The ‘Proper’ Treble

[flb]

You could argue that the competition, back then, was much more of a level playing field, if not heavily weighted towards Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus who had unlimited spending power, and bought all the best players in the world.

United didn't have a monopoly on winning the PL. Infact, weren't even champions of England in the treble season. And Bayern Munich were the favourites going into that game.

Also, it was a feat that was accomplished with 7 academy players. 6 of them from Greater Manchester.

This makes the 99 treble a fairly unique occurrence, that probably will never be matched.

*grabs coat*

I don't care what the likes some of these ex players say about "Peps team couldn't handle" the physicality of the game back then, a load of old bullshit, the game is far tougher these days-even the likes of Leicester, Villa etc are spending £100m in a transfer window, teams can literally take points off anybody-Brentford with us be the perfect example. Their are at least 4 genuine title contenders these days, and the teams out of the top four are far far stronger these days than 20 years ago. we've smashed the 90 point bracket on a regular basis and gone deep into every domestic cup competition and the CL.
United spent plenty, lets make that very clear, id also say that the CL is harder to win, yes, the Likes of Madrid, Juventus spent big money, any treble is a big achievement , united had 4 academy players on the pitch for the CL win in 99, would have been 3 if Keane wasn't suspended- the rest were bought for big money, City have had 3 academy products playing CL football this season.

Their is nothing unique about the united treble , and it has been surpassed by the way, City did it as PL champions, in fact 3 PL titles on the bounce, culminating in the final season by bringing the CL back to Manchester, and two seasons prior we won the domestic treble.
United didn't have the monopoly in the PL? Naaa mate, thats a load of bullshit.

 

[PeterBarnesShorts]

First this century.

..it’s actually the first of the millennium too!

 

[Eds]

This guy nailed it

'The noisy neighbours have become the landlords'. That's brilliant, needs a huge banner permanently in the stadium

 

[alexmcity]

You could argue that the competition, back then, was much more of a level playing field, if not heavily weighted towards Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus who had unlimited spending power, and bought all the best players in the world.

United didn't have a monopoly on winning the PL. Infact, weren't even champions of England in the treble season. And Bayern Munich were the favourites going into that game.

Also, it was a feat that was accomplished with 7 academy players. 6 of them from Greater Manchester.

This makes the 99 treble a fairly unique occurrence, that probably will never be matched.

*grabs coat*

Beating all of United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Bayern and Real by 3+ goals makes the 23 treble a fairly unique occurrence that probably will never be matched.

United 6:3
Liverpool 4:1
Bayern 3:0
Arsenal 4:1
Real 4:0

City's football is on another level to anything United could offer.

 

[Benzino]

We’d finished as Champions the season before, we beat them to win the FA Cup. Reasons why I insist on rag mates bestowing the name on ‘our’ treble. Their reaction to my request was a delight.

I chucked in ‘more goals, fewer conceded’ I didn’t actually check but sure it would the case.

Any other reasons why ours is the ‘Proper’ treble. Just thought of another…….














First Manchester Club!

There’s no comparison… the way we did it was factually better. In a nutshell, no luck involved and a lot more convincing.

In the FA cup they had 2 replays. Arsenal missed a penalty in the last minute of the semi final and would’ve beaten them.

In the league they didn’t even break 80 points, and had one of the lowest points tallies of any PL champion. They drew 13 games in the season, and had a tally that would’ve seen them finish in 3rd place this season. It was a season, where they were the best of a bad bunch.

In the Champions league though, this is where they had a truly staggering amount of luck on their side.

1. They had a reasonably tough group with Bayern, Barca and Brondby. But they failed to beat both Bayern and Barca, drawing all the games, Brondby were the only team they beat and it was only good enough to finish second. But that didn’t mean they automatically got to the quarters back then (no last 16 then). There was 6 groups of 4 and the top 2 from all the runners up, went through.

- Real Madrid had the highest points of the runners up. Utd had the next best, but about 6 other teams could’ve beaten them to that. However, non of them won their final games. Benfica was a good example, they were going through until they conceded in the last minute to only draw and finish with 1 point less than Utd. So Utd had to rely on 6 other results going their away, in the last round of group games, and they all did. Which in essence, meant they qualified for the quarters as the second best losers.

2. They got lucky with their opponents in the Quarter final and the Semi finals in Inter and Juve. They were both weak as fuck. On paper they might’ve looked strong, Inter had won the UEFA cup the year before and Juventus had got to the CL final. But both had absolutely disastrous seasons, that make Chelsea and Liverpools season this year, seem ok.

- Inter went through 4 different managers that year! They finished only 8 points above the relegation zone and had one of the worst defences in the league. They conceded more goals than two of the teams relegated.

- Juve went through 2 different managers. They finished 7th and had one of the worst attacks in their league. They scored less goals than Bologna, who had finished just one point above the relegation zone.

