Football, Sir Alex Ferguson said, bloody hell. Oh, for such eloquence under pressure.

We were swearing, too, in the press box, when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored in the last minute in 1999. Row after row of journalists caught in that exquisite moment simultaneously thinking “this is the greatest thing I have ever seen, I am privileged to be here” and “everything I have written tonight is wrong, and I’ve got two seconds to change it, what am I going to do, oh f***, f***, f***.”

We fondly believe that we switched into this default position writers have for when the biggest game in the history of English club football does a 180-degree loop in the final second after the report is already written, but that isn’t true. On the night, Teddy Sheringham having equalised, I phoned the sports desk to check what the paper was intending to do about fresh deadlines, during which time Solskjaer solved the problem by winning the game. In my mind, I was coolness personified and we discussed, quite rationally, how we were to change several themed pages of “steaming pillock Fergie blows the big one” to “arise Sir Genius, for your triumph was never in doubt”. In fact, as my editor has reminded me on several occasions, what I said for a minute or so was “f***ing hell.” Repeatedly. Which is appropriate, because that is pretty much what it must have been like on the Manchester United bench, too.

Our imperfect memories would convince us that sporting history is made by men utterly in control of the moment. That, at 3-0 down in 2005, Rafael BenÍtez, the manager, marched into the Liverpool dressing-room and rearranged his team with the keen eye and incisive wit of the master tactician. From the recollections of others, however, the truth is that he first had ten red counters on the Liverpool tactics board, then 12, told a player he was coming off, then had to tell him to go out again because there was an injury he had not considered and, by his own admission, could not make many of his most salient points because his English was not good enough. He got across just enough to keep a rein on Kaká and a superhuman second-half performance from his players did the rest.

Likewise, in 1999, our desire for logic insists that Manchester United were always coming back into that match and the force was with them, the arrival of fresh legs enough to drag them over the finishing line as deserving winners when, nine years on, even Solskjaer is not buying that. “Bayern Munich were the better team for at least 85 minutes,” he says. “They hit the crossbar, hit the post, we never had a shot on target for 80 minutes. Hey, we rode our luck, but that’s football for you.”

But your goal, Ole: surely it was the culmination of years of practice on the training ground, getting into the right position, reading the game, looking for an opening, a chink of light? “It came off my big toe,” he says. “Yes, I practised a lot but that one? It was just a lucky moment. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it would go into the hands of Oliver Kahn, the Bayern Munich goalkeeper, or be headed clear by the guy on the line.”

Does it say this in the history books? Of course not. There is no key with little symbols to indicate the reality of the situation: * absolutely battered in the first half, + comprehensively outplayed for 85 minutes, # winner came off the goalkeeper’s a***, ^ gigantic ricket by the referee, ~ manager picked the wrong team and got away with it. Yet we all know it happens. Ferguson gave a speech of Churchillian inspiration at half-time in Barcelona but it still needed the winner to come off Solskjaer’s big toe.

Still, we travel to Moscow this week in the hope of seeing a final decided on merit and beauty. Will it be a great game, the managers are asked, as if they have control of the motives of all the players on the pitch, when in truth the pressure is such that they can barely vouch for the performance of their own side. Ferguson has to hope that the young men at the heart of his team do not freeze, Avram Grant, the Chelsea first-team coach, is putting his faith in the temperamental Didier Drogba and praying that emotion does not overcome Frank Lampard.

And when it is over, we will sit down and analyse coldly and calmly this epic victory, undermined only by the revelation, several years later, that at half-time the manager panicked and ran around with his trousers on his head and the significant substitution was made in his absence by Alf, the kit man. But that’s football. F***ing hell, as we sometimes say.

Judge for yourself

Horse racing is known for attracting characters. The Judge was a personal favourite. He appeared from nowhere and was introduced, not by name, but sobriquet.

