Who are the greatest players in Manchester United’s history? The Athletic gave Andy Mitten the task of compiling his top 25 and we are counting them down over this summer, in reverse order. He explains his thought process here.“We were a group of kids travelling around Europe thinking we could beat anybody,” Bill Foulkes told me in 2005. “Despite them being European champions, we knew little about Real Madrid. Matt Busby, however, told us they were a great team, the most fantastic team he had ever seen. I had to mark the great winger (Paco) Gento. He caught me out a few times but I didn’t try to tackle him because he would have beaten me.”The crowd for that European Cup game in April 1957 was 135,000, still the biggest United have played in front of. Madrid won 3-1, “but our defence was superb and our trainer Tom Curry said we deserved gold medals as big as frying pans”.Then the Munich Air Disaster happened. Foulkes, who worked as a coal miner until he was established in the United team, was on the flight. The plane broke up in the row in front of his seat. He ran from the wreck, then turned and ran back to see the bodies of his team-mates. He and goalkeeper Harry Gregg did what they could to help. He felt lucky to have survived, not guilty that he did.Players like Lancashire lad Foulkes lost most of their mates and weren’t fit to compete with the best in Europe for a long time, but United would rise again and the central defender who went on to make 688 United appearances between 1952 and 1970 (the fourth highest in United’s history) would be there for the journey.Bill Foulkes shakes hands with the Duke of Edinburgh at the 1958 FA Cup final (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).In May 1968, United went back to the Bernabeu, again in the semi-final second leg of the European Cup. United had won 1-0 in the first leg, but Madrid were clear favourites, which they justified by going two goals in front. A Madrid own goal made it 2-1 before an Amancio volley left it 3-1 at half-time.