I am in a quandary. My feature writing lecturer had taught me that the catchy bit of a write-up should be included in the initial sentences but, on this occasion, I am really spoilt for choice.

Where do I start from... the romance of the FA Cup, the glamour of the Champions League, the passion of Maltese fans for foreign football, Beckham's flying-boot incident, the flu epidemic that plagued Juventus... the list is almost endless. This was certainly a no ordinary football week.

The events of that week attracted a lot of publicity, so why am I writing this article?

You will have heard and probably read loads of stories but it is not my intention today to present to you the run-of-the-mill report of who was injured, who scored, who was to blame for that row and so on. My idea is to recount the highlights of my trip more from the perspective of a Maltese football fan, also using the information accessible to me as a journalist.

Unfazed by reports of massive security operations in England in the face of threats of terrorism, I was among scores of Maltese football enthusiasts on Air Malta's scheduled flight to Manchester on February 14, Valentine's Day. That same evening, a group of Manchester United fans also boarded another flight to London from where they continued their journey to Manchester by coach.

My job in sports journalism has taken me to different stadia across Europe but I have yet to visit a better football stadium than Old Trafford, especially on Champions League nights.

When the draw for the second phase of the Champions League pitted United in the same group as Juventus, my prompt reaction was to run the rule over the fixtures and marked the first leg tie at Old Trafford on February 19 as the match that I wanted to see first-hand.

I am a football fan at heart and the lure of a Champions League match between two such great teams as United and Juventus, the Italian champions, was simply too much to resist. My resolve to join my friends for another football trip to Manchester was further strengthened when the names of Manchester United and Arsenal emerged out of the hat in that order in the FA Cup draw for the fifth round.

United and Arsenal were due to meet at Old Trafford on February 15, only four days before the Champions League tie against Juventus.

So off we flew to Manchester on Friday evening and by 12.15 p.m. on Saturday February 15, more than 67,000 spectators had flocked to Old Trafford for the 'giants' showdown.

Taking my seat in the last row of the press area, I kept looking around in awe, my football-must binoculars in one hand, and my newly-acquired Konica Digital camera in the other.

This was not my first visit to the Theatre of Dreams but the passion of the English fans for the game of football and the atmosphere in their stadia never cease to amaze me. This is football as it should be... great expectancy, packed stadia and a vibrant, trouble-free atmosphere.

As for the game, the initial exchanges demonstrated that there is no love between the two rivals as skirmishes ensued a string of unsavoury tackles, prompting referee Jeff Winter to dish out a series of yellow cards.

The tension decreased as the game wore on. Arsenal's organised performance, inspired by Patrick Vieira, and their knack to take their chances earned them a passage to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup after a 2-0 win over United.

Arsenal deserved to progress but who knows how the game would have panned out had Ryan Giggs not missed that gilt-edged opportunity in the first half. Needless to say that disbelief engulfed the Old Trafford crowd when Giggs's drive in front of a gaping goal sailed over the bar.

That defeat yet again showed that Arsenal have really bridged the gap in quality with United if not overtaken them but that failed to taint the enthusiasm of the United faithful who still applauded their players off the pitch.

Hordes of fans gathered outside the players' tunnel to catch a glimpse of their heroes from behind the steel barriers. The mood among the Maltese red devils was largely subdued after the match but the disappointment brought about by the team's elimination from the FA Cup provided the perfect excuse to indulge in big meals and the extra glass of wine over the next two days.

With the weekend behind us, the attention turned to the Champions League encounter with Juventus. A match between two of the biggest names in world football inevitably heightened expectations especially among the majority of the Maltese fans in Manchester what with their obsession with the English vs Italian football rivalry.

We were picking our route to United's training complex in Carrington when we learnt that a newspaper had reported Beckham's slight injury above his left eye after he was hit by a flying boot struck by an angry Alex Ferguson after the 2-0 defeat to Arsenal. Once the news had been leaked, there was never any doubt as to the fuss it was going to spark off in England's unforgiving media.

