Keane looks to the future

Roy Keane yesterday spelled out the challenges for Manchester United in the aftermath of their astonishing late charge to beat Bayern Munich in the European Champions League Final in Barcelona's Nou Camp Stadium.

The sky over the Olympic City was uncommonly dark as Keane and his team-mates awoke to the renewed adulation of their supporters, at least some of whom had slept rough on the pavement outside the team hotel, overlooking the Marina.

Many of them were still attempting to take in the breathtaking sequence of events in the last three minutes when Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plundered the goals which took United to the summit of European football for the first time in 31 years. Yet even as he savoured the moment, the team captain was contemplating the job specifications for the new season.

"We proved that we were a good team by coming back to win the trophy late in the game - now the aim is to show that we are a great one by winning it again in the years ahead," he said.

"After their first success Liverpool came back to win it on three occasions. That's the sign of a great team - and that's what we want to be. The next time I would like to be involved in the final for it's not the same, sitting on the sideline. But like Paul Scholes and Henning Berg, I still felt part of the occasion.

"I never thought the game was gone from us, even when we were getting close to the finish. But I have to admit I was still shocked when we scored. When you see Peter Schmeichel going upfield for a corner, you know things are getting pretty desperate.

"Bayern were settling for a 1-0 win but you simply can't do that against a team like ours. We keep going to the end - that's what Manchester United is all about. It's not just about talent, team spirit comes into it too. And at the end of the night that's what won the Champions League for us".

Denis Irwin, one of the lower profiled members of the team but seen by many as the acceptable face of a club which has always prided itself in maintaining standards, was, like his fellow Corkman, apprehensive of the pressures of kingship.

"With more clubs being allowed into the competition next season, it's going to be even harder to retain the trophy," he said. "But the feeling is that after all the hard work of the last four or five years, we've now finally cracked it in Europe.

"Manchester United hadn't won the League for something like 23 years when we finished on top of the Premiership in 1993. Ever since, we've dominated the competition and now hopefully, we can do the same thing in Europe.

"Realistically I don't have too many years left but in spite of the competition for first team places, I want more of this. Two big clubs playing for the top prize in one of the biggest stadiums in the world - you just can't buy a night like this."

While Irwin prepares to snatch a few days with his family before joining up with the Republic of Ireland squad in Dublin next Monday, Keane has conceded in his fight for fitness for the crucial European Championship games against Yugoslavia and Macedonia. "Once I got injured in the FA Cup Final against Newcastle at Wembley, I knew I had no chance of being ready for the games in Dublin," he said. "That's a huge disappointment for me for these are two important games for Ireland.

"But I still think we can beat Yugoslavia and we owe Macedonia one after what they did to us in Skopje a couple of years ago. I believe we have a great chance of reaching the finals but we need two good results over the next couple of weeks to stay on course. It would be nice to have the chance of making a contribution but the players left in the squad are good enough to secure them. I intend to be at Lansdowne Road to watch both matches."

For players like David Beckham, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and possibly, Andy Cole, European Championship action also looms in the coming fortnight as England make ready for their games against Sweden and Bulgaria.

Kevin Keegan, the England manager was among those who watched the game and having sorted his differences with Alex Ferguson, at least publicly, he can only have been impressed by United's performance in general and Beckham's contribution in particular.

This was the night when Beckham rediscovered the verve and the vision of his early career. Thrust into the role of playmaker in United's restructured midfield formation, his response was such that it is scarcely conceivable that Ferguson will choose to dispatch him to the relative isolation of a flanker's role when they embark on the defence of their title in September.

That of course would present him with the problem of finding an alternative player to run the right wing. Given the precision of Beckham's crossing, the search for a replacement could be long and difficult: and yet, it dwarfs in comparison with the challenge of finding a goalkeeper to fill Peter Schmeichel's boots.

Tommy Docherty, a man occasionally given to the overstatement, has equated Schmeichel's departure with the concession of 15 points to their main Premiership rivals Arsenal and Chelsea.

That may prove no more than another colourful paragraph for inclusion in the Doc's book of quotes but it does hint at the dimensions of the vacuum, occasioned his departure.

Yet, for one man more than all others perhaps it was the ultimate vindication of a philosophy which has seen Manchester United reemerge from the deep disillusionment of the 1970s to achieve the success which was theirs, almost by right in another era.

Alex Ferguson, on the brink of dismissal by the club chairman, Martin Edwards in 1990, has attained his holy grail. And who will deny this pragmatic Scot, soon to be knighted, according to the grapevine, his finest hour in a splendid managerial career.