Andy Cole has revealed how he aimed a cheeky dig at Sir Alex Ferguson when he celebrated his famous Manchester United goal against Barcelona at the Nou Camp.
The former England forward netted a memorable goal during United's 3-3 away draw with Barcelona in 1998/99 when he carved open the Catalan side's defence in a silky move with Dwight Yorke before finishing emphatically into the bottom corner of the net.
The United great celebrated the goal by running over to an advertising board and pointing at the word 'Focus', and now the former forward has revealed how this was a slight dig at legendary manager Ferguson.
“I do remember the celebration because the manager told me off for messing about in training,” Cole told The Sun.
“He was screaming at me that I needed to focus.
“I said to the lads, ‘If I score, I am going to run over to the Ford Focus sign and say, Focus’.”
Cole's strike epitomised everything that was brilliant about the Treble-winning side as they attacked with pace and tore apart one of the most robust defences in Europe.
And the 47-year-old thinks such goals are now very rare in the modern game.
“Every time I see that goal, it gets better and better,” Cole added.
“You don’t see that in the modern game. Centre-forwards seem to be so selfish about themselves and scoring goals, but Dwight and I were the total opposite.
“We’d tee each other up for tap-ins. I saw the goal recently and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a proper team goal’. It was fantastic.”
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