The build-up to the match thus became a media circus as pictures of Beckham with steri-strips covering his graze - to use Ferguson's description of the cut - were on the front and back pages of every newspaper in England and in Italy... La Gazzetta Dello Sport also published a small, grainy picture of 'the injured' Beckham on its front page of Tuesday's edition.

The players were still going through the paces when we arrived at the impressive training complex. "It is heaven for footballers. I can't imagine a more professional place. I feel fantastic there, because we're treated like real pros," Ruud van Nistelrooy said about the training facilities at Carrington when interviewed by United Review before the FA Cup match with Arsenal.

Suffice to say that the training complex boasts 14 pitches of varying size, training and rehabilitation areas, physiotherapy, massage rooms and pools. There are also squash and basketball courts, sauna, steam, weight rooms, a restaurant for staff and players as well as conference rooms, offices and classrooms.

Gaining access to a United training session at Carrington is not an easy task but my Maltese friends, namely John Buttigieg of Papillon Caterers fame, Joe Farrugia, Frank Portelli and Mario Scerri, tal-Housekeeper, are held in high regard by the Manchester United manager and friends.

Two groups of United fans, one from Malta and the other from Gibraltar, had also been allowed to watch the team's training session.

It was not long before the first players hastily made their way to the dressing rooms where the warmth provided by the central heating was in sharp contrast with the below-zero temperatures outside.

Beckham was among the first players to finish training. The England skipper may not have been in the best of spirits after that dressing room episode but he still came to say hello in the most courteous of manners before continuing his walk towards the complex.

Gary Neville, Air Malta's promotion ambassador in the UK, followed suit. Gary is a self-proclaimed friend of the Maltese people not just for advertising purposes. Gary loves Malta and has the utmost respect for his Maltese friends. Neville even found time to have lunch with a group of Maltese tourists on Tuesday, February 18. That day, the eve of the big match against Juventus, Gary was celebrating his 28th birthday.

The few hours I stayed at Carrington was time well spent as I had the opportunity to see the facilities available and how real professionals train. As we drove out of Carrington, we were reminded of the English tabloids' obsession with anything that has to do with Manchester United... in this case, the subject of the lens focusing was Beckham's cut above his eye.

That incident did little to stem the tide of scepticism that hung over Manchester United after their loss to Arsenal in the FA Cup. It certainly did not help to raise the optimism among United's Maltese fans in Manchester.

The news from the opposing camp was unlikely to generate a lot of encouragement among the United fans either as Juventus made short work of Parma in a Serie A match, winning 2-0. Ferguson had flown to Italy on Saturday night to watch his Champions League opponents who arrived in Manchester on Tuesday.

Reports of the flu bug that forced several Juventus players, including Gianluigi Buffon, Alessandro Birindelli, Marco Di Vaio, Gianluca Zambrotta and Marcelo Salas, to stay home began to do the rounds on Tuesday morning, the day when the two clubs are bound by Champions League regulations to hold their press conferences.

Ferguson held his at the Europa suite at Old Trafford, making a terse statement on the dressing-room incident with Beckham at the end of the news conference before walking out of the room despite the journalists' attempts to glean more information about the hot topic from the manager.

Journalists were informed that Juve had switched their news conference to their base... the Marriott Hotel in Worsley. The Italian champions also cancelled their training session because their manager Marcello Lippi was unwell.

It was during Juve's press conference later that evening that rumours about their request to have the match postponed began to circulate.

When Italian journalists asked Lippi to comment on these reports, he said that he was unaware of any request by his club to call off the match due to the flu epidemic sidetracking several of their first-team players but he did not rule it out.

Suggestions that Juve were mulling over a request to have the match rescheduled for a later date inevitably prompted concern among the match-goers, especially the 100 or so tourists who had jetted out from Malta to watch the game.

