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The winter of our discontent, huge flakes to greet the dawn and though the sun shone and melted what snow had fallen on the roads, the fields were white, Manchester was ice, its puddles solid and treacherous along the Chester Road. With the group won a month ago it was clear that we would field reserves and sure enough Sir Alex Ferguson made ten changes from Saturday’s starting line-up, Wayne Rooney the only man to stay. Surely, though, we could hope for a show; no tension, nothing to fear, and though Ferguson seems to think of these lads as the future most are not so young compared to Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and David Beckham when they burst upon the scene, or Duncan Edwards and Bobby Charlton as they blazed the trail, or Georgie Best, or Norman Whiteside who were nowhere near old enough to vote when they played in Europe. It was a team of experience with one or two youngsters playing a team midway down the Romanian league.

We had gone out of our way with the weather to make our visitors from Eastern Europe feel at home and we went that extra step and played as casually as any of their league opponents in Romania. Unfortunately half our guests turned out to be Portuguese, and they returned our hospitality by tripping and feigning, spending a great deal of time on the ground, then showing us how to score and beating us.

The Theatre of Absentees was as empty of people as it has been for any European fixture in recent times. It looked half full at kick off and three quarters full in the second half when they announced that 71,521 were present. Ghosts, maybe; but if so they would long before then have left the world again unseen and with their memories faded into the city dim.

Above us in the clear winter sky the queen moon was still abed with all her starry Fays; upon us alas there was no light. Nowadays only the actors change; Danny Welbeck’s near post header from Giggs’ corner went wide. Giggs gave a risky back pass to Chris Smalling which needed belting up the field immediately, not passing to the opposition; David de Gea saved with his legs. The dull brain perplexes and retards; o for a beaker of the warm Bovril, o for a younger Giggs dancing through the Juventus defence to slip a stiletto into the Italian heart. Was this a vision, or a waking dream?

CFR were not afraid to push the limits. Our players were regularly tripped. Rafael Bastos, when he was not mincing around the pitch in a manner surely still illegal in Romania, spent more time than most lying on the floor, Gabriel Mure?an elbowed Nick Powell in the ribs. Referee Daniele Orsato, a young Mussolini, was more interested in posturing and petty detail than in running the match. At least he was not as ridiculous as his goal line assistants, skinny legged and knock-kneed in their black tights, encroaching on the pitch at corner kicks.

The visitors in green displayed ambition which belied any patronising view of their modest background. Luís Alberto tried to chip de Gea from half way down the pitch. Modou Sougou, who wore the number ninety nine on his back and looked a bit like a Cadbury’s Milk Flake was clean through when a Scott Wootton tackle saved us. Rooney cleared a dangerous cross. We offered little connectivity in midfield where passes regularly went astray and as a result our threat was spasmodic at best; Phil Jones put in a superb cross but Powell’s shot was blocked. Welbeck robbed Felice Piccolo but Tom Cleverley needed a touch more than he was allowed by goalkeeper Mário Felgueiras, luminous under the floodlights in his high visibility kit freshly unwrapped from its Lidl cellophane.

CFR had brought some six hundred supporters who made as much noise as our crowd; the half deserted stadium echoing to the calls of the players and the shrill screeches of schoolchildren drafted in to fill the vacant seats. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget the weariness, the fret. Here, where men sit and hear each other groan, where to watch is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despairs. O for that night when Alessandro Del Pierro and Zinedine Zidane strutted their magnificence and this stadium, packed to the rafters, reverberated with pride as tens of thousands stood and went hoarse making famous the chant “Stand up for the Champions”. Fled is that music. Do I wake or sleep?

Wootton found another block to deny Ninety Niner; de Gea had to gather a Piccolo header from a corner but we had a flurry before half time. Powell put Javier Hernández through but he was dazzled by the goalkeeper’s kit. Welbeck rose at the near post to glance Rooney’s corner down onto the line where Felguerias got a hand to it; Rooney’s chip from the edge of the area was accurate but telegraphed. When Alex Büttner crossed, Smalling at the far post managed to head wide what he should have headed in. Those in the bar at half time said that the five minutes of highlights had looked quite exciting. I pondered that night when Bryan Robson and Frank Stapleton ripped apart the Barcelona defence either side of half time and the roars of the crowd could be heard all over West Manchester.

Ionu? Rada cynically felled Hernández. I half closed my eyes and saw David Beckham bending that magnificent free kick around the Bayern Munich wall but when I opened them again somebody had allowed Büttner a go. When Cadú chopped Powell Rooney, who completed his debut hat trick from the very same spot with a stunning kick against Fenerbahçe, could not even get this one over the first man in the wall. Powell put in a wicked left wing cross and in a cruel trick of age I thought I saw The King himself swoop upon it from nowhere and stab it home, mud on his shirt and grin on his face, arm stretched skywards in his famous salute but no, it was Rooney it came to and he mishit his effort so badly he should shrink whenever he thinks of it.

Mure?an was in space but a long way out; his shot was astonishingly close but de Gea feigned nonchalance. From the goal kick Scholes, who had replaced the injured Cleverley, gave Powell a difficult ball and I imagined a younger Scholes flicking it around the corner to a red shirt located by radar. Powell fudged it, Bastos picked it up, skipped past the veteran Scholes’ homicidal haymaker of a tackle and provided Luís Alberto, who advanced a couple of strides and let fly a scorcher into de Gea’s top left hand corner. He celebrated in such an ecstasy, thinking they had qualified; ‘twas not just through envy of his happy lot that now more than ever seemed it rich to die, to cease upon cold midnight with no pain.

We might have had a free kick when Welbeck was pulled down by Mure?an. Büttner’s cross was good but Rooney’s header was never going in. Luís Alberto tried one from fully forty five yards; cheeky bugger. Rui Pedro collided slightly with Giggs and lay poleaxed on the floor. He should play more rugby. Where Rooney was born there are bodies on the floor every night so he played on, but even then we could not score; Giggs’ shot was blocked and the referee stood by in impotence as handbags were swung.

It was when Federico Macheda came on to rescue us that my heart ached and a drowsy numbness filled my bones. Remember those glorious failures against Borussia Dortmund and AC Milan when our team fought like demons to the bitter end and we left the ground dismayed but proud? Jones broke through after a mistake by Rada but his was a half hearted shot. Felgueiras pushed away Giggs’ free kick. We played the ball around the edge of the area but nobody really wanted it so Rooney had a go himself. The middle was too crowded for us to work it through, our crosses too poor when we went wide. I swear that when the half chance came to Federico, he saw himself reliving his moment against Aston Villa but that was a long, long time ago in some melodious plot of beechen green and shadows numberless.

From when it all started in 1956 we went for over forty years unbeaten at home in competition against the mightiest that Europe had to offer. Crikey, even Dave Sexton’s sides kept that record. As I drove home through the freezing Midlands I could see the half moon rising at last, huge and orange like a vast alien spaceship taking off from amid the trees of The Belfry. Was it a vision or a waking dream? Do I wake or sleep?

Paul Andrew James