- Despite this Utd still struggled to overcome both teams. Against Inter they won 2-0 at home, but away they could’ve and probably should’ve gone 2-0 down. They conceded first and should’ve given away a penalty, but somehow it wasn’t given. Then they scored an away goal on the break of play and sealed the tie.
- Against Juve they were outplayed for large parts of the tie and came from behind to win the game.

3. In the final they were again lucky, they went 1-0 down to Bayern. Bayern then hit the woodwork 3-4 times. Then obviously Utd scored those two last minute goals from corners, to win the game.

So yeah, their whole CL win was lucky from start to finish, to say the least. It was like one of those years where the best team in Europe, doesn’t actually win the trophy.

With ours CL win, there was no questions from anyone that we were the best team.

So to summarise, we won all of our trophies in more convincing fashion, we didn’t have to rely on any luck or referee decisions.

 

[Bentheblue]

..it’s actually the first of the millennium too!

Sounds even better. The rags effort effort was so long ago now, we were in the third tier.

 

[steveb15]

There’s no comparison… the way we did it was factually better. In a nutshell, no luck involved and a lot more convincing.

In the FA cup they had 2 replays. Arsenal missed a penalty in the last minute of the semi final and would’ve beaten them.

In the league they didn’t even break 80 points, and had one of the lowest points tallies of any PL champion. They drew 13 games in the season, and had a tally that would’ve seen them finish in 3rd place this season. It was a season, where they were the best of a bad bunch.

In the Champions league though, this is where they had a truly staggering amount of luck on their side.

1. They had a reasonably tough group with Bayern, Barca and Brondby. But they failed to beat both Bayern and Barca, drawing all the games, Brondby were the only team they beat and it was only good enough to finish second. But that didn’t mean they automatically got to the quarters back then (no last 16 then). There was 6 groups of 4 and the top 2 from all the runners up, went through.

- Real Madrid had the highest points of the runners up. Utd had the next best, but about 6 other teams could’ve beaten them to that. However, non of them won their final games. Benfica was a good example, they were going through until they conceded in the last minute to only draw and finish with 1 point less than Utd. So Utd had to rely on 6 other results going their away, in the last round of group games, and they all did. Which in essence, meant they qualified for the quarters as the second best losers.

2. They got lucky with their opponents in the Quarter final and the Semi finals in Inter and Juve. They were both weak as fuck. On paper they might’ve looked strong, Inter had won the UEFA cup the year before and Juventus had got to the CL final. But both had absolutely disastrous seasons, that make Chelsea and Liverpools season this year, seem ok.

- Inter went through 4 different managers that year! They finished only 8 points above the relegation zone and had one of the worst defences in the league. They conceded more goals than two of the teams relegated.

- Juve went through 2 different managers. They finished 7th and had one of the worst attacks in their league. They scored less goals than Bologna, who had finished just one point above the relegation zone.

- Despite this Utd still struggled to overcome both teams. Against Inter they won 2-0 at home, but away they could’ve and probably should’ve gone 2-0 down. They conceded first and should’ve given away a penalty, but somehow it wasn’t given. Then they scored an away goal on the break of play and sealed the tie.
- Against Juve they were outplayed for large parts of the tie and came from behind to win the game.

3. In the final they were again lucky, they went 1-0 down to Bayern. Bayern then hit the woodwork 3-4 times. Then obviously Utd scored those two last minute goals from corners, to win the game.

So yeah, their whole CL win was lucky from start to finish, to say the least. It was like one of those years where the best team in Europe, doesn’t actually win the trophy.

With ours CL win, there was no questions from anyone that we were the best team.

So to summarise, we won all of our trophies in more convincing fashion, we didn’t have to rely on any luck or referee decisions.

This is all spot on.
The only claim we would have to concede is that they won it in more dramatic fashion with 2 late goals.

 

[Blue Llama]

Heard this a couple of times now. City couldn't have done it in 80/90s because the opposition would have left one on you, or similar expression. Usually followed by but now the rules have been changed. Fck that, no rules have been changed all that's changed now is that refs don't allow the fouls that have always been fouls. To make sure players obeyed the rules red and yellow cards were brought in to curb the thugs/cheats in the game. The only rule change other than tightening up the wording was the tackle from behind. And that was brought in to make it clear to the thugs that they couldn't damage a player in making a challenge without being sanctioned. Even now some don't get it and stand over a prostrate player telling the ref they got the ball.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Oh, we've also done the domestic treble, and I'll never get tired of reminding people of it: no other club has ever done it, before or since. So we've done the two kinds of treble. We are alone.

 

[MCC]

Arsenal won the league in 98. They should have been no where near the 99 CL final. CL should always be for Champions only - hence we are clear in the debate.