Giggs proud to break Champions League appearance record

October 3, 2013
Posted by Steven Tan | Source from A Marshall & N Thomas, ManUtd.com
Ryan Giggs has expressed his pride at breaking the Champions League appearance record during the 1-1 draw with Shakhtar Donetsk.
 
The evergreen midfielder came off the bench to replace Marouane Fellaini and has now played in more games at the elite European level, including qualifiers, than legendary Spanish striker Raul.
 
"It means a lot," he told MUTV. "It’s the pinnacle of European football and to play that many games is obviously special."
 
Giggs was a little disappointed that the Reds could not retain the lead secured through Danny Welbeck's first-half strike.
 
"When you’re playing for United and you go 1-0 ahead, you expect to be able to see the game out," he admitted. "But fair play to Shakhtar - they’ve got some decent players and they put us under a lot of pressure. We’ve won our first game and drew a very tough away game so we’ll take that.
 
"We are in a good position; it’s a tough place to come this. Hopefully we can get a few victories from the next couple of games and that’ll put us in a good position."
 
Sunderland are up next for the Reds with the Barclays Premier League's bottom club desperate for points for their own agenda. United, meanwhile, need to bounce back from Saturday's surprise defeat to West Brom.
 
"We didn’t play well at the weekend," he conceded. "We tried to make ourselves difficult to beat tonight and we did that against a very good team. Hopefully we can build a bit of momentum going into the weekend.
 
"We want to get a run together and hopefully it’ll start at the weekend. It won’t be easy, they’ve just got a new caretaker manager, they’ll be up for it and, like any game in the Premier League, it’ll be tough."

Most Champions League appearances

145 Ryan Giggs
144 Raul
140 Paolo Maldini
136 Xavi*
131 Clarence Seedorf
130 Paul Scholes
129 Iker Casillas*
 
* still playing in Europe
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