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Sir Alex Ferguson is expected to lead up his Manchester United team if they win the Champions League tomorrow night. He would become only the second manager in history, after Bob Paisley, to win the European Cup three times.

Uefa has been deliberating who should lead the teams up at the trophy presentation and is thought to have decided on the managers.

This would avoid the unnecessary scene of last year’s final when the European governing body invited each club to send up ambassadors to collect a medal — and Chelsea, to widespread mocking, sent up Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, to collect a loser’s medal.

United chose Sir Bobby Charlton in what was an emotional occasion 50 years after the anniversary of the Munich air disaster. Charlton, modestly, put his medal in his pocket but the sight of Kenyon with a medal round his neck caused Uefa to reconsider its ceremony.

This year Ferguson and Pep Guardiola, of Barcelona, are expected to collect a medal first. The winning captain would still get to lift the trophy.

For either manager it promises to be an historic night. Guardiola, 38, is in his first season as a top-flight coach but could scoop an extraordinary treble. Ferguson is seeking to become the first manager to retain the trophy since Arrigo Sacchi with AC Milan in 1990.

Sacchi and Ferguson are on a list of more than a dozen managers, including Brian Clough, who have won the trophy twice. Two coaches, Ernst Happel, with Feyenoord in 1970 and Hamburg in 1983, and Ottmar Hitzfeld, with Borussia Dortmund in 1997 and Bayern Munich in 2001, have won it twice with different clubs.

But Ferguson has the chance to join Paisley at the top if he adds to triumphs of 1999 and 12 months ago. Paisley led Liverpool to successes in 1977, 1978 and 1981.