Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is viewed by many as the greatest football boss of all time.

14 years before Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, the legendary manager oversaw the best ever season in football history, culminating with a spectacular Treble win.

United clinched a third trophy in the space of a fortnight with a dramatic injury-time win over Bayern Munich to win the Champions League, following a last-day Premier League win, and a FA Cup victory too.

United scored two goals in stoppage time against Bayern, producing a remarkable comeback, coining the Ferguson phrase, 'Football, bloody hell!'

While easy to point out Manchester United's never-say-die attitude, fighting spirit and self-belief that won the game, there was a little more to it.

Speaking to TNT Sports in an interview with Ally McCoist, Ferguson broke down how Manchester United's analysis helped them plan in advance to be strong late in the game.

Ferguson said United spotted how Bayern became more compact late in matches, which made this the best time to unleash wide pairing Ryan Giggs and David Beckham in their best positions.

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United could not do this from the start as tactical compromises needed to be made, with both Roy Keane and Paul Scholes out of the match through suspension.

How Manchester United started vs Bayern in 1999 Ferguson explained: "Our homework won us the game. So the analysis of Bayern was that in big games in particular they used to take the two wide players off and go in tight midfields.

"So with not having Keane and Scholes, I had to gamble on the midfield and I wanted to make sure we had passing ability, and I decided to play David Beckham in with Nicky Butt, who can do all sorts of jobs, marvelous.

"And I played Giggsy wide right, and Blomqvist wide left. And it didn't work out in the first half at all.

"I was waiting for them to make a substitution. So the minute they made the substitution, I went three in the middle and I brought on Teddy Sheringham."

Bayern's first change actually almost ended up winning the game for them. They took off Alexander Zickler, playing on the left wing, bringing on the more central Mehmet Scholl, who went onto hit the woodwork. But after this close effort at goal, United began to rally.

They later erred by taking off veteran Lothar Matthaus in the 80th minute, bringing on Thorsten Fink, in a change which ended up weakening them.

Bayern's 87th minute change saw them take off their right winger, goalscorer Mario Basler. Combined with Zickler going off much earlier, this was exactly as Ferguson had claimed - Bayern took off their two wide players. And this was when United really clicked into gear.

How Manchester United ended vs Bayern in 1999 It was the 67th minute when Sheringham replaced Blomqvist, with United changing tactics, moving Beckham back out right and Giggs to his more natural left wing position.

And it ended up paying off with United getting more of a grip of the game - although Ferguson admitted they were a little fortunate not to already be 2-0 down by the time the changes begun to have their desired effect.

He said: "I said Teddy, you go and play on top of the right centre-back, try and pull the right-back in, the right-back was Babbel.

"And with Giggs playing in the left midfield, he was suited to him, because [he] was running off the space all the time and Beckham the right hand side started to get crosses in.

"The last 15 minutes we created a lot of chances. But having said that, we could have been out. We could have been out long before, they hit the cross bar, Schmeichel made a couple of great saves.

"It really was amazing," he purred, reflecting on Manchester United's dramatic comeback, which infamously left Bayern defender Sami Kuffour beating the turf in devastatation.

Sheringham had scored one goal by steering in Giggs' effort, before flicking on another Beckham corner for fellow substitute Solskjaer to instinctively guide the ball into the roof of the net.

Ferguson selection choices created a stir There were no easy options for Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson with first choice midfielders Keane and Scholes both out.

Earlier this year on Amazon's '99' documentary, it was revealed how David Beckham was thrilled with the faith Ferguson showed in him to select him in central midfield.

Yet teammates Denis Irwin, Peter Schmeichel and Nicky Butt each expressed reservations that Ferguson had made the wrong call.

But Ferguson's comments shed new light, suggesting he always planned to revert Beckham back out to a wide role late in the game, to try and take advantage of Bayern's expected change in tactics.

The defender Ferguson mentioned, Markus Babbel, reflected on the unthinkable comeback earlier this year.

He said: "It was unbelievable that we lost, but that's sport and I've come to accept it.

"Manchester United had some suspensions and injuries, so it wasn't their best team, but we were much better.

"People always say it's the Germans that never give up, that we're never beaten. But United did it to us - they were fighting and believing until the end."

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