Talk:1998–99 Manchester United F.C. season

Football: England / Manchester United / Season Low‑importance

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1998–99 Manchester United F.C. season has been listed as one of the Sports and recreation good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

1998–99 Manchester United F.C. season is the main article in the 1998–99 Manchester United F.C. season series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 18, 2011	Peer review	Reviewed
October 10, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed
February 16, 2012	Peer review	Reviewed
August 14, 2021	Good topic candidate	Promoted
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on May 26, 2019, and May 26, 2024.
Current status: Good article

Merge text

Text from Manchester United 1986-1999 to be merged in if necessary:

The treble

The season started poorly with a 3-0 defeat to Arsenal in the Charity Shield, but United improved as the season went on. They were unbeaten in any competition from December 1998 until the end of the season. In April 1999, they met Arsenal in what was the last ever, and is commonly regarded as the greatest ever, FA Cup semi-final replay. With United playing with only ten men after captain Roy Keane was sent off, Peter Schmeichel brilliantly saved a 90th minute penalty kick. Ryan Giggs scored the winning goal in extra time with a breathtaking run followed by a spectacular goal. United followed this victory up with a legendary comeback victory against Juventus, inspired by captain Roy Keane, to book their place in the UEFA Champions League final. The League was then clinched at home to Tottenham in United's final match of the competition. They then won the FA Cup with a 2-0 win over Newcastle, before the trip to Barcelona's Nou Camp to face Bayern Munich in the final of the UEFA Champions League, on the day which would have been Sir Matt Busby's 90th birthday.

Bayern Munich scored from an early Mario Basler free-kick and United fought the rest of the game to no avail, in fact Bayern should have scored again, hitting the woodwork twice. At 90 minutes, with the fourth official signalling 4 minutes of injury time, United won a corner and pulled out all the stops, even sending up goalie Peter Schmeichel, who, with Roy Keane suspended, was serving as captain in his last ever appearance for the club. Bayern Munich were in shock as Teddy Sheringham squeezed in the equaliser. Less than a minute later, United won another corner and Ole Gunnar Solskjær won it all with a goal to send the United fans into delirium and cap off an incredible comeback. Manchester United became the first English team to win the Premiership/FA Cup/Champions League treble. That summer, Alex Ferguson was awarded a knighthood for his contribution to United's success.

Their achievement in the Champions League final was ranked 4th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sporting Moments in 2002. Ryan Giggs' goal in the FA Cup Semi Final replay was ranked 23rd.

File:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 00:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tone

The treble season is unique by its own name; three the magic number.

An introductory sentence like that sets the tone for this article - fanboyish, not encyclopaedic. Should be rewritten to a less gushing, more NPOV style. Qwghlm 11:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be the first to admit my view on the subject is far from neutral, but I removed part of the sentence "A crowd reported to be over three-quarters of a million people lined the streets,including fans from bitter rivals Manchester City and Liverpool F.C , to cheer them on.". No self-respecting City or Liverpool fan would do so, and I would not accept the claim without a non-partisan source. Oldelpaso 19:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Oldelpaso, but I'm going to have to argue that point. My wife is a Manchester City fan (I was trying to convert the family from the inside - unsurprisingly, I failed!) and she accompanied me to the hill, just outside Manchester Cathedral, as the bus went past. Whilst there was (admittedly) a distinct lack of cheering from her, I find it highly unlikely that, in a crowd of 700,000+ people, she was the only Manchester City fan there. As for Liverpool fans, naturally, I can't comment - but I would agree they are far less likely. Thus, I have re-instated part of the line.DAAdshead 17:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I'm well known for my neutrality on this subject I thought I might be able to help. I don't think there's any doubt that a few scouse, city, Bolton etc fans were there watching, given the size of the crowd. I'm not at all convinced that they were cheering United on though. I don't think the fact that some of the crowd were fans of other clubs needs mentioning at all, so I've taken it out. If there had been an exceptionally large number of them then it would be different, but the fact that a few blues went along with reds they knew doesn't seem notable to.

