World champions 1999: Read the inside story

Inside United magazine documented the trip to Asia and went behind the scenes, with words from Henry Winter. Thanks to our archive, you can revisit the eye-witness account in full...

BIG IN JAPAN

On their many trips abroad, Manchester United invariably select classy homes for their footballers: a Sultan's palace on the shores of the Bosphorus, a gleaming high-tech modernist structure in Turin or a high-walled retreat by the Mediterranean outside Barcelona. 

In Tokyo for the Toyota Cup, United's players resided in another sumptuous abode, where the most expensive room cost £3,000 a night - but they will throw in a cot for free. The hotel, in the discreet Bunkyo-ku part of Tokyo, boasts a garden with a pagoda from a previous millennium, some 16th century Buddhist statues and a sacred tree nearly 500 years old. 

Walking through this ancient environ, footballers like Roy Keane and Ryan Giggs trod in the footsteps of Japanese princes, the garden's designers, and even an emperor, who held meetings by the camelia. Inside, the hotel's walls are lined with Hokusai prints, pictures of mountains and seas designed to calm the visitor after the stresses of modern life. 

The hotel normally houses well-heeled businessmen and United's players are no different. Tokyo is a fascinating city, full of Shinto shrines and parks bounding with tame Punks, but footballers have no time to explore. These professionals are paid to play, not admire the scenery one Watford footballer, while touring China back in the Eighties, declined a trip to view the Great Wall with the famous words: “When you've seen one wall, you've seen them all.”

So it was surprising to hear stories emanating from Palmeiras, United's Brazilian opposition in Tokyo, that the European champions had been over-relaxing, heading off shopping rather than focusing on the game. It all seemed so unlikely, a suspicion confirmed when the same players the Brazilians believed to be in Japan only for hi-fis and video-games beat them 1-0. 

“The thing about football teams is that you don't have an opportunity to go and see places,” said United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, in Tokyo. “You're cocooned in your own world in terms of preparation. In fairness, the players have been absolutely brilliant. They haven't asked to go anywhere. They've concentrated on what is going to happen in the game.” 

Part of United's training was designed simply to shake the rust from players' legs after a near 12-hour night. Steve McClaren is an imaginative coach, one who mixes serious tactical and technical sessions with relaxing. United's first practice at Tokyo's National Stadium had all the players cheerily competing to hit the bar from range. Massimo Taibi struck first, with Dwight Yorke a surprise tail-ender. 

On the eve of the Toyota Cup, before the prying eyes of a legion of lenses, McClaren split the players into English versus the Rest of the World. Heading and running relay tests were followed by a short game across one half of a pitch much-improved from previous Toyota Cups in Tokyo. England fielded both Nevilles, David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Teddy Sheringham, Paul Scholes and the two Manchester-born youngsters, Danny Higginbotham and Ronnie Wallwork. The Rest of the World comprised Giggs, Keane, Yorke, Fortune, Stam, Solskjaer, Irwin and Silvestre. 

Some clubs would struggle to get a decent match between their foreigners and dwindling domestic staff. United's work-out was competitive as seen when Gary Neville almost went into orbit screaming "Handball" as a foreign body interceded illegally. 

“Come on England,” shouted McClaren. Next to him on the touchline stood Ferguson, who couldn't lose. If the Rest of the World prevailed, a warmth would flow through Ferguson's Scottish blood. If the English won, Ferguson would have yet another reminder of his youth policy's success. The match finished level, prompting Mark Bosnich, the spot-kick king, to plead for a decision via penalties.

The significant aspect to United's training went unnoticed. In private, Ferguson's players were practising attacking the space behind Palmeiras' full-backs knowing that, in classic Brazilian fashion, the Latin American backs would push up. This would allow Giggs and Beckham the chance to spin off close markers and head for the corner flag. United were also keen to become acquainted with the unfamiliar movement of the match-ball. “We've been using different balls out here,” said Giggs. When talking of the moment in the match when Palmeiras keeper Marcos flapped and Keane pounced, he added: “Maybe that's why their keeper was deceived when I crossed.”

