The Guardian look at the ‘golden generation’ that played such an important part in the treble and at what they have achieved since.
‘In the delirious aftermath of Manchester United's victory in the European Cup final of 1999, Clive Tyldesley sounded a note pitched perfectly between caution and celebration. "Gary Neville 24, David Beckham 24, Nicky Butt 24, [Ryan] Giggs 25," he said. "Whatever they achieve in their future, I doubt they will ever, ever cap this."
‘It was hardly a hostage to fortune - you don't top the Treble - but nobody realised that they would never get near those heights again. Like Tyldesley, United's fledglings have been living off May 26, 1999 ever since.
‘This golden generation - a crop so talented in their teens that Alex Ferguson ripped up his awesome mid-90s side so as not to stunt their development - should now be at its absolute peak: Gary Neville 29, Beckham 29, Butt 29, Giggs 30, Phil Neville 27. Instead they are, almost to a man, past their best, pale and poignant ghosts of the players who scared all-comers witless domestically between 1998 and 2001. A place in the pantheon alongside Peter Schmeichel and Roy Keane has long gone.
‘It was not supposed to be like this. As word spread around Manchester in the early 90s, it was clear that this was not just any old crop of youth players; led by Giggs, who was in the first team at 17, they had the potential to achieve what the Busby Babes would have done.
‘With the exception of Gary Neville, who is now arguably Europe's best right-back, they have slowly, surely lost their groove over the last three years. Careers that were destined for greatness are instead dribbling to a dank, dreary conclusion. Saddest of all is the dramatic decline of that blockbusting midfield axis: Beckham-Scholes-Keane-Giggs. Of the four, only Keane's decay can be fully attributed to the passing of time.
‘Beckham provided some of the greatest crosses ever seen on a football field - none better than the one at Anfield in the title run-in of 1998-99, which seemed to gather a life of its own as it increased in pace and swooshed violently mid-flight to enable Dwight Yorke to ram it in - before wilfully disappearing into a black hole of hubris, Heat and excess patriotism. He made his bed, but no longer enjoys lying in it.
‘Giggs scored probably the greatest goal of the last 15 years, in the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal in 1999, but he has been on the slide for the last two years. On occasion he still slaloms tantalisingly past defenders, but he can no longer turn on the afterburner to take three or four out of the game in an instant. Giggs is a jack of all trades, but he no longer masters any of them. Like Michael Owen and John Barnes, his predecessor as English football's finest left-winger, devastating pace and energy elevated him into the top bracket. Without it, he is troublingly ordinary.
‘In his pomp, no winger in history worked harder defensively than Giggs. Whereas then the loss of possession was the catalyst for that furious, upright, arm-pumping gallop and immaculate scooped slide tackle, now it merely prompts hands to go on hips. With it has gone most of the goodwill afforded him by fans at Old Trafford.
‘Scholes's case is slightly more complex, and it is too early to determine whether his recent slump is indicative of a permanent decline or a blip in form. Either way, for such a pure, natural footballer, he has never imposed his technique and class on the stratospheric contests, especially in Europe, as he might. And while it fits his shy, retiring profile, it means he has no legacy to live with the midfield champions of the modern game, like Roy Keane (v Juventus 1999), or Fernando Redondo (v United 2000), or the man to whom is he often compared, Zinedine Zidane (Leverkusen 2002).
‘Of the rest, Phil Neville - who, it is forgotten, was an incisive, marauding left-back of very high calibre in his first two full seasons from 1995 to 1997 - and Nicky Butt never truly recovered from the trauma of being left out of England's World Cup squad in 1998. Something died in both of them that day: Butt lost the wiry, humourless malevolence that enabled him and Keane to grip games by the scruff; Neville became every non-United fan's favourite bad joke.
‘Now, they seem further away from the ultimate prize as at any time since the mid 90s. And if they do win it, it will be because of the new generation - Ronaldo, Rio, Rooney and Ruud. Gary Neville will offer the usual unobtrusive excellence, Giggs and Scholes will be bit-part players, Phil Neville will be watching from the bench, and Butt and Beckham from their living rooms. When Ole Solskjaer put the ball in the Germans' net, it was supposed to be the beginning. Nobody knew that it was actually the beginning of the end.’