Got a couple of messages while I'm here: OEP, thanks for the support vote. DAA:if you're interested in finding out more about FCUM, have a look at Channel M's website. They've done a brilliant 30 minute programme on the club, and being Channel M they're repeating it all the time. It's well worth a look if you can pick Channel M up. CTOAGN (talk) 09:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

I've merged the text of Manchester United treble into this article. For the edit history of the text I've merged, see that article's edit history. File:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 04:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CTOAGN - Good job with the basic merge of the document, but it this article remains poorly written (as I noted on the earlier page.) As such, I would have added a request for this page to be better presented in the THINGS TO DO box at the top of this Discussion Page, but don't know how to! Also, I think we need to add the WIKI standard "Cleanup" and/or "NPOV" box(es) at the top of the main Article page. Please can this be done? (Advice on how to do this would be most helpful!)DAAdshead 14:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked this up at Wikipedia:Cleanup and Wikipedia:NPOV and added an NPOV template at the top (just typed {{Long NPOV}} into the edit box). We could add it to the list on Wikipedia:Cleanup but I'm not sure it's worth bothering as few of the people who read that are likely to be interested in football. I don't think it will take too long to tidy up the writing ourselves so I'd rather just do that. I'll do some more work on it when I get time and if you get a chance to tidy it up please do.

The todo box has got a link with 'edit' on it at the top-right, you can just click on that to edit it.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed working on this article. Happy days :-) File:Yemen flag large.png CTOAGN (talk) 15:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other competition?

What about the other thing United won that season, the European/South American Cup against Palmeiras, as that was this season, so it was really a "quadruple".--GingerM 15:47, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly mention should be made of the World Club Championship. However, since this was won during the 1999-2000 season, perhaps it does not really belong in the Manchester United 1998-1999 page?DAAdshead 12:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Name on trophy

I removed this paragraph from the article:

It has since been shown that the UEFA chairman had already set up Bayern Munich colour ribbons on the trophy as the game went into injury time,^{[citation needed]} and the engraver had been readying himself to carve Bayern's name into the trophy.^{[citation needed]} Indeed, the cup was part way down to the touchline when the equaliser was scored.^{[citation needed]} A few moments later, the cup was taken back up into the stands and the Manchester United ribbons were tied around the trophy.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the majority of the Barcelona team had been in the stands (actually sat near to Teddy Sheringham's son) but left when the injury-time was indicated, believing the game to be over.^{[citation needed]} They missed the comeback by United, only returning to their seats as the game ended.^{[citation needed]}

I'm not saying that it's definately false, but due to a lack of a credible source on a topic so well sourced, I have to conclude that it's probably false. Feel free to re-add if you can find a reference. BeL1EveR (talk) 13:23, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

Looking at the season articles that have been promoted, and comparing to ours... there's a LOT of sourcing to do. Here's a good place to start I suppose: <url>http://www.sportinglife.com/football/premiership/manu/reports/manu_1998.html</url> BeL1EveR (talk) 14:11, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"You can't win anything with kids"

How about including this quote at the start of the season?--EchetusXe (talk) 17:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would be a bit inappropriate, since that quote was made back in 1995. – Pee Jay 17:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also find it a bit offensive. 110.145.230.234 (talk) 00:31, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In what respect? – Pee Jay 08:25, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Depth of coverage

I've added a month by month summary of United's Premier League season but it's clear more work needs to be done to help this page reach it's desirable target. Fact is, this was the club's most successful period and should fittingly be a featured article.

I'm for adding something regarding the whole BSkyB takeover and the formation of Shareholders United but would that work under a seperate heading? And what about changes backroom: Brian Kidd, Steve McClaren and the legacy of the team? Lemonade51 (talk) 20:29, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, great work on the summary, and about the takeover, I am for the seperate heading, maybe add it above the Pre-season info.

But go for it, and than we might change few stuff after we see the final article.
– HonorTheKing (talk) 21:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Barring minor rewriting on the merger talk, FA Cup and Champions League, I think this is now ready for a article assessment. Good amount of references which helps and the article seems to flow well.

Should it come to that, how should the colour key be presented underneath the scoretables?

Colour Key:	Win	Lose	Draw

or

Colours: Green = Manchester United win; Yellow = draw; Red = opponents win. (which I used for the 97-98 article)— Lemonade51 (talk) 23:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The second one looks better and less distraction. I liked how the 97-98 looks.

