This is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius

by Daniel Taylor

  Today, though, Ferguson is on his best behaviour. He talks at length about his admiration for the Italian game and he is full of praise for the Roma coach Luciano Spalletti, describing him as a brave and innovative tactician. He congratulates Roma for knocking out Lyon in the last round and he makes it clear that he thinks United are facing one of the strongest teams left in the competition.

  He could hardly be more complimentary, but there is muttering and headshaking in the seats where the Italian journalists are congregated. At one point, a reporter from La Gazzetta Dello Sport asks him in a slightly accusatory tone why he does not seem more concerned about Totti. There is none of the reverence that is usually afforded to Ferguson in other countries, where he is sometimes applauded in and out of press conferences. The whiff of controversy is in the air and another Italian wants to know why United have written letters to their 4,500 travelling fans warning them there is a ‘real danger’ of being attacked by Roma’s hooligans, the Ultras.

  The answer should be obvious given that three Middlesbrough supporters were stabbed in the Campo de Fiori before a UEFA Cup tie last season. Liverpool’s supporters have also encountered problems in Rome dating back to the 1984 European Cup final, when there were numerous stabbings, and United have advised their fans to avoid several areas of the city.

  The letter has been published on the club’s website and the Italian press have picked it up. Italian journalists have always been a rather bloodthirsty lot and United have been accused of staining the reputation of the Eternal City with ‘racism’ and a ‘weather forecast of violence’. Spalletti has been quoted as saying he is ‘extremely annoyed by this slur against our city’, and everyone – from the city’s leading political party, the Democrats of the Left, to the chief of police and the head of internal security – has had their say. The mayor, Walter Veltroni, is on the main television news tonight and he says he is so angry he has complained to the British Embassy.

  ‘We always do this,’ Ferguson tries to explain. ‘We write to our supporters with advice before every European trip.’ He says the Rome authorities have been ‘very co-operative’ and he predicts it will be a trouble-free evening, but you can tell from the Italians’ faces that they are unimpressed. Veltroni has held his own press briefing: ‘Rome is a city that welcomes everyone in a hospitable manner. This letter is unfortunate and unpleasant and I regard it as dangerous because it creates a negative climate. I would like to assure Manchester United fans that they are welcome in our city and that the true image of Rome is very different to how it has been portrayed by their club.’

  POLICEMEN IN BLACK

  4.4.07

  AS Roma 2

  Manchester United 1

  Champions League quarter-final, first leg

  As Walter Veltroni points out, Rome is a city of culture and elegance, from the pavement cafes and upmarket boutiques on Via Veneto to the serenity of the Vatican and the sense of architectural awe inspired by the Colosseum. But it is also a city in which large groups of young Italians carry knives and operate by their own rules, and there are eighteen United fans in hospital tonight, ten with stab wounds. Another fifty have to be bandaged up inside the Stadio Olimpico after some unforgivable scenes involving the Italian police. In the relative sanctuary of the pressbox some of our number could be forgiven if they were struggling to concentrate on the football. Jonathan Northcroft of the Sunday Times and James Fletcher of the News of the World were trapped on the Ponte Nenni, one of the ‘no-go areas,’ when thirty Italian youths carrying flares and broken bottles advanced on three Irish lads before the game. Northcroft managed to break free but Fletcher tried to run away; thirty yards later, sprinting at full pelt, he was intercepted by a fist. Jim Clarke, a photographer for the Sun, was kicked to the ground close by and £4,000 worth of camera equipment was whipped from his neck.

  The trouble is so extreme it dominates the news agenda. United’s fans have been attacked with knives, bricks, bottles, coshes, catapults, an axe and even a stepladder. Yet the Ultras, it seems to us, have rivals to the title of the most formidable firm in Rome. The police (carabinieri) may not have such an extensive weapon collection but they also have their own set of rules and, of course, they have the law on their side. At the end of the first half Roma take the lead and their supporters rush towards the divide segregating the away end. A small group of United fans react and the carabinieri charge, lashing out indiscriminately with their batons, hitting anything that moves, battering limbs and heads. Anyone within range is struck. Some fans try to make gestures of peace and are beaten to the ground. A few are trapped and go down under a flurry of baton strikes. Others turn to flee and the police swarm after them.

