Are these Old Trafford's greatest European nights?

Yes, all the ingredients of a great European night are in place. Bar one: you. Or to be precise: your voices. Hoarse, strangulated, hysterical even – let's hope that's how it is by 10pm tonight. For that means you'll still be banging on about this evening in 40 years' time, just as we're about to do here. Rocking European atmospheres? We invented 'em, mate.

Mind, for the early years we had to do it at Maine Road. Anderlecht, 1956/57. Not a bad start, you might say: just the 10 goals. Just enough to ensure that the curious 43,000 that night became an avid, hyperventilating 75,000 for the visit of Borussia Dortmund in the next round.

So we were off. And the Busby Babes, with typical, instinctive genius, established the blueprint – nay redprint – almost instantly. Euro nights in Manchester equalled extravagance, guts, fightbacks... and attack, attack, attack. Not always victory, granted, but something even more glorious. Something, well, more United. Sit back and enjoy some of the best...

THE COMMAND PERFORMANCE

Welcome to the first movement of the United European concerto: the utterly unexpected, almost absurd, dashing rout. You can hear the smiles in the songs; the way the crowd buzzes between chants and goals, and hums with laughter; the fact that everything seems a couple of semi-tones higher-pitched because we're all grinning from ear-to-ear.

Here we find Roma 2007, a superb side who'd taught us a bit of a lesson only days before, destroyed in a firestorm of Rooneyism. Ditto Porto in 1997's quarter-finals. They were a formidable side, toting various unbeaten records, yet were picked apart within minutes of the kick-off, hammered 4-0 by a classic Ferguson team at their arrogant, silky best.

THE WHITE KNUCKLE RIDE

The flipside is a plunge into the pit of the polar opposite: the jaw-clenching, jugular-pulsing nervefest. Those games that aren't going well, yet where everything remains at stake; and where the crowd is simultaneously seeking to support, criticise, howl in frustration, and vent spleens at smirking opposition. Hear us roar, hear us growl. To reword the Duke of Wellington, they frighten us as well as them.

Here you'll find the Partizan semi-final in 1966. Ten minutes to go, still a goal down on aggregate, Paddy Crerand gets sent off. Busby's face turns sheet-white, while the Stretford End's visages burn red with frustration. There's out-and-out, purple-faced fury too, which does wonders for your volume settings. Think AC Milan in 1969's semi-final: 64,000 all on their feet, apoplectically raging as Law’s disallowed equaliser robs us of our crown. Or Juventus 1976/77, complete with Giovanni Trappatoni's almost comically stereotypical Italian assassins, harangued throughout for their animal cunning and sheer hardness.

It can sometimes, though, work well. Fast forward to Barcelona, 2008. Ahead thanks to Paul Scholes’s rollicking long-ranger, we were outplayed for much of the subsequent 70 minutes. But as long as OT was still ranting, grunting and bellowing, hope endured. An awesome defensive display, helmed by Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown, saw us over the line. But the real star performer? The 70,000 mad-eyed Reds that refused to even contemplate failure.

BLOODIED, BUT UNBOWED

Ah, the near-hopeless, yet exhilarating lost cause. And none better than Madrid 2003. Surely not even David Beckham, coming off the bench at his most manically committed to deliver two great goals, would truly have believed we were going to overturn a 3-1, first-leg deficit against the glittering royals. Yet all disbelief was suspended. Played like a ding-dong domestic Cup tie, we gorged on a feast of seven goals, the Brazilian Ronaldo roused to his best and ovations for everyone, from everyone, played in front of a crowd with the volume turned to 11.

Find here, too, the second leg against Porto in the 1977/78 Cup Winners' Cup. An injury-wrecked United, who'd been beaten 4-0 in Portugal, rose again to play as if the impossible didn't exist. Stevie Coppell, ever the crowd favourite, ran the Portuguese screwy, inducing two own goals. United won 5-2, and 51,000 supposedly money-wasting fools – kicking up a racket like a packed Maracana – just momentarily allowed themselves to believe. The Daily Mail marvelled: "In 20 years I have never seen one side create so many chances."

ADRENALINE RUSH

We've long known that sheer emotion can take you to nirvana. And Milan were beaten thanks to a large dose of it in 1958's semi-final, Paolo Maldini's dad crumbling to concede that late, winning penalty. Sadly, the comedown was equally strong as Bubsy's exhausted troops eventually succumbed in Italy.

Simple ear-splitting volume is another mighty weapon, Ajax in round one of the 1976/77 UEFA Cup being a perfect case in point: poor 'Punchy Piet' Shrievers in their goal had clearly never heard anything like the Strettie in full roar before, so loud it distorted the later TV broadcast. OT in '76 really did mean punk overload.

ESCAPE TO VICTORY

The ultimate remains the supposedly impossible fightback, conducted with all-out offensive verve, against top-rank opposition, to a chorus of off-the-meter terrace meltdown. And there remain two daddies of 'em all.

First up, Atletico Bilbao, European Cup quarter-final, 1956/57. United had lost 5-3 in appalling conditions in snowy Bilbao, having been 3-0 down-and-out at half-time. Billy Whelan's late 40-yard snowdrift slalom and strike would prove critical. In the return, played on City's turf, a Tommy Taylor-inspired United won 3-0 against a packed Basque defence, amidst utter bedlam. Two posts hit, two 'goals' disallowed for offside, and a climactic Johnny Berry winner with five to go at a never-more fevered Maine Road. The Daily Express proclaimed it as: "The greatest soccer victory in history! The whole country is proud of you! Women were shrieking, strong men wilted ... hundreds in the crowd were patting their hearts ... hats were recklessly thrown into the air." Blimey.

At full-time, Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy were seen by 65,000 doing a dervish dance on the touchline, described knowledgably by one newspaper as "a rock 'n' roll jig". Such is European night madness.

Bilbao is pipped for the title, though, by an indelible OT memory, one you can still almost feel shaking your bones: the Barcelona Cup Winners' Cup quarter-final, 1984. A 2-0 defeat in the Nou Camp was the starting point. Scoring three against one of the most gifted, glamorous sides of the decade was near-impossible; any goal from the visitors would mean curtains. But Diego Maradona, his perm out-flouncing even Remi Moses' afro, and the louche, elegant Bernd Schuster were in for an ordeal.

Take your pick from the witness descriptions offered of the atmosphere that night.

"Like planes taking off."

"A 90-minute earthquake."

"Led Zep live, in your bedroom."

The ground shook, literally: the Stretford End 'shed' felt in actual peril. The goals were perfectly timed to ratchet up the tension: Robbo's 22nd-minute atonement for his Nou Camp errors gave us hope; his 50th-minute leveller truly did raise the roof; then to score a third within 100 seconds – how did we cope with it? Frank Stapleton's strike came as we were still in full, goal-buzz throes: sheer sensory overload. And then we had just the mere 40 minutes to survive... 

At full-time, as hats, shirtsand trousers were thrown – yes, recklessly – into the air before Robbo was shouldered off the pitch, Sir Matt himself paid the most telling tribute: "Ah, that took me right back to Bilbao." As for the disbelieving, victorious Ron Atkinson? He "danced a victory jig", spotted The Telegraph. It's pretty much mandatory, y'see. Lets hope for some touchline tangos from the Red dugout at full-time tonight…