On a note, well done mate, you did a fantastic work on the article. Hope it will get a GA.
– HonorTheKing (talk) 02:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliography

Is this section meant to be a joke? I can't see how any of the sources could be useful in writing the article. doomgaze (talk) 12:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those sources are used to reference facts in the section about the BSkyB takeover. There must be better ones around - perhaps ones more suited to a football viewpoint, such as "For Love or Money" by Alex Fynn and Lynton Guest, or "Manchester Disunited" by Mihir Bose - but these seem pretty good for now. – Pee Jay 23:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

-facepalm- my bad! doomgaze (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Charity shield table

I really don't see the point in general with using a table with only one entry, that can never be expanded. --John (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even tho it only list one game, in my opinion as its widely used in many articles. and even tho it can be added to the body (the number of attendance and the date that which it took place at). I think people eyes will be more focus at the table as they might not bother reading the section.
– HonorTheKing (talk) 19:04, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be inclined to remove it from other articles rather than restoring it to this one. It's not like the Charity Shield is a major tournament or anything; why do we need to emphasize it in this way? --John (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might not be the most important cup in England, but its still a trophy and a medal to add to the club total. unlike the pre-season sponsored cups (Audi Cup, Emirates Cup and so on). The issue is that yes it might only list one, but will we remove the League Cup or the FA Cup if they lose the first game and be eliminated?. I think we should include them in all articles even if it might only end up listing one game.
– HonorTheKing (talk) 21:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's about utility versus consistency. I would argue that as the Charity Shield can only ever be one game, it should never be presented in this way. --John (talk) 21:32, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree with that. The table format works for competitions, but not for one-off matches. Malleus Fatuorum 22:15, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Edits

Aftermath should strictly deal with tournaments that United were granted entry to as a result of their Champions League win, such as the UEFA Supercup and Intercontinental Cup.
Clarify Manchester United's FA Cup withdrawal to mention the fixture congestion excuse.
Add a new section for Legacy which deals with polls of "greatest". The goal.com poll and the Premier League 20 awards put the 1998-99 treble-winning team in perspective with other recent great teams.

MonkeyKingBar (talk) 21:16, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Look, I have no problem with an aftermath section, but for balance there has to be a background section -- how the team fared the previous season. Your second point "stated that entering both tournaments would overload their fixture schedule and make it more difficult to defend their Champions League and Premiership titles, and claimed that they did not want to devalue the FA Cup by fielding a weaker side", is unsourced and for all the reader knows, hogswash. As I've said before, the goal.com poll is meaningless. You say they were included in the Premier League 20 awards yet fail to mention their ranking. I'd advise you to take a look at Wikipedia:Peer review/1998–99 Manchester United F.C. season/archive2 for suggestions on how to improve the article, and take it up here on the talkpage, rather than making hash changes. -- Lemonade51 (talk) 21:34, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The goal.com poll is utter tripe, as is everything else that comes from that website. I would further add that the perpetually re-hashed newspaper polls are a dime a dozen and shouldn't be given the time of day. No teams ever seem to remain in any particular position, so the positions are hardly definitive. The only rankings I believe have any merit are ones done by experts resulting in actual awards, such as the Premier League 20 Seasons Awards or the World Soccer magazine's "Team of the Year" award. I realise this means removing a lot of the content that was there already, but it is my opinion. – Pee Jay 22:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"stated that entering both tournaments would overload their fixture schedule and make it more difficult to defend their Champions League and Premiership titles, and claimed that they did not want to devalue the FA Cup by fielding a weaker side" is a paraphrase of The FA's press release. [1] This provides a bit more insight into the controversy.

If the Goal.com poll had ranked the 1999 Champions League Final first, would you have included it?

MonkeyKingBar (talk) 14:47, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I would not have included it because I place ZERO value on anything that comes out of that website. The people who work there are hack journalists who do nothing but rehash stories already reported by others in the reliable media and create pointless polls as their only form of original content. – Pee Jay 18:06, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you stop making hash changes? As PeeJay has stated, Goal.com is tripe. Their poll holds zero significance. I don't care if they said first, third or 15th, the website's writers are more likely to have done their research on Wikipedia first and added bogus information to beef up their articles, which might have been unsourced. This is a good article as of now -- I'd rather keep it like this then add unsourced information ruin it with bad poor prose. -- Lemonade51 (talk) 14:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How are more details from the The FA's press release ruining the article in any way? MonkeyKingBar (talk) 15:43, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:OFFTOPIC -- that is more suited to 1999–2000 Manchester United F.C. season. The FA press release has not much relevance to this article; by saying "Ferguson has since admitted his regrets in how they handled the situation" is a better way of putting a closure on the subject. -- Lemonade51 (talk) 15:56, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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