UTD Unscripted with Jesper Blomqvist on Champions League nights

I was in my second season at IFK Gothenburg. We’d come through the qualifying round against Sparta Prague, and our reward was to be drawn in the same group as Barcelona, Galatasaray… and Manchester United.

Our first group game was at Old Trafford, and the night before we were allowed to train inside the empty stadium. That was my first ever encounter with Old Trafford and it blew me away straight away. It was an unbelievable pitch, but even though there were no people at all inside the stands, it felt like it was a full stadium. It was a fantastic feeling just to be there, and for me it was the biggest club stadium I’d been in at that stage in my career. I remember coming out onto the pitch and just looking around at all those seats, feeling the air of the place and just taking it all in. I still remember that training session because I was so excited just to be out on that pitch. It made me so eager to play the game the next night.

The problem when you actually play the game is that you don’t often have the possibility of enjoying it. Like I said, I always went into my bubble during a game, so I actually preferred the training session the night before the United game to the game itself!

Of course, it was a fantastic atmosphere, but after the game – which we lost 4-2 – I felt that we were a bit too afraid of United, too respectful. When we came off the pitch we definitely felt that we hadn’t played our best level. We felt that if we had shown more courage then we could have done more. So, when United flew to Gothenburg later in the group, we were well up for it.

When the second game came, it was really late in our season, almost winter. It was so cold, so windy and we had all the conditions and circumstances on our side. We had a really strong team as well and that was one of the biggest games we’d had during my time in the team. What can I say? I had a great game, more or less everything I did went my way. If I look back over the course of my career, it was one of my very best games I ever played. I gave Maysie a tough night that night. I love him though, we always have a laugh when we catch up now and he’s such a great lad.

I think Sir Alex was quite impressed by my performance, because he tried to sign me for United three times in total. Firstly, straight after that season, but I wasn’t ready to move and I felt I had more developing to do in Sweden. Secondly, at the end of our season in 1996, when I was at Parma, but I had already set my sights on joining AC Milan, who I thought was still the best team in Europe at that time. There was nothing that could change my mind about joining them.