As the coach carrying Neil Reynolds pulled up outside San Siro, he still expected someone to tell him he couldn’t enter. The FC United of Manchester boss and his team were due to play in a European competition at the famous old stadium, but he couldn’t shake off the surrealism of the moment.
And who could blame him? The very idea of a seventh-tier non-league outfit playing at one of the world’s most iconic stadiums sounds like something that’s possible only on Football Manager. But thanks to the Fenix Trophy, a tournament for semi-professional sides across Europe to lock horns, that unlikely vision became a reality this June.
“It was the most amazing experience of my whole football career,” says non-league stalwart Reynolds, the club’s manager since 2018. “Even just to think about the possibility of playing at San Siro was incredible,
