Giggs faces the fans

By Jim Wirth

The day after bowing out of the UEFA Champions League, lesser players might have been sulking at home with the phone off the hook. That was not the case for Manchester United FC's Ryan Giggs, however.

Brave effort
With the memories of the 1-1 home draw against FC Porto which saw United eliminated from European competition still fresh in his mind, the Welsh winger opened himself up to questions from uefa.com users in one of our MasterCard Talk Football chats.

'Fine line'
Straight away, uefa.com users went on the offensive. Seb asked Giggs what he thought had gone wrong against Porto, to which he replied: "We didn't perform to our best ability over there [in Portugal], but we felt 2-1 was an OK result. A 1-0 win was all we needed and we didn't look like conceding. It's a fine line between going through and not going through."

Goalkeeper's defence
Porto's decisive late equaliser came after goalkeeper Tim Howard parried Benni McCarthy's long-range free-kick. Jihème questioned whether Howard's predecessor Fabien Barthez might have saved the shot comfortably, but Giggs was quick to come to the defence of the American goalkeeper.

Bad luck
"It was a good free-kick and the luck wasn't with us," he wrote. "The ball fell for them and not to one of our players. We've got no complaints with Tim because he's had a great season. Perhaps our defenders should have followed the ball in better."

Hope springs eternal
Reassuringly for United supporters, Giggs has not lost hope of salvaging some silverware after a disappointing season. Asked by Ajax what United's ambitions were for the remainder of the campaign, he replied: "We're in the semi-final of the FA Cup and third in the league. We're hoping for Arsenal [FC] to slip up. It doesn't look like it will happen but there are still 30 points to play for."

United commitment
And perhaps even more reassuringly, he reaffirmed his commitment to the club where he has spent all of his career. "I'm a United supporter - I grew up here and it's the greatest club in the world," he told user Tim. "Events like last night spur you on to do better. We want to win the Champions League again and we feel we can do that."

Milan favourites
With United out of the tournament, Giggs told Karagiannis that Real Madrid CF were not his choice to win the Champions League. "I feel that AC Milan will be the favourites now," he said. "Milan have got a taste of it now, having won last year, and have got a great history in the competition and could do it again."

Welsh woe
Bowing out of the Champions League was Giggs's second big disappointment of the season, after Wales narrowly missed out on a place at the finals of UEFA EURO 2004™ following their play-off defeat by Russia. International successs remains his final great ambition, as Giggs told Jules X: "Growing up you watch those tournaments and want to be involved in them. I've got a couple more cracks at it and that's what I want to achieve."

Click here to read the full transcript of the Ryan Giggs webchat