Ryan Giggs and cup semi-finals will always mean Villa Park, Arsenal and 1999, thanks to the extra-time goal-from-heaven he scored in a replay to settle one of the greatest FA Cup ties, weaving from his own half past opponent after opponent like Nureyev on skis. If someone needs convincing of Giggs' extraordinariness, show them that strike. If footage is not to hand, statistics will do instead.
There is no shortage of amazing numbers connected to the Welshman's career and here is another. Giggs has been going so long he has appeared in one fifth of the Manchester derbies played. Ever. That's going all the way back to 1891, when Manchester United were called Newton Heath.
"I didn't realise. All these stats just mean I'm old. Thanks for that . . ." said Giggs, laughing. The Manchester City strand is another remarkable plotline in his story. Giggs, of course, began his connection with professional football by training with the City youth team in his early teens. "Right from day one I hated it, absolutely hated it," he once recalled. "It wasn't that City were hard on me or not nice people . . . there was no getting round it, I was a United supporter." He would wear a red top to training at City's Platt Lane practice ground and the coaches there would make him take it off.
Giggs' first senior start came in the Manchester derby - and so, in the same game, did his first official goal, even though Colin Hendry got the final touch after Giggs had connected with a Brian McClair cross and it should (as Giggs later acknowledged) have been credited as an own goal. That's going all the way back to 1991 and May of that year - a time so distant that there would still be three months before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
On Tuesday, Giggs hopes to make his 30th appearance in a semi-final match at club level and his 31st in a derby and - though he understands Sir Alex Ferguson, United's manager, has to be sparing about using him these days - he is as keen to be involved, if not keener, than any United player.
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"Earlier in the season, when City came to Old Trafford, there was the biggest build-up to a derby I'd probably ever known, because of the money City have spent. It will be the same case leading into this game and for the next few seasons. I love all that.
"The games don't mean as much to me as they used to - they mean more and more," Giggs said. "The older you get, the bigger responsibility you have and the more you savour the big matches."
Giggs' continuing zest for the major challenges is such that the FA Cup encounter with Leeds made him reflect how much he misses having one of United's bitterest rivals around in the Premier League. "I know it'll sound funny but I used to love playing at Elland Road. The atmosphere was electric, especially when Eric (Cantona) was in the team and they had a very good side," Giggs said.
So, there is nothing jaded about his mentality. That his body retains freshness at an age - 36 - when other players begin seizing up like over-flogged engines, is down to a regimen involving a carefully managed balance between training, playing and rest; diet and yoga. He had 24 hours off from the latter on December 25 but otherwise - even on New Year's Day - it is part of a daily routine.
"You have to keep it up no matter what, even if you don't want to," said Giggs. "It's served me very well, so I'll carry it on right to the end of my career." The yoga helps keep him loose and give elasticity to muscles, especially his hamstrings, which were prone to injuries as a younger player, and has brought such results that several of the United players - including the likes of Wayne Rooney - join Giggs for sessions. "I tend to do the yoga after training and there's a few of the lads who do it sometimes with me. Sometimes it's with them, sometimes it's on my own. I like it when the lads join in because it's not as intense, but actually I enjoy it.
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"The first year I dreaded it. Every day I was hoping Sarah, my yoga teacher, wouldn't turn up at the training ground. I'd see her come in and my heart sank. But after about a year it's still tough but you begin to like it. People think it's all about breathing and relaxing but, no, it's hard. You use muscles you don't normally use and if you don't want to go running or on the gym machines it's a good way to stay fit." Teammates are obviously used to it now, but was there banter in the United dressing room when Giggs started a pursuit some still regard as woolly and New Age? "Oh no," he grinned. "Because Roy [Keane] started it . . . and nobody was ever going to give Keaney stick."
After the defeat by Leeds, and some unexpected recent Premier League struggles, Ferguson will beef up the youthful side he has used in previous Carling Cup games and indicated Giggs may be among the experienced players brought in.
"I've got mixed views about the game now. I think we'll have a mix. It won't be the same team as against Burnley (in the quarter-final)," Ferguson said. "The derby is a fans' game really and we have enough players who know about that, such as Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Darren Fletcher and Wes Brown."
He is reserving judgment on whether City have been transformed by Roberto Mancini ("they have had some easy games, haven't they?") and remarked that the semi-final is a bigger deal for City than United "because it's been quite a while since they last won it or were in a final". He continues to have "no regrets" about Carlos Tevez's defection from Old Trafford to Eastlands though continues to regard City's use of the striker in a Welcome To Manchester poster as "petty".
Giggs noted "it's a weird season. Everyone's beating each other and United have had more losses than in the whole of last season", and Ferguson is aware that if City continue to flex their wealth, the football landscape will keep getting stranger. "I read somewhere they were going to bid for Lionel Messi," he said. "They could offer a billion for Messi and it wouldn't affect them too much." Then the barb. "Whether it would give them any joy or not . . . but given the money they've got, anything's possible."
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Giggs' special date
When Ryan Giggs runs out at Old Trafford in March he will look, in the front row of the South Stand beside the players' tunnel, for a very special spectator.
Amy Dutton, 24, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma last year and is undergoing treatment at Manchester's Christie Hospital, where she met Giggs recently. Giggs' visit was to help cement a partnership between the hospital and the Manchester United Foundation, which is raising £250,000 to fund extra rehabilitation for young patients.
Two full-time nurses are being paid for through the project and via the foundation, young cancer sufferers are able to go United's Carrington training ground and use its state-of-the-art hydrotherapy pool. Giggs, whose mother is a nurse and who lost his stepfather to cancer, said: "Everyone knows someone who's had cancer and more or less the whole of the north of England uses Christie's."
Amy, a United season ticket-holder, has been unable to watch her team since beginning a six-month chemotherapy course in September but intends being back in her seat at Old Trafford by March. "I've been sharing my season ticket and it's hard watching my boyfriend go off to the game every weekend," she said. "We're always in the front row and I've told Giggs he's got to wave to me."
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Manchester City v Manchester Utd
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Ryan Giggs: Manchester derbies
Giggs made his first derby appearance - and scored his very first United goal - as a 17-year-old in May 1991. United ran out 1-0 winners that day and to this day the goal scorer is still disputed, with many crediting it as a Colin Hendy own goal. If Giggs plays on Tuesday it will be his very first League Cup appearance against City but his 31st appearance overall, making him comfortably the record appearance holder in Manchester derbies. To date he has started 22, made eight substitute appearances and scored 3 goals.
Ryan Giggs v Manchester City
P30 W18 D7 L5
League: 20 apps (8 as sub), 3 goals
FA Cup: 2 apps, 0 goals
League Cup: 0 apps, 0 goals
Total: 22 apps (8 as sub), 3 goals