Next year's European Cup final at Hampden Park may be the perfect stage for Alex Ferguson's final act in office but the next person to raise the topic with the Manchester United manager can expect to have his hair singed by the response.
"Some bloody idiot with a television camera has just come up to me asking about it," Ferguson growled after landing here yesterday. "I'm fed up listening to it all." Expectations are clearly weighing heavily on Ferguson's shoulders as he prepares his team for tonight's potentially treacherous opener against Olympiakos, the Greek champions. Ferguson is acutely aware that the media saturation surrounding his final continental campaign will bring with it huge anti-climax should his attempt to return the European Cup to Old Trafford end in premature disappointment.
A few months ago Ferguson made it clear he could envisage the final, being in his home city of Glasgow, becoming "an albatross".
The job will be hard enough without all the extra emotional baggage. "The media may be making a big thing of it but, as players, we have to put it out of our minds," said Roy Keane, blunt as ever. "It's not an issue. We wanted to win the European Cup just as badly last season."
"The fact it's the manager's last season has no bearing whatsoever. We will be trying as hard as ever, irrespective of the circumstances." In which case Ferguson will be looking for a significant improvement on last season when they were beaten with alarming ease at PSV Eindhoven and Anderlecht and never quite recovered, losing meekly in both legs to Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals.
That campaign ended with Keane publicly advocating the dismantling of Ferguson's squad. The ostracising of Jaap Stain, combined with the signings of Laurent Blanc, Juan Sebastian Veron and Ruud van Nistelrooy, suggests that Ferguson was of a similar mind. "I think we're better equipped this year," said Keane. "We've brought in three players, all of whom have international experience.
"That can only help but, for me, the real point is that talk is cheap. It's one thing saying we have the squad to do it but we were saying that at the start of last season and we were lucky to get through the first group."
Olympiakos, Greek champions for the last five seasons, and unbeaten in the Champions League at their imposing home, will be underestimated at peril. About 72,000 fans are expected at the Louis Spiros stadium and, given that UEFA fined the Greek club three times last season for missiles being thrown on to the pitch, it promises to be a combustible night.
Ferguson undoubtedly has a stronger squad than that which won the competition in 1999 but other sides have caught up and Olympiakos have been dubbed the "dream team" after finishing 12 points clear of Panathinaikos last season.
