Football – Bloody Hell! (43 page)
Read Football – Bloody Hell! Online
Authors: Patrick Barclay
What Ferguson said might have been vaguely self-parodic – but it wasn’t funny because it seemed casually to insult a game which most of us believed to have honest referees and, for that matter, fixture compilers. Moreover, it exposed for the umpteenth time the element of hypocrisy involved in railing against supposed trouble-making in the media while remaining such an arch-exponent of the black art himself.
The response from Benítez ran to several hundred words, including: ‘I am surprised that United are starting the mind games so early. Maybe it is because we are top of the table.’ Three weeks later, after draws with Stoke, Everton and Wigan, they were second.
United never relinquished the leadership, despite Liverpool’s staggering 4-1 triumph at Old Trafford in March. Fernando Torres utterly dominated Nemanja Vidi
ć
, who was sent off, as he had been in a 2–1 defeat at Anfield early in the season. At Fulham, where United lost 2-0, Wayne Rooney’s frustrations with fellow players seemed to impel him to hurl the ball too near the referee, Phil Dowd, who showed him a second yellow card.
ć
, who was sent off, as he had been in a 2–1 defeat at Anfield early in the season. At Fulham, where United lost 2-0, Wayne Rooney’s frustrations with fellow players seemed to impel him to hurl the ball too near the referee, Phil Dowd, who showed him a second yellow card.
The match after won them the title, for they were losing at home to Aston Villa, one of the best away sides in the League, when Ronaldo equalised with his second majestic goal of the match and then the young substitute Macheda, having lost his marker with a deft flick, curled the ball round Brad Friedel’s dive for a stunning winner two minutes into stoppage time. It was all so reminiscent of the Steve Bruce double against Sheffield Wednesday in the run-in to Ferguson’s first title in 1993.
And that was it. Benítez’s Liverpool, though the only points they dropped in their last eleven matches were in a 4-4 draw in which Andrei Arshavin scored all of Arsenal’s goals from their only four attempts, could not catch Ferguson’s United. Had the points dropped after Rafa’s Rant made the real difference? Here the Machiavellians had a better case than in 1996, with Kevin Keegan. But who knows? Ferguson was just doing what came naturally.
Beaten by Barca
T
he 2008/9 title triumph was all the more praiseworthy because being European champions brought United extra commitments: the European Super Cup match in Monaco at the end of the summer, which they lost to Zenit St Petersburg without anyone taking much notice, and Fifa’s Club World Championship. This was the tournament which the club had helped to launch in Brazil nine years earlier. It now took place in Japan. United, beating Gamba Osaka 5–3 and the Ecuadorian club Liga de Quito 1–0, won it, again evoking little reaction from the folks back home.
he 2008/9 title triumph was all the more praiseworthy because being European champions brought United extra commitments: the European Super Cup match in Monaco at the end of the summer, which they lost to Zenit St Petersburg without anyone taking much notice, and Fifa’s Club World Championship. This was the tournament which the club had helped to launch in Brazil nine years earlier. It now took place in Japan. United, beating Gamba Osaka 5–3 and the Ecuadorian club Liga de Quito 1–0, won it, again evoking little reaction from the folks back home.
Defending the Champions League did matter and, after negotiating a group containing Celtic, Villarreal and Aalborg, Ferguson took on his friend Mourinho; Inter were no match for United, who were given more trouble by Porto, qualifying for the semi-finals through a stunning free-kick by Ronaldo at the Dragão. And so they met Arsenal, whose progress had been uncharacteristically dogged. United, however, swept Arsène Wenger’s team aside. Although their goalkeeper, Manuel Almunia, restricted United to a John O’Shea goal at Old Trafford, the second leg proved electrifyingly one-sided.
Here was Ronaldo at his very best. Ferguson used him at centre-forward, flanked by Ji-Sung Park and Wayne Rooney with a tight trio of Darren Fletcher (by now one of Ferguson’s big-match men), Michael Carrick and Anderson behind them. After seven minutes Ronaldo pulled the ball back and, after the young Arsenal full-back Kieran Gibbs had slipped on the turf, Park scored. Three minutes later a Ronaldo free-kick beat Almunia for pace at his near post. So it was all over long before United struck again on the hour with a devastating counter-attack. Ronaldo began it with a backheel and, after Park had found Rooney on the left, rounded it off from the Englishman’s fine pass.
