Ferguson is amazingly proud of United’s status as the biggest club in the world and he hates the idea that Madrid, or anywhere else, should think they are a more attractive proposition.
Someone asked him once whether Arsenal could ever rival United in terms of size after their move to the 60,000-capacity Emirates stadium and he nearly fell off his chair. ‘Rival United? Arsenal? Never! They will need three stadiums and thirty-three teams to rival us as a club. Nobody is as big as Manchester United. Nobody ever will be either.’
THE GLOVES ARE OFF
17.4.07
Manchester United 2
Sheffield United 0
There have been times this season when United have blown away their opponents with the quality of their football and times when the Premiership is so imbalanced they have won comfortably without hitting top form. The supporters inside Old Trafford might be disappointed this is not one of the more illuminating nights but it is unrealistic to expect them to scintillate every week, and Ferguson’s face is still suffused with a broad smile at the final whistle. They may not have come close to their thrilling best but it is another match ticked off, courtesy of goals from Carrick and Rooney, and it keeps them coasting along at the top of the league.
The win is vital because there have been the makings of a Chelsea comeback recently. Chelsea’s season may have been pockmarked with internal disputes and byzantine politics but nobody could question the durability of Mourinho’s team, and since their mid-season blip they have won eight consecutive league games without conceding a goal. They have beaten Arsenal in the Carling Cup final to lift the season’s first silverware and they have defeated Blackburn Rovers to make sure the FA Cup final is a contest between the two leviathans of English football. How Mourinho has managed it in a period of unremitting off-field crisis is anybody’s guess but it is potentially among his finest achievements. He has had to contend with a devastating injury list, with Petr Cech, John Terry and Joe Cole among the long-term absentees. His five major summer signings – Shevchenko, Ballack, Ashley Cole, John Obi Mikel and Khalid Boulahrouz – have all had sub-standard seasons. Then there has been all the infighting with Kenyon and Arnesen and the daily ritual of his future being debated all over the sports pages. The backdrop has been so poisonous it would have rocked any other club to the foundations. And yet here are Chelsea, still fighting, still plugging away.
The gap has come down to six points and, as predicted, the bickering has started. April is always the month when the insults start to fly and Mourinho has already described United as ‘lucky’ to be top. Ferguson has taken exception to that and, like a schoolmaster admonishing a naughty third-former, suggested that Mourinho should ‘button his lip for the rest of the season’. But Mourinho has never been a man to take advice on professional courtesies. He has questioned Ronaldo’s habit for winning dubious penalties and he has complained so many times about referees favouring United that Ferguson has threatened to bring out a dossier on Chelsea’s many different controversies with match officials. Mourinho, he says, is ‘the last person who should ever talk about referees’.
Ferguson has also accused the Premier League of showing favouritism to Chelsea because of the way they have structured the fixture list. The response was classic Mourinho: ‘Alex is an intelligent man but his problem is he thinks other people are stupid. They are not and can only laugh.’
It is a soap opera of the cheapest kind: two men at the very top of their profession bickering and backbiting. Yet let’s not be too pious because, let’s face it, it is also hugely entertaining and if this is the way it is going to be for the rest of the season – tit-for-tat sniping, dirty tricks and wars of words – we journalists love it as much as anyone. Her Majesty’s Press enjoys nothing more than a good old-fashioned feud, and Ferguson v Mourinho is promising to become every bit as rancorous as Ferguson v Wenger or indeed Mourinho v Wenger. If is there is one thing for certain, it is that this is going to run and run.
A FULL HOUSE
23.4.07
A big press conference today. Milan, the famous rossoneri, are at Old Trafford tomorrow for the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals and it is standing-room only in the Europa suite. At Carrington there are only a dozen of us at some briefings, but today, in a room decorated with photographs of the club’s most celebrated European nights, there are roughly 150 newspaper journalists, thirty radio reporters and another twenty television crews. Lorries with satellite dishes are parked on the concourse. Press-packs in different languages are handed out and Ferguson is flanked by an interpreter as he takes his seat behind a cluster of brightly coloured microphones. Everything has to be translated and there is a distinct feel of the 1970s sitcom Mind Your Language. The Italians are on one side, looking tanned and aloof in their dark shades and sharp suits. A group of Portuguese journalists is on Ronaldo-watch. The back row is filled by Japanese reporters. There are South Koreans, Americans and Scandinavians dotted round the edges. All of Europe’s influential football newspapers – L’Equipe, Marca, Bild and so on – are represented, and the English dailies have sent their best teams of reporters.
Ferguson is wearing a summer suit, his hair is neatly brushed and he spends most of the conference in international ambassador-of-the-club mode. A Dutch journalist wants to know whether he thinks Van der Sar is the Premiership’s outstanding goalkeeper. A Norwegian radio reporter asks for a comment on Solskjaer. A Portuguese reporter wants a reaction to Eusebio being in hospital. Another asks whether Ronaldo is the most exciting player in the world and Ferguson nods sagely. ‘To my mind, he’s the best,’ he says, ‘and you can’t say that lightly given the fantastic footballers around.’
