Manchester weather was never predictable. One moment the sky could look perfectly clear, and the next a fine drizzle would begin to fall. March was not especially cold by local standards, but for visiting teams unfamiliar with the damp chill, an away match in Manchester could still be thoroughly unpleasant.
Falling behind only made it worse.
Ancelotti looked up from the Old Trafford dugout. A thin curtain of rain hung beneath the floodlights, every drop illuminated against the night sky. The temperature had fallen enough for him to tuck his hands into his sleeves, and each breath left a faint cloud of mist in front of his face.
"Damn weather," he muttered.
None of the staff beside him replied. Everyone could see that the Milan manager was irritated, and he had every reason to be. AC Milan had prepared meticulously for this second leg, planning for almost every tactical scenario they could imagine. What they had not anticipated was New Manchester United playing with even greater intensity and variation than expected, combined with a miserable Manchester night.
For the home side, the opening half had arguably been their finest forty-five minutes of the season.
Drogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Palacio, and Kaká had torn Milan's defence apart. New Manchester United scored three times before half-time and added another almost immediately after the restart.
4-0.
Had anyone predicted such a score before kick-off, they would have been dismissed as delusional. Yet there it was on the scoreboard.
Ancelotti had already made changes at half-time. Palacio had been especially dangerous, so Ambrosini was introduced to provide additional protection and help contain the Argentine. With Gattuso, Pirlo, and Ambrosini together in midfield, Milan finally managed to slow the home side's attacks and regain some control.
Once New Manchester United saw Milan stabilising, Mourinho also instructed his players to become more compact and stop attacking with quite the same abandon.
"Perhaps Manchester's weather has made a notoriously slow-starting Milan even slower tonight," Martin Tyler said. "They didn't produce a genuinely dangerous effort until the 56th minute, when Shevchenko finally tested Čech."
The difference in the opening half had been enormous. New Manchester United had controlled the match both with and without the ball, while Milan struggled to cope with the speed of their attacks. Palacio scored twice from the right and also created Kaká's goal. Cristiano Ronaldo added another, while Beckham supplied two assists and several other passes that could easily have produced more.
In fifty minutes, New Manchester United had done something no other side had managed against Milan for years.
They had scored four.
"Ancelotti will have to look very carefully at the way his side started this match," Andy Gray said. "The warning signs were already there in the first leg at San Siro. New Manchester United dominated the opening spell there too, but Milan escaped without conceding. Tonight, they haven't."
Another problem was becoming increasingly obvious.
Milan's defensive line was extraordinarily experienced, but experience came with age. Nesta was still in his prime, but Maldini was thirty-five, Cafu thirty-three, Pancaro thirty-two, while Costacurta, now thirty-seven, was among the options on the bench.
Against Drogba's power and the relentless running around him, that lack of youth was being exposed.
"Now compare that with the other end," Gray continued. "Drogba is twenty-five, Cristiano Ronaldo is nineteen, Palacio is twenty-two, and Kaká is twenty-one. That's an incredibly young front four, and they don't just have pace. Their movement and combinations are excellent."
That was exactly what Milan had struggled to contain. New Manchester United's attackers constantly changed positions, attacked from different angles, and forced defenders to turn repeatedly. For much of the first fifty minutes, Milan simply could not keep up.
Ancelotti made another change.
Rui Costa replaced Rivaldo.
"It looks as though Ancelotti still wants a goal," Tyler observed. "He's stabilised the midfield, but he hasn't given up on attacking."
Rui Costa immediately improved Milan's creativity. His passing between the lines gave both Shevchenko and Inzaghi better service, and several dangerous moves followed.
Eventually, one of them produced a goal.
Rui Costa found space and slipped a pass into the penalty area. Filippo Inzaghi timed his run perfectly and finished first time.
4-1.
Mourinho was immediately on the touchline protesting to the assistant referee, insisting Inzaghi had been offside. The flag stayed down.
The replay showed why.
Inzaghi had timed the run almost perfectly, living on the shoulder of the final defender as he had done throughout his career.
Once again, the fox in the box had found a way through New Manchester United's defence.
Mourinho walked back towards his technical area muttering angrily. If anything, he looked more annoyed than he had at San Siro when Inzaghi scored the winner.
The reason soon became obvious.
That one goal changed the tone of the tie.
Milan suddenly had belief. Shevchenko and Inzaghi were both ruthless finishers, and with Rui Costa and Pirlo behind them, the visitors now had the quality to punish even a small defensive mistake.
