Pelé, Maradona, Georgie Best, Denis Law, Johan Cruyff … they would all make their claims to be the best talent I ever played with, against, or watched, and it is the kind of argument that could go on for ever, but there was something unique, I felt, about di Stefano on 11 April 1957 in the Bernabeu. I was a midfielder still learning my trade under the prompting of Jimmy Murphy and maybe it was a benefit of that education, or simply that di Stefano made the game seem so simple, but I understood everything that he was doing. One point can be made with certainty. Pelé was a more instinctive player, someone who reacted as situations came along, and in this he was beyond comparison, but with di Stefano it was as though he had worked things out beforehand.
And everything di Stefano did carried the announcement, ‘I am the best.’ He expected to be treated that way. When he wanted the ball it was his, there could be no argument. He was still the same many years later when we played in a testimonial match in Frankfurt. Ferenc Puskas also played, and you could only marvel at the intensity of the two middle-aged men around a football: di Stefano the leader, Puskas, tubby but still lethal when he was anywhere near goal.
In Madrid di Stefano had dominated the game so profoundly that on the run-in to the second leg you just couldn’t get him out of your thoughts – and for me this became even more overwhelming when I was told I would be replacing the injured Dennis Viollet. I was thrilled, of course, but along with the pleasure of anticipating such a huge match there was the question that everyone, from Matt Busby down to the newest recruit to European football, struggled to answer. What tactics might neutralise di Stefano and Gento?
I played the game in my head a hundred times. I knew that I had the capabilities to put in a decent performance – I was sure about passing, and if a chance came I would remember all the advice of Jimmy Murphy – but it was when you came to the potential of di Stefano to change the match so suddenly, and Gento’s remarkable speed, that you had to wonder if you were just kidding yourself when you imagined how we might win. Though David Pegg had played well at the Bernabeu, he was not Gento, he couldn’t leave you for dead in a flash, and I was certainly not di Stefano.
We worked on the offside trap with Gento in mind, but the tactic is always vulnerable to exceptional speed and brilliant passing, so Busby stuck mostly to his usual theme before we walked down the tunnel: remember to enjoy the experience, he said, play your game and don’t forget the basics, don’t rush anything. This was a team that could punish you cruelly for one misplaced pass, one hurried and faulty tackle.
Though the Old Trafford crowd was only half the size of the one in Madrid, they seemed to be making the same level of noise. As the early going was marked mostly by some hard tackling and a burst of fouls I began to hope that maybe the smaller ground, the closeness of the fans, and our refusal to allow any free space, might just unsettle Real.
Such optimism was destroyed after twenty-four minutes. Di Stefano released Raymond Kopa and the Frenchman stroked home the ball with shattering ease. Eight minutes later, Gento finally erupted, and Ray Wood could only beat the ball down to the feet of a Real forward. Our offside trap was in ruins, we were 5–1 down on aggregate, and I had been weaving a fantasy. Maybe the fans were not so close in places like Barcelona and Seville, but this was not a team who could be easily separated from their style and their scoring instincts.
At least we could tell ourselves that we didn’t give up. Tommy Taylor kept probing away and sixteen minutes into the second half he scored. I also did what I was picked to do, I scored another goal, but unfortunately it served only to excite the crowd and, maybe, suggest happier times in the future. It came five minutes from the end, but Duncan seemed to believe that that left enough time to pull off something even more remarkable than the defeat of Bilbao. When a Real player went down and stayed down, Duncan was convinced he was feigning injury, so he picked him up and carted him over the touchline. The Real players went mad. One of them had sufficient English to shout, ‘You can’t do that!’ but of course there were times when the big man thought he could do anything. It was too late, however.
In the dressing room Matt Busby was comforting. He said that we had played well and bravely, and showed what kind of a future we had. That was encouraging but the reality was that on the day we were just not good enough to make up the two goals. When I played back the game I noted that Kopa, who had struck so devastatingly, might easily have scored at least one more goal, and there had always been di Stefano and Gento ready to raise their ambition, and their play, if the need arose.
Yet a point about our potential had certainly been made. We ran out of time, but when the late goals went in we learned something about Real – and ourselves. We had got to a stage, though very late, when we felt we could truly compete with the best team in Europe. We did have cause for a little satisfaction. It was
