How it unfolded
Manchester United were without the suspended Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, and Alex Ferguson opted for an improvised setup, shifting Ryan Giggs to the right and playing David Beckham through the middle. In the 6th minute, a Mario Basler free kick beat the wall and found the corner. For the next 80 minutes, Bayern controlled the game: in the 79th minute Mehmet Scholl's chip struck the post, and in the 84th minute Carsten Jancker's overhead kick hit the crossbar. By the time normal time was almost up, UEFA officials had already tied Bayern's ribbons onto the trophy. In the first minute of stoppage time, Giggs mishit a shot off a Beckham corner that Teddy Sheringham redirected in for the equaliser. Ninety seconds later, another Beckham corner was headed down by Sheringham, and Ole Gunnar Solskjær stretched to poke it in under the crossbar. In front of 90,245 fans, several Bayern players simply sat down on the pitch, unable to get up. United completed English football's first treble, on top of the Premier League and FA Cup, and the day also happened to be Matt Busby's 90th birthday.
Why it still matters
This remains the only final ever overturned in the last three minutes of stoppage time, and it marked the Premier League's return to the top of Europe. The treble became the benchmark English clubs measured themselves against, and no one matched it until Manchester City repeated the feat 24 years later, in 2023.