The second of three dominant Premier League titles was topped by a Champions League final triumph over Chelsea. Greg Lea remembers Fergie’s fearsome squadron
Edwin van der Sar
Having been instrumental as Manchester United won the League Cup in his first year in the north-west, then the Premier League in his second, Van der Sar again demonstrated his importance to the Red Devils in 2007/08.
Saving three Chelsea spot-kicks in the Community Shield shootout was a sign of things to come: the Dutchman, after recording 15 clean sheets in the top flight, kept out Nicolas Anelka’s penalty to secure the Champions League trophy at the Blues’ expense.
Van der Sar hung up his gloves after United’s 3-1 loss to Barcelona in the 2011 Champions League Final, although he did briefly pause retirement to play for VV Noordwijk against Jodan Boys in 2016. The 45-year-old saved a penalty.
Wes Brown
With Gary Neville missing virtually the entire season through injury, Brown became Sir Alex Ferguson’s first-choice right-back in 2007/08. The Manchester-born defender provided the assist for Cristiano Ronaldo’s strike in the Champions League final, and also scored a rare goal in United’s comfortable 3-0 defeat of Liverpool in March.
Brown was sold to Sunderland in 2011, where he remained for five years before departing at the end of last term. Now 37, he’s currently working as a player-coach at Championship outfit Blackburn.
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Rio Ferdinand
Ferdinand was virtually ever-present as United swept to glory at home and on the continent, missing only three Premier League matches and two Champions League group games.
The Red Devils conceded only 22 goals in the top flight, a defensive record which – along with their superior attacking firepower – helped Ferguson’s men edge ahead of Chelsea and Arsenal in a three-horse title race. Clean sheets in both legs of their European semi-final legs against Barcelona were also essential as United advanced to Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.
Ferdinand left Old Trafford for QPR in 2014, and now works as a television pundit.
The other half of what was arguably the finest centre-back partnership in Premier League history, Vidic ended speculation linking him with a move away from United by penning a new five-year contract in November 2007.
The Serb missed both matches against Barcelona in the last four of the Champions League but regained his fitness in time for the final, when he was slapped in the face by Didier Drogba four minutes before the penalty shootout.
The Ivorian was duly dismissed, and Vidic watched team-mates Carlos Tevez, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson and Ryan Giggs convert from 12 yards to win United the trophy.
Patrice Evra
Mikael Silvestre was often preferred to Evra in the latter’s first full season at Old Trafford, but the former Monaco man established himself as United’s leading left-back in 2007/08, featuring in 48 matches across domestic and continental competition.
His consistent performances as part of a solid defensive unit led to Ferguson rewarding him with a four-year contract extension just three weeks after the Champions League final.
After two-and-a-half seasons at Juventus, where the left-back added a pair of Serie A winner’s medals to his collection and reached another Champions League final, Evra signed an 18-month contract with Marseille in January.
Ryan Giggs
This was the last campaign in which Giggs made more than 30 appearances in the Premier League, with the Welshman increasingly rested and rotated in subsequent seasons. It was United’s longest-serving player who netted their final penalty in Moscow, before Nicolas Anelka’s failure to score sparked jubilation in the red end of the stadium.
Giggs spent six more years on United’s squad list before hanging up his boots in 2014, the year in which he also had a short spell as interim manager following the sacking of David Moyes. After a couple of campaigns as assistant to Louis van Gaal, the former winger departed Old Trafford in 2016.
Michael Carrick
Carrick’s campaign was disrupted by injury in 2007/08, but there was no doubting his influence when he was fit enough to play. The deep-lying midfielder started alongside Paul Scholes in the engine room in Moscow, playing the full 120 minutes and dispatching his penalty past Petr Cech in the shootout.
Even at the ripe old age of 35, Carrick remains an important part of the current United team; after being left out of the side at the beginning of this season, Jose Mourinho has regularly include him in his first XI over the last few months.
Paul Scholes
It was Scholes’s stunning strike against Barcelona that booked United’s place in the Champions League final, the ex-England international intercepting a loose clearance and smashing a half-volley into the top corner at Old Trafford.
His only other goal that season came in a 1-1 draw with Portsmouth in August, but the midfielder remained key when it came to setting the side’s tempo and making United tick.