Strictly speaking, it is not a great press conference. Most of the foreign journalists just want a quick sound bite about the players from their countries and it is difficult to get any real flow or momentum. But at this stage of the competition it is always about more than the match anyway. These events are an opportunity for Ferguson to show the club in the best possible light and he does it with understated brilliance. Every question is answered thoughtfully, he is sparing with his time and when the Italians start to grill him about Milan he eloquently eulogises about what he regards as one of the great names in football.
Milan, he points out, have won the European Cup six times, compared to United’s two. It is the fourth time in five seasons they have reached the semi-finals – their eleventh in total – and their squad reads like a Who’s Who of the Champions League’s elite. They have eight players with at least one winner’s medal and, in the case of Paolo Maldini, four. They have a sweetly gifted midfielder-cum-striker, Kaka, who is fast replacing Ronaldinho as the star of Brazilian football, and they have three of the more influential players from Italy’s victorious World Cup: Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso and Alessandro Nesta. Ferguson has tried more than once to sign Gattuso. Maldini, the club’s symbol of class and continuity, is his ‘favourite player in Europe over the last fifteen years’.
The irony is that Milan’s involvement in the competition is questionable, to say the least. At the start of the season, they were found guilty in a referee-rigging scandal, banned from the Champions League and deducted fifteen points in Serie A. Milan appealed and UEFA’s emergency panel re-admitted them with extreme reluctance because there was ‘no choice’ legally. Now, eight months on, Milan are threatening to embarrass UEFA by reaching the final. They have all their best players available and will walk out at Old Trafford as favourites, if only because of the injury problems that are handicapping United.
Before European games we are allowed, under UEFA regulations, to watch the players train for fifteen minutes at Carrington and when we roll up to the practice pitches this morning there are only ten senior outfield players going through the usual drills.
Ferguson says it is an ‘injury crisis of major proportions’ and describes the squad as ‘down to the bare bones’. The first question from Sky sums it up – ‘Have you got enough players to
make a squad?’ – and he reluctantly has to accept it will be difficult to put together ‘an adequate bench’.
He has no time, however, for feeling sorry for himself. ‘I don’t have any fears,’ he says, and he is as upbeat as could be expected for someone who might have to field a completely new defence. ‘The injuries have come at a bad time for us. But I see the mood in the camp and it pleases me. It’s difficult to think we can get to the standard we got against Roma, because that was a once-in-a-lifetime result, but we should still expect a very good performance. The quality of our opponents and the importance of the occasion demands the very best from us.’
The press conference has been a success and there is a classic Ferguson moment at the end, as everyone is rising to their feet, when an Italian journalist tries to get his attention.
‘Mr Ferguson, what do you think of the Italian match-fixing scandal?’
But Ferguson is preparing to leave, only half paying attention.
‘Scandal?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ the Italian calls out, ‘the scandal …’ ‘Scandalous,’ Ferguson replies deadpan. And then he’s out of the door.
LIVING ON YOUR NERVES
24.4.07
Manchester United 3
Milan 2
Champions League semi-final, first leg
There are times with Manchester United when it feels like there must be something in their DNA that stipulates they can never do things the easy way. When you think you have worked them out, they come up with something new to scrape your nerve-ends. Even when everything seems lost, it is never over until the Fat Lady has a heart attack. ‘Nobody scores more late goals than us,’ Ferguson says proudly, and it is a quality that adds to the romance surrounding the club.
On evening games, each newspaper is waiting for the journalist’s match report before it can go to press and there isn’t time to write it at the final whistle. Instead, we submit a series of staggered extracts known as a ‘runner’, the first of which is filed at halftime, the second after about seventy minutes and the ‘top and tails’, meaning the introductory paragraph and the closing line, five minutes before the final whistle. In theory, it is the only way to get the copy over in time for the early print run. In practice, it has a nasty habit of biting us on the backside.
After the European Cup final in 1999 Ferguson told us he had deliberately requested some of the early editions so he could read our reports of a match that Bayern Munich were winning 1-0 until stoppage time. We weren’t sure whether he was just teasing but if he did ever get his hands on those newspapers he would find large swathes of text, all written and sent after eighty-five minutes, dedicated to United’s tactical failings and paying tribute to their opponents. Before the game turned upside down thousands of words had been submitted telling the gloomily depressing story of German efficiency steering United towards defeat. Long passages were dedicated to the obduracy of the Bayern defence and the inability of United’s strikers to have any impact. Journalists buying the European editions of their newspapers on the streets of Barcelona the next morning turned to the sports pages with a mixture of dread and embarrassment.
Tonight is another occasion when the shout of ‘rewrite’ reverberates through the pressbox and the blood pressure hits the roof. At half-time United are 2–1 down and it looks hopeless. Kaka has scored two sumptuous goals, dancing through the redesigned United defence, and it is easy to see how Milan put out Bayern in the quarter-finals. Old Trafford is watching in leaden dismay and Milan are letting their minds drift to a straightforward-looking return leg at the San Siro.