There was still time for a regret: as Cesc Fàbregas ran through on Edwin van der Sar, Fletcher snaked out a leg, but his tackle was deemed foul and a red card ruled him out of the final. Ferguson watched with a mixture of incredulity and contempt for the Italian referee, Roberto Rosetti, but it had been a reckless challenge given the state of the match. Robin van Persie’s conversion of the penalty was incidental.
From Park’s point of the view, the night was to end more happily. As usual, the post-match gathering of press featured a little group of South Koreans. Park had scored, they pointed out – but would he once again be disappointed when the team was picked for the final? ‘I don’t think he’ll be disappointed this time,’ said Ferguson, all but promising Park a place, just as he had done with Paul Scholes the year before.
And Park duly trotted out in Rome. The team shape was unchanged from the Emirates Stadium, with Ryan Giggs coming in for Fletcher. As for Barcelona, an unkind combination of injury and suspension had obliged Pep Guardiola, at the end of his first, extremely promising, season in charge, to recast the defence with Yaya Touré, normally a holding midfielder, next to Gerard Pique, once of United, in the middle. Both Andrés Iniesta, whose last-minute goal had won a roller-coaster semi-final against Chelsea, and Thierry Henry played with injuries that would have kept them out of a less important match.
In the first minute, Ronaldo struck a free-kick with such power that Víctor Valdés could only parry; Park tried to pounce but was thwarted by Pique. ‘But for what Gerard did at that moment,’ said Henry, ‘it could have been a different match.’ For another nine minutes, Barcelona were embarrassingly nervous. Unforced errors sent the ball out of play; Touré and Carles Puyol ran into each other.
‘It was the narrow escape from the free-kick,’ said Henry. ‘We just couldn’t settle. There was a corner kick straight after, and then a couple of crosses. You realise you’re lucky not to be behind and you kind of forget who you are for a while. It’s like when a great boxer gets knocked down. It doesn’t mean he won’t win the fight. But for the rest of the three minutes, until he hears the bell, he’s going to struggle. In football, unfortunately, there’s no bell.’
Yet it began to toll for United as early as the tenth minute. Guardiola had made a significant tactical change in starting with Samuel Eto’o rather than Lionel Messi to the right of the front trio so that Messi could link with Iniesta in the middle. Suddenly Iniesta broke from midfield and fed Eto’o, to whose teasing Nemanja Vidi
ć
responded by standing off, an extraordinary decision that the striker punished by squeezing a shot past Van der Sar.
ć
responded by standing off, an extraordinary decision that the striker punished by squeezing a shot past Van der Sar.
‘After that, we believed we would win,’ said Henry. ‘Once we are in front, we seldom lose the game. It suits the way we play. When the opponents come at us, we can get at them. And, as soon as guys like Andrés and Xavi got on the ball, we played our game. That was what the boss had told us to do. “No matter what happens today,” he had said, “I want the world to know, and to appreciate, and to recognise, the way we play.” Those were his words. Okay, he gave us all the tactical stuff as well, but those were his only words of motivation.’
From Xavi’s cross, bent almost mischievously so that Rio Ferdinand, like Vidi
ć
earlier, was put in two minds, little Messi headed a second goal and it was left to Ferguson to congratulate the winners. Henry was talking to Patrice Evra on the pitch when he walked over. ‘Well done,’ he told Henry. ‘You deserved it.’
ć
earlier, was put in two minds, little Messi headed a second goal and it was left to Ferguson to congratulate the winners. Henry was talking to Patrice Evra on the pitch when he walked over. ‘Well done,’ he told Henry. ‘You deserved it.’
He paid further tribute to Guardiola in the press conference, adding: ‘It’s a credit to them that they pursue their football philosophy.’ Barcelona’s passing game had indeed made them popular champions, though Henry stressed: ‘The most important thing is the way everybody works. It’s not just one or two pressing – it’s everybody. If you want to win, you have to do it. Pressure, pressure, pressure. And it’s tiring – I can tell you!’
