An uneasy smile was etched across Eric Cantona's face as Manchester United arrived at Istanbul airport in 1993.
United's players were besieged by waves of anger as they reluctantly emerged from the terminal. Galatasary's supporters had gathered in the airport foyer and the hate was palpable. United were 2,000 miles from home. It felt like way more.
The battalion of ultras chanted 'no way out' and the noise refused to dissipate as it hurled towards its intended targets. United's stars were well accustomed to dealing with such environments but this just felt different. This was unprecedented hostility.
United's players and staff couldn't wait to get to the team hotel, but their airport welcome was just the beginning.
This is the forgotten story of when Manchester United went to hell.
United had played Galatasary in the second round first leg of the relatively newly-rebranded Champions League at Old Trafford in October 1993 and the game had finished in a 3-3 draw. They then travelled to Istanbul for the second leg of the fixture
Sir Alex Ferguson had ended the club's 26-year wait for a Premier League title earlier that year and he was on the cusp of creating something special in Manchester. Eric Cantona, Bryan Robson, Mark Hughes, Peter Schmeichel and Steve Bruce had underpinned United's triumph and the Reds were already on their way to a consecutive league title as autumn in 1993 began to creep in.
Ahead of the second leg against Galatasary in November, United were asserting their dominance on home soil again.
They had built an 11-point lead after only 13 games in the Premier League, but the champions of England were about to face a unique test in Europe. The quality of Galatasary had surprised United at Old Trafford and they were in for another sobering awakening.
There had been reports in the media on the hostility of Galatasary's supporters, but as it would happen, even the most hyperbolic headlines wouldn't do it justice. United were about to enter the Lions' den. The Ali Sami Yen Stadium was ready for war.
If United won this match away in Istanbul, they would progress to the last eight of the Champions League.
Galatasary were the underdogs, however, they didn't need to beat United — their three away goals in the first leg gave them that advantage. Galatasaray's manager Reiner Hollmann also made a promise to United supporters after that match at Old Trafford.
"They will be waiting for you at the airport," Hollmann said and he wasn't wrong. Hundreds of Galatasaray fans flooded the airport foyer to 'welcome' United, chanting furiously at the players, who raised a nervous smile and walked cautiously to the bus.
There were banners draped behind the lines of security that read 'Welcome to The Hell!' and 'This is the end of the road'.
"I remember it vividly. It will always stick with me," Ryan Giggs recalled in 2012. "I was 19 and, when we arrived at the airport, there were thousands of fans screaming at you. There were things being thrown at us when we were driving away on the coach."
Galatasary's supporters had intended to intimidate but Ferguson played down its effectiveness when asked about the welcome at the airport the following day, telling reporters: "You've obviously never seen a Glasgow wedding."
That sentiment would soon change, so much so that Ferguson would vow never to return to Turkey.
"The second leg was very intimidating," Gary Pallister told the Independent in 2012.
"I have never experienced anything like it in my life. We were not then an experienced European team. We had won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1991 but this was almost our first Champions League experience away from home.
"They let the supporters in at the airport with all the 'Welcome to Hell' banners. They could only have come in with the police's say-so. It was all about taking a team out of its comfort zone and, if you have done that, then you have won half the battle.
"I remember we were staying in this beautiful place on the Bosphorus. It used to be a palace and had an absolutely massive foyer. I was the last off the bus carrying my kit and was maybe 30 yards behind the rest of the lads as they were checking in.
"One of the bellboys was standing by the door and I smiled at him. He ran his finger across his throat and I carried on walking, thinking: 'We are not safe even in this hotel'."
Schmeichel's sleep was also interrupted by calls that were put through to his room and United were now beginning to realise that they were deep in enemy territory; the whole of Turkey was seemingly behind Galatasary.
Then matchday, Wednesday the 3rd of November 1993, came around and the majority of Galatasaray fans arrived at the Ali Sami Yen Stadium eight hours before the game to begin their rituals. This was intended to be 'the end of the road' for United.
The 35,000 capacity Ali Sami Yen Stadium was nicknamed 'The Hell' for good reason. There were towering iron fences around the stadium and the tunnel to the dressing room was underground, but on the surface, above the pitch, a cauldron of noise was building.
The Champions League's foreigner rule meant that Ferguson had to omit one player from Schmeichel, Cantona, Giggs, Hughes, Denis Irwin and Roy Keane, and Ferguson went for Hughes, who watched the game with the injured Pallister from a safe distance.
The welcome had been a baptism of fire for Giggs, 19, and for Gary Neville, who was aged 18 and had then made just one first-team appearance. "Prior to the game, the manager told us to go on the pitch and sample the atmosphere," recalled Giggs.