  The reaction is so savagely over the top the television cameras and photographic lenses are trained on what is happening in the stands rather than on the pitch. Supporters with nowhere to escape can be seen in a state of blind panic. One guy, in his fifties, is curled up in the foetal position, trying to cover his head and pleading for mercy as the blows rain down. His watch is smashed, hanging limply off his wrist, and he is shaking with fear. The television pictures zoom in on a middle-aged man, with a camera round his neck, and there is blood gushing from his forehead. A younger adult, possibly his son, is trying to pull him away and one of the riot cops, decked out in black Robocop gear, is swinging at them with his baton. A woman in her twenties is filming what is happening and one of the police officers snatches the camera from her hand. She goes after him to protest and his colleagues wade in, hitting out violently with their fists and their truncheons.

  Many of us have friends and relatives in the away end and it is unnerving watching it all unfold, feeling utterly helpless from a comfortable seat 100 yards away. What begins five minutes before half-time lasts until the opening exchanges of the second half and it feels like the carabinieri are enjoying themselves so much they don’t want the fun to stop. After the game we are waiting on a media coach to take us to the airport and they are having an informal debrief in the same part of the bus park. We can see them embracing each other, clasping hands and kissing each other on the cheeks – celebrating, it seems. One guy, sweaty and breathless and with his helmet tucked under his arm, is swishing his baton through the air to re-enact his best shots. His mates are laughing and clapping.

  On occasions like this we have to file stories for the news sections as well as our usual match reports, and the word from United is that they want a full UEFA investigation. There are conflicting reports of how many people have been hospitalised and the extent of their injuries, and that makes it a long night because as well as the mayhem in the stands it is also a difficult match to assess for the sports pages.

  On the face of it, there is more reason for consternation than confidence. Scholes is sent off for two first-half bookings and will miss the return leg. Ferguson is already without Neville, Vidic and Evra through injury – i.e. three first-choice defenders – and Roma look like an accomplished, adventurous team. Yet Rooney scores a fine breakaway goal in the second half and Ferguson looks happy enough in his interviews. ‘The away goal is always invaluable in these two-legged fixtures,’ he says. ‘This is a good result for us.’

  It is midnight before we leave the stadium and when we arrive at the airport there are dozens of supporters with bandages over their heads and blood on their clothes. Some ask us what Ferguson has said about the trouble and they are distinctly unimpressed to learn that he refused to talk about it. We are horribly late getting on the plane, maybe as late as we have ever been, and as we shuffle past the directors we apologise for keeping them on the runway for so long. The atmosphere feels very flat – a combination of losing, fatigue and the shock of seeing so many heads being cracked – and we are glad to be leaving Rome behind, to be honest. The flight home is in near-silence.

  LA DOLCE VITA

  10.4.07

  Manchester United 7

  AS Roma 1

  Champions League quarter-final, second leg

 
Manchester United win 8-3 on aggregate

  Tonight is one of those occasions when it is easy to understand why, in 1958, a twenty-one-year-old Bobby Charlton told Arthur Hopcraft, one of the doyens of sportswriting, that playing football at Old Trafford was like walking into a ‘theatre of dreams’. It is a night when Manchester United’s play is so thrillingly packed with one-touch, fluent, penetrative football it could be set to cha-cha music. A night when words feel slightly superfluous and the aggregate score belongs to a sepia-tinted past. Nobody wins 8-3 in the modern game, we all thought, and certainly not against the Italians. It is an evening so crazy that it defies logic and explanation. An epic, lyrical performance, full of everything that is good about the club and the team.

