Meulensteen: Roger Federer helped win Man Utd the 2008 UCL final

Nostalgia

Manchester United players celebrate beating Chelsea at Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, May 2008.

Simon Yaffe
21st May 2022

There are at first glance seemingly few links between Manchester United and Roger Federer, but when the Red Devils won the Champions League in 2008, the tennis superstar helped them do it.

Sir Alex Ferguson was renowned for his motivational skills during his long managerial career, but in the build-up to the 2008 final against Chelsea he was happy to let his coach Rene Meulensteen try something a bit different to inspire the troops.

And though Federer probably doesn’t know it, he was a big part of it.

“I am a keen tennis fan and I have always admired Roger Federer and the way he controls his emotions,” Meulensteen says.

“I selected five clips of Federer for the boys to watch and asked them to write down which tournament he was appearing in, which set it was and which point.

“They would identify, say, Wimbledon as the competition, but they couldn’t tell me which point or set it was.

“The point I made to them was that wherever Federer was playing, he was winning and performing at the highest level when it really mattered.

“He would win the first set, then lose the second and the third but, by the time the game reached match point, everything which had happened before didn’t matter because he was so focused on winning.”

Meulensteen first made the analogy to Ferguson in training during the lead up to the final.

United had lost 2-1 at fellow title challengers Chelsea in a game sandwiched between the semi-final clashes with Barcelona and had to win against West Ham United at Old Trafford to keep their title charge going.

United duly thumped West Ham 4-1 and Wigan Athletic 2-0 on the last day of the season, meaning they beat Chelsea to the league by two points.

“I said to the boss after we had won against Barcelona that, even if we beat West Ham and Wigan and are champions, we have to press the restart button ahead of the Champions League final with Chelsea,” Meulensteen says.

“We were 40-30 on our own serve so it was our Federer moment and that is exactly where we needed to be.”

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READ: Rene Meulensteen: Fergie was the joker at Man Utd; I was never anxious there

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United headed to Russia in a buoyant mood and took the lead through Cristiano Ronaldo in the 26h minute, only for Frank Lampard to equalise for Chelsea minutes before half-time.

It went all the way to extra time, during which Chelsea’s Didier Drogba was sent off for slapping Nemanja Vidic, and then a penalty shoot-out.

After Ronaldo had missed his spot-kick, Chelsea captain John Terry stepped up knowing that if he scored the Champions League would be heading to Stamford Bridge for the first time.

But the England defender lost his footing and mishit the ball wide, leading to Nicolas Anelka needing to put away his penalty past Edwin van der Sar in sudden death – which he failed to do.

Meulensteen recalls: “If Drogba had been sent off earlier in the game I think we would have been able to capitalise properly, but it seemed to spur Chelsea on.

“When Terry came up to take the penalty, he thought, ‘This is all about me – all the lights are on me.’ He pushed his captain’s armband up, but he lost focus and slipped.

“The difference with us was that Nani, Anderson, Ryan Giggs and our other penalty takers were clinically focused.

“When Anelka stepped up, I couldn’t watch but I knew, whatever happened, Edwin was determined that he was going to stop that penalty because he was a winner – it was his Federer moment.

“To win the Champions League and share that euphoria with the players, the staff and the fans was an unbelievable feeling.”

By Simon Yaffe

This article was originally published in May 2018.