Celebration a Quieter Affair for Grown Up Giggs

The last time Manchester United won the European Cup the celebrations in the team hotel ended with Ryan Giggs grappling on the floor with a "loud-mouth punter" who had been heckling the star turn, a Mancunian drag queen by the name of Foo Foo Lamarr. "I ended up with a broken nose, my clothes covered in blood and as bad a hangover as I've ever had," Giggs remembers. And the other guy? "I thought he was an ordinary punter - it turned out to be James Edwards, the son of the chairman, Martin."

Second time around, it was a more sedate affair for Sir Alex Ferguson's longest-serving player in Moscow, even if yesterday morning's party went on until 8.30am local time. The champagne was flowing, but Giggs was determined to keep a clear head. "At 26, it was just a blur," he recalls of the 1999 triumph in Barcelona. "It's different at this stage of my career. I want to try to enjoy it a little bit more because there won't be too many more of these for me."

A story was doing the rounds on an unofficial United website at the start of the week that, if Giggs were to lift the European Cup on the night he played his 759th game for the club and broke Sir Bobby Charlton's appearance, he would announce his retirement. It was nonsense, it subsequently turns out, and it did not need long in Giggs's company to realize that he shares his manager's vision of the future.

"We don't want to be waiting nine years until the next time again," he said. "That's the challenge now for the club and these players. We want to be competing for the Champions League every year. We have to kick on, which we didn't do last time. I'm sure the manager is going to add to the squad and it's got the potential, it's got the experience, it's got players now who know what it takes to win the Champions League, so we've got everything in its favor. Everything is in place."

Giggs, like Ferguson, dedicated the trophy to the 23 people who died, and everyone who had suffered, as a result of the Munich air disaster in 1958. The five survivors - Sir Bobby Charlton, Albert Scanlon, Harry Gregg, Bill Foulkes and Kenny Morgans - were all at the Luzhniki stadium and Giggs was as emotional as he had ever been on a football pitch. "Maybe it's fate," he said. "It's 50 years since the Busby Babes died at Munich, and 40 years from the club first winning the European Cup. That might be it - fate."

It was a word that many of his team-mates would also use. "The most poignant thing for me was Bobby coming up to me and saying 'well done, you deserved it,'" said Rio Ferdinand. "He was very emotional. Manchester United runs through his veins and he's a legend, an inspiration to all the players. Fate does seem to have played a big part this season. Giggsy broke Bobby's record, and what a night to do that. And it's 50 years since Munich, so maybe it was written in the stars."

Ferdinand, increasingly, sounds like a true captain, as happy and exhilarated as anyone, but not entirely satisfied. "It's probably the biggest disappointment of the season that we didn't do the Treble," he said. "Maybe I'm being greedy but we have to build on this now. It would be criminal to throw away this achievement and not build on it. At a club like United, you go into every competition to win, so next year we'll have our sights set on the Treble. I know it's greedy but I look around the changing room every day and on the training pitch and I cannot help but have expectations like that."