I think the 99 Treble team still comes second to the 2007-2011 United team who won three leagues, a CL (incl. 3 finals), two league cups, and an intercontinental cup in 4 seasons. All when the rest of the league was great and Europe had amazing teams too.
I agree. Even when talking individual seasons i would put 08 United above 99 United. All down to opinion mind you.
I gotta agree on that 2007 - 2011 team. They were very good. Winning the league 2 or more times consecutively is very very hard. To get the squad up mentally to go again like that is extremely tough.
Also important to remember that luck most certainly played a part in 1999. ManU were famously behind in injury time in the champions league final, and the FA Cup semi-final win against us was the unlikeliest of victories, still gives me nightmares. ManU a man down and Bergkamp with a penalty to knock ManU out in the last minute. Bergkamp fails to score (never takes a penalty ever again), then Giggs goes the length of the pitch in injury time to score against the run of play. Obviously the team's mentality was amazing, and that played it's part, but a huge element of luck there as well.
I distinctly remember thinking in 2006 that I thought ManU were done. They hadn't won anything for a couple of seasons, the famed generation were starting to fade out, I thought Ronaldo wasn't cut out for the prem initially, I thought perhaps this was coming to an end for Fergie. Of course Ronaldo exploded and worked fantastically well with Rooney, Vidic and Ferdinand were a beast of a combo, Ferguson worked his magic and the rest is history. The point someone made about English sides being the better sides in Europe at the time is an important one too, because English sides were more or less dominant during that short period, with the prem "big 4" all making semis and finals pretty regularly from 2005 - 2011 or so.