But United just never give up. The first half has been a story of Italian control and sophistication. The second is of United’s speed, agility and sheer bloodymindedness. On the hour, Scholes clips a wonderful pass and Rooney controls the ball on his chest and beats the goalkeeper Dida. Kaka has had the game in the palm of his hand but then he puts one wide, another high, and it is here that the night no longer belongs to him and falls into Rooney’s possession. Giggs picks up the ball and breaks forward with pace and purpose. As he crosses the halfway line the clock ticks past ninety minutes. United are the early-leavers’ nightmare. Giggs slips a diagonal pass into Rooney and he takes his shot early, thumping it with his right foot, hard and low. And then he is lying on the turf, with his knees tucked up to his chin and he is screaming into his clenched fists. It is 3-2 and United stand on the verge of the final.
It scarcely seems credible that an Italian team could be so careless. But this is what United do: they make life difficult for themselves, offer their rivals hope then react like no other team. They take us to the brink, leave us with our fingernails bitten to the quick then invariably find a way to win. It is a team built on skill and flair but most of all a love of drama. The most devastating secondhalf team on the planet – despite what Wenger says.
Ferguson’s press conference is relatively low-key bearing in mind the importance of the match. ‘We were the better team,’ he says but he is unhappy about the defending, accusing them of conceding ‘two terrible goals’, and when you hear the irritation in his voice it is fair to assume he has made the point forcibly in the dressing room. He cannot stay angry for long, however. There is too much to cherish. In the first light of morning, this result will be put in perspective and Kaka’s goals will feel a lot more devastating when taking into account the away-goal rule. But tonight it is all about the drama. There is no more exciting sight anywhere in football than United chasing a game and for the first time Ferguson says they have shown they can win the competition. ‘We are in a fantastic position,’ he says. ‘I think we will score again over there. It won’t be easy going to Milan – but it won’t be easy for them either.’
PORTUGUESE MAN OF WAR
27.4.07
The relationship between Mourinho and Ferguson is officially declared bankrupt today. Mourinho has been chipping away and Ferguson comes prepared to his press conference. He knows what he wants to say, exactly how it should be and by the time it is finished the myth that is their ‘friendship’ is shattered. Mourinho, he says, has ‘no respect for anyone but himself’.
Ferguson has been building up to this moment for some time and the only real surprise is that it has taken so long. Mourinho has already suggested that referees are in favour of United and that Chelsea are being assailed from every side by all manner of devious plots. His complaints have become increasingly hysterical as the season has gone on and the allegations have been upgraded to a firmly declared conspiracy theory about the reasons for United’s position at the top of the table. ‘The problem for Chelsea,’ he says, ‘is that we not only have to face difficult opponents but also new football rules. One is that you’re not allowed penalties against Manchester United. Another is that you’re not allowed to give penalties in favour of Chelsea. If I am wrong, I will have to visit the optician. But it seems to me United are forbidden to lose.’
Even by Mourinho’s standards it has been an extraordinarily tempestuous week. While United have been grappling with Milan, Chelsea have been contesting the other Champions League semi-final with Liverpool. He has questioned whether Liverpool would resort to dirty tricks to nobble Didier Drogba. He has mocked their form in the league and he has judged Rafael Benitez’s record by speculating that the same results at Stamford Bridge would have got him the sack.
Benitez’s theory is that Mourinho is friends only with managers of teams that are no threat to Chelsea and if that is true it seems to extend to the players too. Ronaldo has been on Portuguese television to argue that referees are equally fair to everyone and that ‘the whole world knows how Mourinho is’. Mourinho has responded by calling him, among other things, a ‘liar’.
The anger in Ferguson spills out in a long, impassioned diatribe. ‘Just because Cristiano has an opinion does not mean he is a liar,’ he says. ‘Jose seems to be on some sort of a personal crusade about regulations and his suspicions in the game. He has accused referees. He has insulted Liverpool, a
club with great history. He suggested their players were going to hunt down Drogba. Jesus Christ, it goes on and on and on. It’s a rant, all the time, and it’s really disappointing.’
His face shows that he means business. ‘It’s all calculated,’ he says. ‘He’s a very clever man and by saying that no one is allowed to get penalties at Old Trafford it puts terrible pressure on the referees in our future games. He is trying to get a penalty kick awarded against us and that is wrong. That, without doubt, is calculated and, if we do get a penalty kick against us, he wins. There’s no doubt about that: a penalty against us and Mourinho wins the war.’
There are times with Ferguson when you just place the tape recorder in front of him and let him speak. Questions are superfluous. And he hasn’t finished yet. ‘In some people’s eyes he’s a hero, you know,’ he says disbelievingly. ‘I don’t know who’s a villain or who’s a hero here?’ He accuses Mourinho of ‘thumbing his nose’ at the football authorities and he questions why the FA have not taken disciplinary action. ‘I am surprised, absolutely, because it just goes on and on and on.’
He carries on for a few more minutes and, finally, when he has got everything off his chest he lets us know by outstretching his arms and giving us a little nod. ‘Anyway,’ he says, looking out of the window to the fields around Carrington and smiling broadly, ‘it’s a lovely day, isn’t it? The birds are whistling here … and the sparrows are waking up at Stamford Bridge coughing.’
This is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius Page 26