Judging by their application in training, Ferguson's men were in the mood for a duel for the world crown. The only thing keeping them awake at night was jet-Iag, inevitable with the nine-hour time difference. The daylight said time for breakfast but the body insisted it was dinner-hour.

“It was tiring with the jet-Iag, waking up at 5am wide awake", said Giggs. "It took a couple of days. In the last couple of days before the match we got into the swing of things." 

Before a ball was even kicked in anger, it was even-money that Giggs or Beckham would win Man of the Match. The Japanese love a touch of sporting glamour and turned out in force - and in United regalia - to scream their support for Giggs, Beckham and co. Such was the interest that even top-whack, face-value £60 tickets were changing hands for four times that. 

United's footballers are used to attention, but their reception must have surprised even them - while gladdening the hearts of club directors watching the stadium tills glow with merchandising sales. Over-shadowing the Wimbledon, Liverpool and Ipswich Town scarves retailing for £8; the Aston Villa bobble-hats, all manner of objects celebrating Roberto Baggio, one of Serie A's few Buddhists, and the unsurprisingly unpopular Forza Viola Fiorentina scarves, were the United products busily being snapped up and stuffed into Moschino bags. The market-forces were with United. Tokyo, with historical ties to Brazil, still couldn't get enough of Palmeiras' opponents. 

At United's main open training session, when hundreds gathered behind barriers to greet the Treble-winners, Irwin, Yorke, Solskjaer and Keane earned massive local approval by stopping to sign shirts and scraps of papers. But, in their hearts, they wanted Beckham. The Japanese are obsessed with him. One fan in full No.7 Beckham shirt, sporting adidas boots and dyed-blond hair, strolled across the concourse. Another clasped a copy of David Beckham: My Story in the hope of a signature. Dozens more held out shirts to be autographed by their heroes. 

When United's coach arrived before the match, Ferguson stepped down first, to respectful applause, followed by less restrained cheers for Sheringham, Stam, Phil and Gary Neville, and then thunder-flashes and lightning from a battery of Nikon, chronicling one small step off a bus by Beckham and a giant leap of Japanese attention. 

And when the match began, a Beckham corner resembled a strobe-light exploding, such was the number of flash-bulbs popping. “There is a strong female support in Japanese football,” explained Steve Perryman, the former Tottenham Hotspur player now managing Shimizu S-Pulse outside Tokyo. “David Beckham is on the front of every magazine here because he sells.”

To the delight of everyone locally, Beckham had been paraded for United's first press conference to voice the dressing-room's determination. “We're up for the game,” he informed a forest of microphones. It was hardly Churchillian but proved enough to whet further local appetites. To satisfy the massive local media interest in United, the Japanese FA even provided a booklet packed with player profiles, although something may have been lost in the translation. 

Keane, for instance, missed the European Cup final for “accumulated warnings penalties” but “his kicks off the right boot are very powerful.” Andy Cole and Yorke are “the two tops”, which begged the question - whatever happened to the Four Tops. Giggs has a “very sharp bluff with speed”. Beckham, meanwhile, “centres the ball that draws a curve... and is anticipated to become the control tower of the English International team in the near future. Beckham has after all, has grown strong from the psychological struggle through the ordeal of his France 98 dismissal.”

Mention of Gary Neville provoked confused looks among the public and press because “Gary” sounds like the Japanese word for diarrhoea. After United's players had jived up to their billing in local literature by defeating Palmeiras to become World Champions, they filed out to discuss their feats with the media. One official photographer was allowed in the VIP box as Keane received the trophy; the Japanese obsession with glamourous Western institutions ensured the photographer's bib number was "007".

Later on, Palmeiras' Tino Asprilla stood in a corridor reflecting on Serie A days with Massimo Taibi. Keane gave the captain's speech, Bosnich talked about his personal satisfaction in keeping Palmeiras at bay and Giggs wondered what to do with the huge car key presented to him as Toyota Man of the Match. “Is it big enough or what,” he smiled. 

Tokyo was that kind of trip - larger than life.