Alan Curbishley says he knew the Black Cats would recover from their penalty shootout defeat in the final of the 1998 play-off final against Charlton Athletic.
The Black Cats found themselves 1-0 down at the break and the former Charlton manager has revealed his half-time team talk quickly went out the window as Sunderland scored two quick goals after the restart.
Speaking to the All To Play For podcast, Curbishley has given an insight into what is regarded as one of the greatest ever play-off finals.
"Peter Reid was the manager of Sunderland and I've known him forever - we played in the under-21s together," said Curbishley.
"Before the game there was nowhere to go. If you're a playing at Charlton or at Sunderland we've got the managers office, so we stood in the tunnel talking as the players were going out for a warm-up.
"As the game has developing, we're looking over at the dugout and Pop Robson was part of the Sunderland coaching team.
"We're all just talking to each other because we knew each other - talking about how crazy it was. I've got some lasting memories but coming out for the game the whole stadium was red and white, because both teams obviously wear it.
"It was incredible and if you see it now - I do go on about it - I've said to my boys listen, I've not played at Wembley. I've played with the schoolboys but you've certainly never played at Wembley.
"As we walk out I don't want to see any of you waving to your mum or wife and looking around - focus.
"We all come out miserable as sin."
Charlton had a slender lead at the break after Clive Mendonca opened the scoring after 23 minutes.
Curbishley added: "I didn't realise that when you play at Wembley you're assigned a person to look after you. This guy, we were winning 1-0 at half-time, and he was listening to the team talk.
"I could see him looking at me. Sunderland were really offensive and we were a bit of a counter attacking side. I said we've got them where we want them.
"We can get through ten minutes and they're going to open up. When we get a chance to break - go!
"There's only one person I don't want to go, Keithy Jones you just stay. I looked in the corner of my eye and the man was listening.
"We've come out for the second half and all the Sunderland fans were at the tunnel end. By the time I've sat down, we're 2-1 down.
"All I could think of was this guy listening to the team talk thinking - that didn't go down well.
"On the day if we'd have got beat I would have lost half my team - Mark Kinsella, Richard Rufus, Clive Mendonca - Premier League clubs would have come in.
"I knew Sunderland could recover. They were so big under Reidy and that's exactly what happened. They recovered and went up the next year. "
You can listen to the full podcast here.