"The fans had been in the ground for hours and hours. The atmosphere was buzzing 90 minutes before kick-off. We were stood in the middle of the pitch watching the fans chant. It was one stand to another."
Neville was equally as stunned as Giggs. "There were so many flares and so much smoke," Neville added.
"It seemed the entire stadium was on fire."
Even Schmeichel wasn't immune to the intimidation. "Before the game, I saw Schmeichel's face," former Galatasaray player Hayrettin Demirbas told BBC Sport in 2012. "He was white all over. I said 'good luck' to him and I saw fear in his eyes."
"It made Anfield look like a tea party," Pallister recalled.
It's believed that hundreds of United fans who travelled to Istanbul never actually saw the game.
They were easy targets, far away from home and outnumbered, and some were beaten, some had their possessions stolen and others were detained by police reportedly on dubious grounds.
While the build-up promised to be the perfect backdrop for a wonderfully intense spectacle on the pitch, the reality was quite different. The match was devoid of quality and scrappy. "They were tough and wily," Keane wrote his autobiography.
"They pulled every stroke in the book, diving, time-wasting, badgering the referee." The best chance of the game would fall to Galatasaray, but Schmeichel made a superb save to prevent Hakan Sukur, however, that stop just delaying the inevitable.
As Galatasaray continued to run down the clock, United's frustrations hit boiling point. Cantona booted the ball away in a response to the hosts taking their time over a throw-in and he also elbowed a player to the chest, for which he might have sent off.
United could have gone another 90 minutes without scoring. They were out of the Champions League. "There can be no excuse for that terrible performance," Ferguson said after the match. "I'm not going to waste time looking for one.
"It was depressing to see how completely frustrated our fellas were when Galatasaray man-marked everybody."
But before Ferguson had the chance to speak to the press, "all hell broke loose," as per Keane's words years later.
Cantona told Swiss referee Kurt Rothlisberger what he made of his performance and he was shown a red card. Cantona reacted by punching the ball in the air. The Ali Sami Yen Stadium was nicknamed 'The Hell' but Cantona wasn't one to shy away from heat.
Robson had realised the red mist had descended on Cantona. He walked with the Frenchman — leading him by the arm — towards the dressing room and, alongside the pair, there was a policeman, who seemed to help escort them away from the trouble.
As it happened, it was the policeman that would instigate more trouble.
"As the referee blew the final whistle I could see in Eric's eyes that he had gone," wrote Robson in his autobiography. "He took Cantona I was just about to thank the policeman when he punched Eric. Eric stumbled down a couple of steps, so I turned to throw a punch at the copper.
"As I did, a shield smashed into the back of me. I fell down a few steps, bashing my elbow against the wall. Eric wanted to go back up and fight, but by then the other lads were coming down the steps and calmed us down."
Bruce's version of the events to the Daily Mail in 2016 were interesting to read. "Hundreds of coppers with big Rottweilers barking at you, straining on the leash," Bruce said. "One started giving Eric some gyp, so Eric decided to give it back.
"Now we're all getting battered. Bryan Robson, captain of England, he's in there. Typical Bryan, he's swung this punch and there's a hook on the wall. Nowhere near the fella he's trying to hit, but he's caught his elbow on it, ripped his arm completely open.
"Blood everywhere. He's screaming, and a big Turk comes in and boots him. So now we're tearing into them, trying to fight our way out of there, and over my shoulder I see Fergie come flying back down the stairs. He's taking his jacket off as he comes.
"He's over 50 years old, but he's straight in, wades in. We eventually get back to the dressing room."
Back in the dressing room, Cantona was incensed.
"In the dressing room, Eric went crazy," Keane wrote in his book. "While the rest of us just wanted to get out of there, Eric was determined to sort out the rogue cop who had been wielding his truncheon.
"Eric was a big, strong lad. He was serious. He insisted he was going to kill that f***er."
Ferguson had also made his way back to the dressing room after the fracas and his response was typical of his expert management.
"Fergie comes barging through. His hair's all over the place, his tie is under his ear," Bruce recalled. "He says, 'None of you have been fighting, have you? No team of mine has been fighting, eh?' And we're all, 'No, boss'. So he says, 'Didn't think so."
"He goes out and tells the world that his players have been assaulted in the tunnel. And I remember the door closed behind him that night, and we all looked at each other and said: 'He'll do'. He created that spirit."
United made it out of the stadium and onto the team bus, which had its windows smashed by bricks on its way to the hotel.
Bruce, resting his head on the bus, was almost struck and he admitted: "If it had smashed through I'd have been dead."
United returned home and Ferguson vowed never to return to Turkey... only to draw Galatasaray again the following season.
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