Carrick vows to go 'as far as possible' as United end 1,003-day Champions League exile

Manchester United return to the Champions League on Tuesday for the first time in 1,003 days, opening their campaign against Azerbaijani champions Sabah under manager Michael Carrick — the man who guided them back to European football’s top table after a season spent outside it entirely.

Carrick, who won the Champions League with United as a player, was unambiguous about his ambitions. “We’re not here to just enjoy the occasion,” he said. “We’re here to do business and go as far as we possibly can.”

The appointment of Carrick carries a symbolic weight that is hard to ignore. While United finished 15th in the Premier League last season — their lowest top-flight placing in the modern era — their manager carries the memory of what the club once was. He played in three Champions League finals in four seasons, winning the trophy in 2008, and frames that experience as the benchmark for everything that follows.

“As a one-off feeling and instant kind of emotion, definitely winning the Champions League is the best feeling I’ve been lucky enough to have as a footballer,” Carrick said. “It would be nice someday to feel that again.”

The road back begins modestly. Sabah, the champions of Azerbaijan, are a long way removed from the Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and AC Milan sides Carrick faced during his playing career. United’s most recent Champions League campaign, in 2023-24, ended in embarrassment — they finished bottom of a group containing FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray.

Carrick acknowledged that context plainly. “I think we’ve got to be humble enough and realistic enough to know where we’re coming from and where we want to get to,” he said.

The historical record since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013 underlines the scale of the task. In 13 years, United have reached just two quarter-finals — in 2013-14 under David Moyes, with Carrick in midfield, and in 2018-19 under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with Carrick on the coaching staff. Champions League winners Louis van Gaal and José Mourinho both failed to go as far.

Carrick described the competition in terms that made clear he views it as something more than a backdrop. “It’s a magical competition,” he said. “We’ve all seen some special, special nights and felt some special things in this competition over the years. We’re capable of doing some really good things in it.”

Whether United are capable of competing with the tournament’s elite remains an open question. They do not enter as favourites, nor as credible outsiders in the eyes of most observers. But in Carrick, they have a manager whose relationship with the trophy is personal — and whose ambition, carefully worded as it is, appears genuine.