Mourinho reacted immediately. New Manchester United dropped deeper, tightened the distances between the lines, and denied Milan the open spaces they had been finding.
Naturally, that reduced the home side's attacking threat as well, but by then the match had passed the 78th minute.
The score on the night was 4-1.
Milan had won the first leg 1-0.
The aggregate score was therefore 4-2.
New Manchester United could afford to be pragmatic. Unless they conceded twice more, they were going through.
Milan understood the situation and attacked with increasing urgency. Mourinho kept enough threat high up the pitch, however, refusing to allow the visitors to commit everyone forward without consequence. Drogba, Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Palacio continued occupying defenders and threatening on the break.
Ancelotti's side never found another goal.
The final whistle confirmed it.
New Manchester United 4-1 AC Milan.
4-2 on aggregate.
The reigning European champions were out of the UEFA Cup.
...
"This is a match worth studying in detail," Tyler said during the post-match analysis. "Particularly that first half, because New Manchester United's front four produced some outstanding attacking football."
Cristiano Ronaldo had started slightly deeper on the left, while Palacio stayed high on the opposite side and repeatedly attacked Pancaro. It had clearly been part of Mourinho's plan to isolate Palacio against Milan's left-back and encourage him to use his one-on-one ability as often as possible.
It worked.
On the opposite side, Cristiano's deeper starting position gave him more room to accelerate after receiving the ball. Once he had space to build speed, Cafu and Milan's centre-backs struggled to contain him.
There had also been one controversial moment in the first half when Cristiano went down inside the penalty area and was booked for simulation. Replays suggested Maldini had made enough contact to bring him down and that New Manchester United could easily have been awarded a penalty.
Kaká's movement through the middle caused another problem. He repeatedly arrived late from deeper positions, leaving Milan unsure whether to follow him or hold their defensive shape. Every time he began accelerating towards the penalty area, the visitors had to react.
"The balance of that front four was excellent," Gray said. "Width, depth, pace, power, movement. They stretched Milan in every direction, and for fifty minutes one of Europe's best defences couldn't cope."
Yet the player who impressed him most was Beckham.
He had not dominated the match in the most obvious sense, but his influence had been constant. He created two goals, came close to scoring himself from distance, and repeatedly changed the point of attack with his passing.
When New Manchester United later dropped deeper, his contribution became even more obvious defensively. Beckham spent long periods screening the back four, making interceptions, tracking runners, and clearing danger.
It was a version of Beckham that Manchester United had rarely asked him to become.
"He's a much more complete midfielder now," Tyler said. "At Manchester United, everyone knew about the crossing, the long passing, the set pieces. Here, he's showing that he can organise a midfield, control the tempo, and contribute defensively as well."
The wider contrast between the teams was equally striking.
New Manchester United attacked and defended collectively. Milan, particularly in the first half, looked more divided. Their attacking players did not always contribute enough without the ball, which gave Mourinho's side too much freedom to build from deeper positions.
The post-match ratings reflected the difference. Palacio was named Man of the Match, while all eleven New Manchester United starters received strong scores. Milan's ratings were far less flattering, with Inzaghi, thanks largely to his goal, among the few players to emerge with much credit.
The other quarter-finalists were confirmed soon afterwards.
Barcelona.
Roma.
Juventus.
Bayern Munich.
Liverpool.
Inter Milan.
Valencia.
And New Manchester United.
There was not an easy opponent among them.
Capello's Roma, for example, were playing aggressive, effective football and possessed one of the strongest attacks in Europe. Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus, Inter, Liverpool, and Valencia hardly required introductions either.
In terms of history and European pedigree, New Manchester United were unquestionably the least established club left in the competition.
After eliminating AC Milan, however, nobody was going to treat them as the weakest.
When Mourinho faced the media in Manchester and was asked who he wanted in the quarter-finals, he smiled.
"It doesn't matter."
He paused before continuing.
"I'm not going to predict a match that hasn't even been drawn yet. But I do know one thing: none of those clubs will be hoping to get us."
The journalists laughed.
Mourinho's smile widened.
"Everyone we've faced in this competition is already out."
"So let's see who's unlucky enough to get us next."
The confidence was shared throughout the club. Manchester United and Arsenal had closed the gap in the Premier League while New Manchester United concentrated on Europe, but nobody inside Newton Heath had lost belief.
The players remained convinced that they could survive difficult circumstances and beat elite opponents.
More importantly, that conviction was showing on the pitch.
While Mourinho and his squad continued fighting on two fronts, Ethan was about to face another major moment in his own life.
(To be continued.)