Postponed... yes or no?

Will UEFA accede to Juve's request? That was the million-dollar question asked by one and all in Manchester as the Maltese debated the issue...it seems that citizens of this tiny island have come to love hot debates.

The uncertainty surrounding the match continued on Wednesday morning as relatives and friends in Malta conveyed the latest news, as reported by Italian TV channels, through countless SMSs and phone calls.

Some said the match would go ahead, others claimed that there was a 90 per cent possibility that it would be postponed. As the scepticism increased, five of us decided to drive to Old Trafford to speak to the UEFA Media Officer.

The time was about 1 in the afternoon when the UEFA Media Officer told me that, at a meeting earlier that day, UEFA had the decided against postponing the match.

So we headed back to the hotel safe in the knowledge that the would-be highlight of our trip to Manchester was still intact!

The day before, I was told that the United squad spend the day of a home Champions League match in a local hotel. The players park their glitzy cars at Old Trafford in the morning before they board a coach on their way to the hotel around 11.30 a.m. Lunch and a team talk follow before the players are allowed to retreat into their rooms for siesta. Around 6, the team coach takes them back to Old Trafford for their final preparations before the match kicks off at 7.45 p.m. (Maltese time 8.45 p.m.).

As is the norm in England, the stadium was nowhere near its full capacity by the time I found my seat. It was not before five to 10 minutes before the game that Old Trafford was teeming with spectators, 3,000 of which came from Italy.

Just before kick-off, Juventus were forced into a last-minute change as skipper Antonio Conte suffered an injury during the warm-up and was replaced by Marcelo Zalayeta.

The level of expectation increased as the famous Champions League song echoed around Old Trafford. United could not have enjoyed a better start as Wes Brown headed them into a one-goal lead after just four minutes but Juventus kept their heads up and set about applying the pressure on United's rearguard with some fluid passing. Pavel Nedved, Juve's best player on the night, hit the outside of the post with a firm shot but other than that, goalscoring chances were few and far between.

United improved after the change of ends but it was Juve who continued to do most of the running. The hit-them-on-the-break approach adopted by the cautious Ferguson reaped dividends when United struck a second through Ruud van Nistelrooy five minutes from time.

The game was as good as over before Nedved grabbed an injury time goal for Juve which, for a moment, caused some anxiety among the hordes of United fans. But there was no time for a late rally as the referee's final whistle was not long in coming.

It had been a very difficult for United with all that negative publicity over the Ferguson-Beckham row but a victory in a match against Juventus, matches which stir Ferguson's blood according to the United gaffer's pre-match notes, did a lot to lift the gloom.

Ferguson was visibly relieved with the victory as he and Lippi addressed the media in the after-match press conference. I popped in the conference room but stayed there for a while before descending the staircase towards the mixed zone.

The mixed zone is a reserved area outside the dressing rooms where journalists interview the players. Journalists huddle together behind the iron barriers as they wait for the players to give them their views on the match. Ryan Giggs, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Roy Keane were among the United players who stopped to speak to the press.

"The most important thing is that we have won the game. Now we have to concentrate on one game at a time," Keane said after the 2-1 victory over Juventus.

The Keane vs Edgar Davids midfield duel is always seen as a pivotal feature of United vs Juventus matches. "I enjoy playing against him because Davids is a top player," Keane said.

The United skipper said he was feeling good after he completed his rehabilitation from hip surgery. "Injuries are part and parcel of football. I have had my injuries but I feel quite good."

Asked to rate United's chances of pipping Arsenal for the title, Keane said: "Arsenal are a top team but as I said, we just have to keep focusing on one game at a time."

With Keane's comments ringing in my ears, I decided it was time to leave the stadium as the last remaining players emerged from the dressing rooms exit amidst the screams of the gathering fans. Back in the City centre, I found my friends in a jovial mood and already planning their next Champions League trip... the quarter-finals.