Doesn't seem like 20 years at all. Maybe time flies faster these days.
I loved that Golden Goal rule and knew as soon as the ball went in, the game was won. It made extra time in games more watchable, rather than the usual tedious procession to penalties. Surprised the staff didn't know about the rule though, no wonder players don't know what a penalty is nowadays. It was replaced by the Silver Goal rule a couple of years later (where the team that scored first in extra time would win if they were still ahead or the game was level again at the end of it) It didn't last very long though and by the time Istanbul happened, both rules were gone, and now we're back to the usual tedious procession to penalties.
Even if the goal wasn't scored, we would have been playing against 9 men for the rest of the game as the ref had finally ran out of yellow cards to give them, so I'm sure we would have scored again anyway.
For the neutral, I'm sure it was one of the great finals. For us, having lost two leads, it was rather harder to enjoy. I would have preferred a more comfortable night. UEFA recently did a feature on it from their perspective on one of the European magazine shows. They never reached another European final, and spent their time getting promoted and relegated from the Spanish First Division, which continues to this day.
20 years ago today, we went to Charlton with our fate in our own hands. The first half was a bit of a hangover from winning the cups but we got through it. Once we got the first goal, we settled down, won it at a canter and were back in the European Cup for the first time in 17 years. When we got a lap of honour from the whole stadium, the incredible achievements of the whole season, started to sink in.
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