Scholes initially retired in 2011 but was persuaded to return by Ferguson 18 months later, with United in the midst of an injury crisis. He now works as a television pundit and, alongside Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt and Ryan Giggs, is a co-owner of non-league Salford City.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Even accounting for his extraordinary exploits at Real Madrid, there’s an argument to be made that Ronaldo enjoyed the best season of his career in 2007/08, which brought his first Ballon d’Or as well as Premier League and Champions League winner’s medals.
The Portugal international scored 42 goals in 49 appearances that year, and although he’s surpassed that total in six of his seven full seasons at the Santiago Bernabeu, many of his displays in United’s Double-winning campaign were spectacular.
Upon signing a new Madrid deal last year, the Euro 2016 winner declared he wants to continue playing until he turns 40.
Carlos Tevez
Tevez arrived at Old Trafford on a two-year loan in the summer of 2007, having recently saved West Ham from relegation by scoring against United on the final day of the previous season.
The then-23-year-old proved an excellent addition to the Red Devils’ ranks, contributing 18 goals in the club’s successful Premier League and Champions League campaigns.
Tevez returned to boyhood side Boca Juniors in 2015, and the striker was widely expected to end his career at La Bombonera. A reported £615,000-a-week offer from Shanghai Shenhua proved too good to turn down, though, and the Argentine duly headed east in January.
United’s record goalscorer netted 18 times in 2007/08, a tally which included strikes against Roma in Europe and Chelsea in the Premier League. Rooney was often fielded out wide to allow Cristiano Ronaldo – the club’s undisputed star at this point – central billing, while he was replaced by Nani in extra-time of the Champions League final and thus didn’t take a penalty.
Rooney has won five more trophies since then, including three Premier League titles, and surpassed Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 249 United goals with a free-kick against Stoke in January. He remains at United for now, but there has been plenty of talk of a potential switch to the Chinese Super League in the coming months.
John O’Shea (sub)
A versatile player who was always willing to fill in wherever United needed him, O’Shea broke new ground in August 2007 when he was deployed as a makeshift striker in the 0-0 draw with Reading (that cameo came just six months after he’d filled in between the sticks in the closing minutes of a 4-0 triumph over Tottenham).
O’Shea pulled on a United shirt 38 times that year, including six in the Champions League. He moved to Sunderland in 2011 after two decades at Old Trafford and has been (successfully) battling relegation ever since.
Nani (sub)
Nani’s debut campaign at United featured numerous flashes of promise, while any frustration relating to an inconsistent end product could be forgiven with reference to his tender years – the Portuguese winger moved to Old Trafford from Sporting at the age of 20.
His first goal for the club was a rasping long-range winner in August 2007’s 1-0 victory over Tottenham, followed up with Premier League goals against Middlesbrough and Liverpool and Arsenal in the FA Cup. Nani returned to Sporting on loan in 2014 and, after a year at Fenerbahce, now plays for Valencia.
Anderson (sub)
This was also Anderson’s first season at Old Trafford, the Brazilian having been acquired from Porto for around £20m that summer. The midfielder arrived with a glowing reputation as a bright attacking midfielder, and was handed a first-team role by Ferguson as soon as he was up to speed. Indeed, he made a total of 38 appearances that year – one as a substitute in Moscow, where he netted the sixth penalty in the shootout.
He never really lived up to his billing at United, though – not least as his attacking instincts were tamed in a deeper role – and few were sad to see him return to Brazil in 2015. His current club, Internacional, suffered a shock relegation to the second tier last term.
There were precious few hints of what was to come for Ferguson’s side in their first three matches of the season: a goalless stalemate with Reading on the opening weekend was followed by a 1-1 draw with Portsmouth three days later, and then Geovanni netted the only goal to win the Manchester derby for City at Eastlands.
United bounced back, though, and Ferguson was celebrating trophies No.19 and 20 by the end of May. Defeat by Portsmouth in the sixth round of the FA Cup meant there would be no treble to match 1999, but the 2007/08 season ranks as one of the Scot’s very best at Old Trafford.
Ferguson retired in 2013 and is now a global ambassador for United.
Greg Lea is a freelance football journalist who's filled in wherever FourFourTwo needs him since 2014. He became a Crystal Palace fan after watching a 1-0 loss to Port Vale in 1998, and once got on the scoresheet in a primary school game against Wilfried Zaha's Whitehorse Manor (an own goal in an 8-0 defeat).
