Manchester United's iconic manager Sir Alex Ferguson had a knack for delivering the perfect team talk for any occasion, and the 2008 Champions League final was a prime example.
Ferguson led United to European football's top prize on two occasions, nine years apart. While plenty has been written about the 1999 comeback against Bayern Munich, the 2008 victory - against Premier League rivals Chelsea - was just as impressive an achievement.
While some stars remained from that first victorious squad, United had changed a lot during the near-decade between the two victories. And yet, as shown by the response to his team talk, the manager still knew exactly how to push his players' buttons.
One of the new additions ahead of the 2008 final was Patrice Evra. The French left-back had been on the losing side in the 2004 final with Monaco, but was beginning to establish himself as a key man at Old Trafford after his 2006 switch.
Evra would go on to play more than 350 times for United, growing into a fan favourite. The final at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium might have been early in his spell with the club, but he already recognised Ferguson's aura.
"We were in the dressing room when the boss came in," Evra told The Players' Tribune in 2019. "As usual, the music stopped. You could hear a pin drop. Then Ferguson said, 'I’ve already won.…'.
"We looked at each other. He said, 'I’ve already won. We don’t even need to play this game.' We were like, What is he talking about? The game hasn’t even started."
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Evra recalled the individual messages Ferguson had for him, and for team-mates Wayne Rooney and Park Ji-sung. "As the boss talked about our stories, we began to realise that he was referring to a fellowship," he added.
"We were not just a football team — we were people from every corner of the world, from all kinds of cultures and races and religions. And now we were there, together in a dressing room in Moscow, fighting for a common cause. Through football, we had become brothers.
“'THIS is my victory!' Ferguson said. We all got goosebumps. Then we went out and won the Champions League."
The success couldn't just be put down to novelty, though. While Evra, Rooney and Park weren't part of the 1999 squad, team-mate Wes Brown was, and the academy graduate shared his own memories of the speech.
"It was the best team talk I heard the gaffer do," right-back Brown told The Mail in 2021. "He went around every player, said a few things about where they’d come from and what they had achieved.
"The message was about a group all coming from different places, nobody growing up the same, but we were all here now, United. It was very good, inspiring."
United had pipped Chelsea to the Premier League title 10 days earlier, winning their last two games of the season to finish two points clear of the Blues. It was a hard-fought game in Moscow, though, and only a penalty shoot-out slip from Chelsea captain John Terry allowed Ferguson's men to claim victory in sudden-death.
The victory came 50 years after the Munich air disaster, in which a number of members of United's 'Busby's Babes' squad lost their lives. After the win, Ferguson made reference to that iconic side.
“I said on the eve of the game that we wouldn’t let the memory of the Busby Babes down,” United's manager told the media after that 2008 success. “I think fate played its hand, just as it has all season.
"We had a cause today and that’s important. Causes are hard to fight against. People with causes become very difficult to go up against. Fate played its hand today when Terry slipped.”
Fitness coach Tony Strudwick also made reference to the Busby Babes when recalling Ferguson's influential speech more than a decade later. "The team talk before the Moscow final had a kind of significance [about it] because of the historical nature," Strudwick told the MEN in 2019.
"Being in 2008, the Busby Babes and so on. I think Wayne Rooney speaks about that as well.
"In terms of speeches, for me that was the one moment that defines all of that, it just encapsulated the history of the club, what it meant, going into the game.
The brilliance of Sir Alex's team talks, it wasn't all Al Pacino team talks every week. I think the significance is it was always about working-class values and what Manchester United represents and what it means to you and your family."
United made the Champions League final two more times under Ferguson, in 2009 and 2011. On both occasions, however, they were put to the sword by Pep Guardiola's Barcelona.
In the decade since the Scot's 2013 retirement, they have made just two more European finals, both in the Europa League. They beat Ajax in the 2017 final, then lost on penalties to Villarreal four years later.
As they approach the end of their first season under Erik ten Hag, United still have a little bit of work to do to guarantee another Champions League campaign. They are due to take on Bournemouth, Chelsea and Fulham in their final three games, and six points will be enough to make sure of a top four finish.
