true team player, without ego. He was therefore, strangely, the perfect man to sacrifice.
After the match, Park described his omission as “frustrating” but took it with good grace, focusing on the fact that “there will be other opportunities” to come.
Even 10 years on, after hearing about Ferguson’s contrition, his instinct was much the same: to take the positive from a negative situation.
"It’s great to hear that and he regrets that,” Park told the club website in 2018.
“I know how difficult it must be to make a decision on the final squad. I know that’s the hardest task for the manager. Sir Alex had many decisions in his career so if he said that about me it means it’s impressive for me as well."
His drive and selflessness was also evident in the interview he gave to United Unscripted last year.
“It wasn’t only me, there were other players in the squad who hadn’t played,” he explained. “We had 25 or more who wanted to be in the squad and only 18 who could make it, so I knew it wasn’t just me. That’s the team, you know.
“For me, I appreciate that I contributed some things to the squad to help reach that achievement, but every player knows that they have to do their job. If I couldn’t get in the manager’s squad in Moscow, that means there was something I had to improve in myself. If you lose something, you have to find the way to achieve it the next time.”
To understand why Park was such a successful player, why he was adored by his team-mates - and perhaps why he was dropped by his manager for one of the biggest matches of his career - you have to appreciate his background and upbringing.
Park was born in Seoul in 1981 but was brought up in Suwon, a city not far from South Korea’s capital. He is not from a wealthy family and his father, Sung-jong, met Park's mother Myung-ja while working in a Korea Metals factory.
"Financially speaking I'm from a very difficult background," Sung-jong told the Guardian in 2009.
"I couldn't eat very well.”
Park attended Suwon Engineering school and got his big break in football when he played for a university team against South Korea under-23s and caught the eye of a senior coach.
That step helped him get in South Korea’s squad for the 2000 Sydney Olympics where he had a formative experience, playing against Spain, Chile and Morocco.
“Their level was so high that the experience made me want to compete in Europe, to improve myself and try to reach the same standard,” Park told the AFC Coaches Circle last year. “I was determined to try to work hard and see if I was good enough.”
In 2000 he moved to play for Kyoto Purple Sanga in Japan. He helped them win their only Emperor's Cup, Japan's premier competition, in 2002 and a year later he got his wish to move to Europe, joining PSV Eindhoven in 2003.
By this point Park was already revered in his home country, as the hard-working soccer superstar who had earned his big break in Europe. The 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, in which South Korea defied expectations to finish fourth, beating Poland, Portugal, Italy and Spain along the way, shot Park to superstardom.
“To get there, play, score and win was something I’d have taken if it was offered right at the start of my career,” Park told FourFourTwo about South Korea’s 1-0 group stage win over Portugal.
“It was beyond magical.”
South Korea’s manager, Guus Hiddink, took over PSV the following year and brought Park with him to the Netherlands. It was a culture shock for Park - and not just away from the pitch.
“Guus Hiddink came to the Korea Republic national team at a time when the mentality among players was just to follow whatever the boss said,” he explained to the AFC Coaches Circle.
“Then, when I went with him to PSV, it was totally different. The players were ready to say things to the coach. They had their ideas about the right way to do things and they were prepared to tell the boss he was wrong. That possibility had never crossed my mind! I had grown up believing you had to do what the coach said.”
Park is not soft - he won a legal battle against his former agents FS Corporation after his dad took over control of his affairs in 2006 and fought his way out of PSV to Manchester United in 2005 despite Hiddink’s concerted efforts to keep him - but his reverence for the manager and belief that what they say is sacrosanct stuck with him.
While that character trait may have worked against him when it came to the 2008 Champions League final, it certainly did him no harm during the vast majority of his career.
After turning down a three-year deal at PSV, Park sealed a £4million move to United in 2005, beginning a seven-year stay which saw him win four Premier League titles, three League Cups and, of course, the Champions League.
At United he soon earned the nickname “Three-Lung Park” for his determination, hard work and ability to run nonstop for 90 minutes. "Maybe one of my strengths was to bring the energy to the team and then defensively I contributed a lot, compared to other players,” as Park understated it to the club website in 2017.
Park may be unwilling to blow his own trumpet, but his former team-mates are more than happy to do so.
“It's crazy, but if you mentioned Cristiano Ronaldo to a 12-year-old, they would immediately say, ‘Yeah, he was a brilliant player for Manchester United’, but if you said ‘Park Ji-Sung’ they may not know who he was,” Wayne Rooney wrote for The Sunday Times last year.
“Yet all of us who played with Park know he was almost as important to our success. That's because of what Park gave to the collective and I want to talk about teams. They - not stars - are the most important thing in sport.”
Rio Ferdinand told the Guardian in 2009: "He's a real players' player. Up there with the best in world for movement, and so intelligent and direct with runs off the ball. His work-rate is unreal, he adds a dimension no other player brings to the team. He's underrated, a real top player."
The list of praise for Park could go on for some time, but perhaps a Scholes anecdote about United training sums him up the best.
“He had energy all day and discipline. The discipline was unreal,” Scholes said on MUTV Group Chat last year.
"He just used to come up to me, look at me and not say a word, stand right next to me... 'Oh Jesus, here we go!' 'Come on, ginge!' - Just say something to me, have a laugh with me!
"But he was unbelievable at it. He just used to come and stare right into my face, stare right into my eyes, 'You're not getting a kick today'."
Park’s reputation is such that although he was famously dropped for a Champions League final, he is still regarded as one of the ultimate big game players.
“I really enjoyed playing against the big teams as well; the tension, the atmosphere and that kind of got me excited to deal with that,” he told the club website in 2017.
The one occasion that stands out when reflecting upon his United career is the 2010 Champions League last-16 tie against AC Milan, when Park shackled Andrea Pirlo to help Ferguson’s side complete a 7-2 win on aggregate.
“I remember Fergie's team talk before playing AC Milan. He literally said to Park: ‘Your job today is not about touching the ball, it's not about making passes, your job is Pirlo. That's all: Pirlo,’” Rooney recalled in the Sunday Times.
“I think Pirlo barely had 40 passes in that game, and 95 per cent were backwards because Park was so unbelievable at carrying out his orders.”
Funnily enough, Pirlo’s recollection is a bit less rose-tinted.
He wrote in his autobiography ‘I Think Therefore I Play’: "At Milan, he [Ferguson] unleashed Park Ji-sung to shadow me. He rushed about at the speed of an electron. He'd fling himself at me, his hands all over my back, trying to intimidate me. He'd look at the ball and not know what it was for.
"They'd programmed him to stop me. His devotion to the task was almost touching. Even though he was a famous player, he consented to being used as a guard dog."
Park’s career was dogged by a chronic knee injury which caused “horrible pain constantly” right from his early years at PSV. At times he was underappreciated by supporters and underestimated by opponents. He was forced to endure the crushing disappointment of sitting out of his first Champions League final - and starting the 2009 European showpiece a year later in which United were beaten 2-0 by Pep Guardiola’s unstoppable Barcelona.
And yet, his overriding legacy at United is hugely positive: one of selflessness, humility and hard work.
Even now those innate qualities shine through.
“I consider it a blessing to have ended up with an inclination not to heed publicity,” Park said in a recent interview with a Korean magazine.
“I’m most affected by comments describing me as ‘a reliable player’ on the field. The thought of giving fans peace of mind through my presence on the field and simply giving my best gave me an amazing feeling.”