  Ferguson says it is his ‘greatest European night at Old Trafford’ and it is a legitimate statement because when the team-sheets were distributed before kickoff there were audible groans from the crowd. Saha had joined the list of injured and Ferguson not only had to scratch together a team missing three-quarters of his first-choice defence but Smith was starting in attack for only the fourth time since recovering from his broken leg. Fletcher was in ‘the Keane role’ and O’Shea was deputising for Neville.

  The list of absentees makes it unrealistic to expect anything but an evening gripped by tension. Yet the tone is set in the eleventh minute when United surge forward and Carrick expertly lifts the ball over Doni, Roma’s goalkeeper. When Smith makes it 2-0 six minutes later it is a story of great personal triumph but there is hardly time to pause. Within two minutes Rooney has made it three and suddenly the Roma defenders are wearing the pained expressions of climbers stranded on a rock-face.

  To see a team famed for its smothering negativity being torn apart with such contemptuous ease feels almost surreal. Roma had conceded only four goals in their previous eight Champions League fixtures but tonight the reputation of Serie A is obliterated in front of a worldwide audience and, in the pressbox, the Italians are banging their laptops shut, flapping their arms wildly and in one or two cases abandoning any pretence of impartiality to rise to their feet and scream loud, impassioned disapproval. Italians, as Ferguson pointed out before the first leg, pride themselves on parsimonious defending and have won four World Cups because of their thou-shall-not-pass mentality. It is the nation that gave us catenaccio – the defensive system patented by Inter Milan in the 1960s and translated as ‘door-bolt’ – and legendary defenders such as Franco Baresi, Claudio Gentile and Paolo Maldini. And yet here is Roma, the second-placed side in Serie A, being taken to the cleaners, with thirty-eight countries tuning in live.

  When Ronaldo makes it 4-0 just before half-time it is too much for one of the Italian football correspondents, and he flounces out of the pressbox with tears of rage stinging his eyes, not to be seen again. There is a further peacock-like spreading of United’s feathers after the break and the sense of awe increases with each goal. Ronaldo gets the fifth, Carrick the sixth and soon afterwards the ‘oles’ start, followed by giddy chants of ‘we want ten’. Daniele De Rossi, the Italian World Cup winner, salvages a modicum of pride with a consolation goal but this is the final twitch before rigor mortis sets in and by the time Evra makes it 7-1 Ferguson is signing autographs for the fans behind the dugout.

  The final whistle has the effect of smelling salts for the Roma defenders. Ferguson uses the word ‘uncanny’ and he questions whether there has ever been a better performance in the club’s fifty years of European football. Yet there is no hint of smugness. Ferguson never gloats in the face of an overwhelming victory. Or seeks to deflect the glory on to himself. If anything, he seems strangely restrained. A couple of people even remark that he seems slightly subdued, although that is not to say he is anything but proud and triumphant. ‘To score seven times in a Champions League tie you think is an impossibility,’ he says, sat back in his chair with an expression of rare and complete satisfaction. ‘The quality of our game was so high that once we scored the second and third goals I was thinking: “this could be something really big here.” But even so, I wasn’t expecting that.’

  United, he does not need reminding, managed only three goals in their six Champions League games last season. Tonight they have equalled that total inside the opening nineteen minutes. ‘Hopefully what we have seen is not a one-off,’ Ferguson continues, ‘but the quality was so high it is difficult to think we could ever get that again. It was a fantastic performance: the speed of our play, the penetration, the confidence, the clinical nature of our finishing. Everything. It was just perfect.’

  THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE

  11.4.07

  The problem about scoring seven goals against an Italian side with the best defensive record in the Champions League is that it raises the question: have United peaked too soon? A number of other questions also have to be asked. Is this really the same team that were held to a scoreless draw against Burton Albion last season? Can they ever play like that again? And how is it possible to improve so drastically by selling the club’s top scorer? The whole thing is, quite frankly, bizarre.

