In what was quite literally one of the most illustrious careers of all time, there can have been few low points in Ryan Giggs’ time on the left wing for Manchester United.
But there were some.
And one in particular still niggles at the United legend, who has revealed that the 2009 Champions League final against Barcelona in Rome was the worst he’d ever felt after a game of football.
The game, which finished 2-0 in the favour of the Catalan giants, forced Giggs to contemplate hanging up his boots as a 35-year-old due to the comprehensive nature of the defeat.
‘The first time I faced a Pep Guardiola team, I sat alone on the team coach after the game and for the first time in my playing career, I seriously thought about retiring from football,’ Giggs wrote in his Daily Telegraph column.
‘That 2009 Champions League final was the lowest point of my 23 years as a professional footballer.
‘We got it wrong that day, Barcelona got it right and as I contemplated my life at that moment, my overriding emotion was that I never wanted to feel like this again.
‘If that meant ceasing to play football then – at that moment at least – so be it.’
As it turned out, the Welshman carried on for a further five years, retiring in 2014 to take the position of Louis van Gaal’s assistant manager when the Dutch manager arrived at Old Trafford.
But it was on that day – 27 May 2009 – that Giggs realised he might not have had the ability to impact the big games that he once had.
‘I felt I needed to have a serious look at myself,’ Giggs added.
‘All my career, by and large, I had been able to perform in those big decisive games that make history, and then this was one occasion that I had not.
‘My emotions were quite overwhelming at the time, but over the course of the summer they subsided, and eventually I recognised them for what they were: the extreme reaction to a defeat in the biggest game of all.’
Catch up with this week’s episode of Football Friday Live