“This is The Judge.” “Oh, right, is he something to do with the legal profession?” “No.” “So why is he called The Judge?” “Because he’s a judge.” “Of what?” “Of horses.” The assembled group looked at his clothes. He didn’t look much like a judge, not of horses, certainly not of tailoring. Still, men such as The Judge are why bookmakers are rarely seen crossing the road to avoid the bank manager, so he was made very welcome by those with a vested financial interest.

And in recent years this phenomenon has reached football, too. For Damien Comolli, sporting director of Tottenham Hotspur, read “The Judge”. Comolli has not managed a club beyond under16 level and his credentials rest on a time spent as a scout with Arsenal and as technical director of St-Etienne. But he’s a judge. Certainly, Daniel Levy, the chairman, thinks so.

Last summer, Comolli judged Darren Bent, of Charlton Athletic, to be worth £15.5 million and rising and Kevin-Prince Boateng to be worth £4.9 million. Other judgments include Didier Zokora at £8.2 million and Younès Kaboul at £8.5 million. Comolli’s speciality would appear to be the pedestrian midfield player or the flaky defender. In January, he helped to set up the £1.8 million transfer of a 31-year-old Brazil full back called Gilberto, who arrived in the keen state of physical readiness that Audley Harrison sought from his early opponents. In horse racing terms, Comolli’s tips would frequently attract the description: stayed on, one pace. Some judge.

Rome’s strange reward

Whatever happens this week in Moscow, the fact that neither of two well-supported clubs in the Champions League final have succeeded in selling their full allocation of tickets means that the event has failed. Greedy hotels, airlines and travel operators may be to blame, but Uefa was complicit in its extortion by choosing the Russian capital as a venue in the first place. So where is next year’s match? Rome, presumably as a reward for the fine sporting behaviour of the locals, as witnessed by the stabbings, random attacks and racism for which the Olympic Stadium is famed. It was interesting to note that supporters of AS Roma were banned from yesterday’s match in Catania, because Italian authorities were unnerved by their violent fringe.

Not Uefa, though. Why should it care?

Scots not missed

Let’s get Scotland’s big two into the English Premier League. All gone a bit quiet on that front since Wednesday, hasn’t it?

Grounds for complaint

Manchester City, who got into Europe for being nice - which certainly came as a shock to Amnesty International – are unable to play their first tie at home, because of a Bon Jovi concert taking place at the City of Manchester stadium on June 22, messing up the pitch. They will instead use Galpharm Stadium, home of Huddersfield Town. Truly, if the Uefa Cup became any more Mickey Mouse the final would be switched to Disneyland Paris.

Ince perfect

If Paul Ince, manager of Milton Keynes Dons, the Coca-Cola League Two champions, continues on his present career course he will one day be the first black man to manage England; by which time the endorsement of the coaches who scandalously overlooked him at this season’s League Managers Association awards ceremony will long since have ceased to matter.

Grand Final

It is easy to get mistily romantic about this year’s FA Cup Final, but Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, had it right by highlighting how pleased he was to see many of Cardiff City’s supporters staying behind to watch the trophy being presented, then applauding both teams on their lap of honour. There is something very mean-spirited and disturbing in modern football’s lurch towards the most aggressive, ugliest tribalism. Even at a lovely, friendly club such as Wigan Athletic, when some Manchester United supporters gained entry to the ground after the final whistle had blown on the last day of the season, they were met by a wall of hostility.

The United fans were not confrontational or disrespectful; they just wanted to see their team collect the Barclays Premier League trophy, having been unable to obtain a ticket for the match. It used to be that the majority of football supporters had time for each other, and a love of the game, as well as one club. Increasingly that has been lost, until just supporting your team beyond a certain pen is now an offence. This FA Cup Final offered a tiny reminder of how it used to be. The elite clubs were not missed, and neither were sour-faced losers, deserting the stadium as soon as it wasn’t their day.

Politically correct

Lord Triesman, the FA chairman, does appear to be very pleased with himself on a variety of issues, but anyone who relegates Richard Caborn, the former Sports Minister, and Gerry Sutcliffe, the present one, to the boondocks as far as the 2018 World Cup bid is concerned cannot be all bad.