  The rout is described in the Independent as ‘one of the most exhilarating, affirmative and historic performances the European Cup has ever seen’. Oliver Kay hails a performance in The Times that ‘will be replayed all over the world as confirmation the Manchester United phenomenon has been reborn’. Henry Winter, the jewel in the Daily Telegraph’s crown, says the life was drained from Roma like ‘the Trevi fountain in a drought’ and the Daily Mail’s Paul Hayward points out ‘there have been international rugby matches that have ended less than 8-3’.

  Ferguson often tells a little white lie about never reading the newspapers but they are lined up on his table today.

  Seventh heaven in Theatre of Dreams

  Fantasy Football

  Rampant United lead the charge

  Rout of Roma

  Seven wonders of sublime United

  After the game, in the ‘mixed zone’ interview area, it was one of those rare occasions when all the United players were happy to talk. The Italians were stunned. Some, like Totti, barged past without saying a word, their eyes smouldering with anger. Others looked dazed, shaking their heads with exaggerated slowness when we asked for interviews. Christian Panucci, a defender with forty-eight international caps, was one of the few to stop and we asked him what it was like to face Ronaldo. ‘If he starts off with the ball at his feet, you can’t catch him,’ he explained, shaking his head mournfully. ‘It’s like he’s Valentino Rossi. Or Juan Manuel Fangio. If you give me an engine, maybe I could keep up with him. Otherwise it’s helpless, just helpless.’

  Italian football has not been humiliated like this since Juventus lost 7-0 to Wiener SK of Austria in the 1958 European Cup, and their newspapers reflect a sense of national shock. ‘I do not recall such an apocalyptic quarter-final or such a devastating first half in the history of the game,’ Roberto Beccantini writes in La Stampa, describing Roma as ‘stunned, then swept away, then destroyed, then humiliated’. La Repubblica singles out Ronaldo and says the defenders who were assigned to stop him ‘looked like car-sick kids who vomit their elevenses at the first sharp curve’. Totti, the golden boy of Italian football, is ‘Captain Disaster’ in La Gazzetta Dello Sport.

  WEMBLEY BOOKED

  14.4.07

  Manchester United 4

  Watford 1

  FA Cup semi-final

  It is always easy to tell how Manchester United are doing by the number of autograph hunters waiting outside Carrington. This time last year we would roll up and there would be only a sprinkling of supporters by the gates. The numbers have risen all season and when we turn up for Ferguson’s briefings now there are large throngs loitering with intent in strategic positions along the kerbside. Some are in place from sunrise. Every car is a legitimate target and, for us journalists, it can be jaw-achingly embarrassing as they swarm around at each set of barriers, peering through the windows to see who is inside and holding out their autogra
ph books in anticipation. The disappointment when they realise it is a non-footballer is immense and barely disguised.

  The supporters have plenty to be excited about right now and Watford were never going to stop United booking a place in the first FA Cup final at the new Wembley. To their credit, the Premiership’s bottom club provide stiffer opposition than AS Roma, but class comes out in the end. Rooney scores twice, Ronaldo and Richardson get the others, and Watford’s manager Adrian Boothroyd is philosophical. ‘I was at Old Trafford for the game against Roma,’ he says. ‘I stopped taking notes at one point and started clapping.’

  It has been an outstanding week for United, with eleven goals in two games, and the other good news is that Ronaldo has agreed to sign a new contract. Madrid’s newspapers, particularly Marca, have been reporting an end-of-season transfer for Ronaldo as being a done deal and this is Ferguson’s chance to put them in their place.

  Madrid, he says, have no regard for anyone but themselves. ‘There was never any reason for Cristiano to think about leaving other than that thing about people perceiving Real Madrid as galacticos. Or whatever the hell it is they call themselves. They have a pre-conceived notion of themselves at Madrid, don’t they? But you couldn’t say they are ahead of Manchester United.’