How Man United vs Bayern Munich sparked Sir Alex Ferguson and Louis van Gaal disagreement after full-time rant

Manchester United come up against Bayern Munich on Wednesday as they begin their Champions League campaign.

Despite their greatest-ever victory coming at their expense, Manchester United have a terrible record against Bayern Munich. It isn’t a great omen.

United make their return to Champions League action on Wednesday but it won’t be a gentle dipping of a toe back into the water, but rather a head-first launch with an anchor tied around the waist. They will travel to Munich to face the champions of Germany.

Bayern aren’t exactly in the best position themselves having twice sacrificed the lead to draw with Bayer Leverkusen last week but they’re in a far better place than their opponents. Thomas Tuchel’s side had won their first three matches and Harry Kane has hit the ground running with four goals in four matches.

Meanwhile, the optimism at United is at its lowest since Erik ten Hag took charge. It’s been an underwhelming start on the pitch with three defeats already suffered and a series of controversies off the field are causing further issues.

Going into the lion’s den of the Allianz Arena in such a state is asking for a mauling and it’s not as though United have a good record against Bayern to fall back on. Something to take a bit of confidence from. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

United, as everyone well knows, did defeat Bayern in the most dramatic of circumstances in the 1999 Champions League final. Late goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer completed a remarkable turnaround and sealed a historical treble.

It was only the third time the two sides had met after they’d played out two draws in the same campaign’s group stage. United have faced Bayern eight times since, losing four and winning just once. But even that victory ended in disappointment.

It was the quarter-final second leg in April 2010, United went into the match at Old Trafford 2-1 down on aggregate. Wayne Rooney had put Sir Alex Ferguson’s side ahead in the second minute in Bavaria but a late equaliser from Franck Ribery and a last-minute Ivica Olic winner turned the match on its head.

Rio Ferdinand infamously had a blazing row with Ferguson after the match as he took umbrage with the manager’s substitutions while the team were ahead, believing they contributed to the eventual defeat. Still, United went into the return fixture full of confidence. Back then, Old Trafford was a fortress few forces had breached and they were in immense form in Europe having reached the last two finals, winning one of them.

That confidence proved justified as they stormed into a 2-0 lead. Darron Gibson opened the scoring in the third minute as he fired in from the edge of the box. Not long after, Nani doubled the lead with a stunning back-heel flick.

The Portuguese made it 3-0 just before the break as he riffled the ball into the top corner. Old Trafford was bouncing, United were 4-2 up and looked nailed on to sail into the semi-finals. Then it all began to go wrong.

Olic once again proved to be a menace as he muscled Michael Carrick off the ball in the box and then smuggled it in from a tight angle. Suddenly, Bayern had a glimmer of hope.

Five minutes after the break Rafael da Silva slightly pulled back Ribery while already on a booking. It was an innocuous foul with the winger nowhere near goal, but Ribery immediately demanded a second yellow before his teammates joined the protest and surrounded the referee.

It was behaviour that would earn the protestors a booking themselves these days but instead, they got exactly what they wanted. Rafael was given his marching orders and out of nowhere United’s commanding position crumbled.

Yet, United held on. They even fought back with Nani having two great chances to seal the win. But he couldn’t convert them. It would be costly. With 16 minutes to go, a corner found Arjen Robben on the edge of the box and he exquisitely volleyed into the far corner.

Silenced descended and United had no answer. They were knocked out of the competition in a tie they should have won. Ferguson, as you can imagine, was furious.

“They got him [Rafael] sent off,” he blasted with typical Fergie bluster. “There’s no doubt about that and they would have never won if we had 11 men. He is a young boy, inexperienced and there’s a bit of immaturity about what happened but they got him sent off. Typical Germans.

“That sending off changed the game. I thought they were typical professionals in the way they saw the opportunity and forced the referee. It was only a slight tug at the boy and, Jesus, he was 35 yards from goal.

“He [Rafael] was having a marvellous game and it’s a tragedy for him but the ref wasn’t going to do anything until they forced him to get a card out. But we’ve seen that before from teams like that.”

A sweeping comment such as ‘typical Germans’ would likely have landed the manager in much hotter water today but that doesn’t mean Ferguson didn’t receive pushback at the time. Bayern’s then-president Uli Hoeness blasted the Scot, saying: “We lost in 1999 but we lost like gentlemen. Now United should do the same. It’s an overreaction on his part maybe because he was disappointed to lose.

“Normally he is a fine gentleman but I think what he has said is not right. We were honest and cool in Barcelona and they should be the same.”

Bayern boss Louis van Gaal, who would take charge at Old Trafford four years later, said in response to Ferguson’s claim that United would have won without the red: “It’s easy to say that after a loss. But we shall never know that because this game shall not be played again.

“I think Sir Alex was disappointed. But I also thought England was noted for fairness and I’ve now been confronted with three different comments [from Ferguson] and that’s not what I call fair play.

“Every player must know that, if he picks up a yellow card, a second means a sending-off. I’m certainly happy my players knew that and that those who were booked carried on professionally. I believe it was a yellow card offence [from Rafael] and that the player made the foul.”

Robben, the scorer of the crucial goal, also criticised Ferguson’s post-match remarks. The Dutchman said: “I can understand the reaction from Ferguson but he is wrong,” he said in The Sun. “We did not put pressure on the ref to send off the player – it was just the right decision by him.

“I think more United players should have been booked. In football, you don’t always get what you deserve, but in this game we showed enormous resilience. It’s not easy to come back from 3-0 down against United but over 180 minutes we deserved the result.”

Ferguson moved to put his comments into context when he next spoke to the media but refused to back down over them or apologise. “It was the end of the game. Right at the end of the game you have to do the interview, because of UEFA rules,” he said. “It’s a bad time.

“The Germans let themselves down in the way they behaved to get him sent off. If they don’t recognise that, there’s nothing I can do about that. It was not a sending-off, but they bullied the referee into it. He’s a young referee and he succumbed to that pressure because he wasn’t going to send the boy off.

“He barely touched him and, in fact, Ribery did more to him than he did to Ribery. The issue was how the Germans reacted; they knew the boy was on a yellow card, they surrounded the referee, and that happens. We see it time and again with players waving an imaginary card to the referee, and he succumbed.”

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Though Ferguson’s fury attempted to hide the fact, it was a heartbreaking defeat for United. It hit Darren Fletcher, who missed the previous year’s final due to a controversial sending off, particularly hard. “The Bayern defeat was worse than that, because we are not in the final. It’s about the team and although I suffered my disappointment last year, the whole team’s disappointed now.

“It was a bitter pill to swallow after being 3-0 up. The goal just before half-time gave them something to fight for, the red card changed the whole complexion of the game and eventually we were knocked out by a wonder goal.

“It’s really disappointing and the lads will be disappointed for a long time, but somehow we’ve got to rise now. We’ve got to show character and bounce back. We have five games to go and are still fighting for the Premier League title. We can’t afford any slip-ups now.

“We’ve got to show the performance level we produced in the first half against Bayern in the five remaining games – that’s the challenge that’s there for us. If we can do that then I’m sure we will be in with a chance of winning the title.”

Sadly, a slip-up would come in the very next match. A decisive one. United would play out a goalless draw with Blackburn Rovers which meant when Chelsea lost to Tottenham the following week United still couldn’t overtake them. The title was lost by a single point.

There will be nowhere near as much on the line when United take on Bayern once again on Wednesday. It’s only the first match of the group stage, a group that the two significantly richer sides should both qualify from regardless of the results of the battles against each other.

But given United’s only win against the German giants since 1999 still ended in defeat, a positive result could be the spark needed to bring their season to life.