Ferguson would have approved of that. But, as the inquest began, he wasted little time in letting it be known that something had gone wrong with United’s preparation: something that could be put right if the sides met again. He did not define it. It was as Mourinho said. He was already playing the next game. In case fate was to bring United and Barcelona together again.
Ronaldo Goes, the Debt Grows
B
y the start of 2010, Manchester United’s debts had grown to more than £700 million and it looked as if much of what would otherwise have been Ferguson’s transfer budget was being diverted by the Glazers to pay their interest bill.
y the start of 2010, Manchester United’s debts had grown to more than £700 million and it looked as if much of what would otherwise have been Ferguson’s transfer budget was being diverted by the Glazers to pay their interest bill.
The Old Trafford crowd seemed to have turned into a vast protest meeting – ‘Love United, Hate Glazers’ was the slogan – and had even changed hue from the familiar red to green and gold, the club’s colours in its original incarnation as Newton Heath, its name from inauguration in 1878 until 1902. Scarves in these colours became prevalent on the steep slopes. Meanwhile, a group of wealthy men known as the Red Knights and led by Jim O’Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs and a United fan of unquestionable credentials who had briefly served on the board in the mid-1990s, plotted a takeover from the Glazers.
The odd aspect was that Ferguson maintained a friendship with O’Neill. For he also maintained strong and boldly audible support for the Glazers. If he felt any sense of shame over the Glazers and the consequences of his having encouraged Magnier and McManus to buy into the club, he hid it under a mountain of praise for the stewardship of the Americans who had in turn bought out the Irish pair.
His most memorable paean was delivered, with perfect timing, in the wake of the Champions League triumph over Chelsea in Moscow in 2008. Back at Carrington less than thirty-six hours after the final penalty at the Luzhniki Stadium, he dispensed the club’s champagne and lauded the Glazers for having ‘balls’, swearing that they would keep Cristiano Ronaldo out of Real Madrid’s clutches for at least two years and maybe a lot longer, which proved hopelessly optimistic; within one year, a world record offer of £81 million had proved irresistible.
Now Ferguson’s United, who used to break records as buyers, were sellers and Real, whom Ferguson had come to detest, appeared to be using them almost as a feeder club.
Ferguson had been able to claim that he wanted to sell Beckham. And that was certainly the view of the episode that Beckham conveyed to me four years on. Having been invited to the David Beckham Academy in the Docklands of east London the morning after England’s removal from the European Championship by Croatia in 2007, I asked if he thought he could have continued at the top level with United. ‘I believe I could still be playing for them now,’ replied the thirty-two-year-old exile, now playing his club football with LA Galaxy, smiling as he added: ‘But I’m not the manager.’
Nor was he going to leave the subject there. ‘I’ve just read Bobby Charlton’s autobiography,’ Beckham said, ‘and it was interesting to see what he wrote about me leaving United, because he talked about seeing the contract I was offered and the amount of money involved. Well, I didn’t see any contract, let alone the “excellent, generous” offer he was talking about. Whether it was kept back by certain people I don’t know.’ Would he have stayed if such riches had been tendered? Beckham’s look verged on the withering. ‘I’d have played for Manchester United,’ he said, ‘for free.’
So Beckham had left by Ferguson’s choice. Ferguson had also, when he lost Ruud van Nistelrooy to Real, got away with a contention that the Dutchman had been too unpopular to keep; there were leaks of friction with Ronaldo. Nor did many of the supporters mind too much when Gabriel Heinze went to the Bernabéu, because Patrice Evra, the Frenchman signed from Monaco, seemed a livelier left-back. But Ronaldo was different. Ronaldo was Ferguson’s top player. Even more so than Gordon Strachan had been at Aberdeen. And, just as Aberdeen had been unable to satisfy Strachan, the club that had developed Ronaldo lost out to the club of his heart.
Ferguson replaced him with Antonio Valencia, a quick and clever wide player from Ecuador who had been impressive at Wigan Athletic, and there was no complaint from the Glazers as they collected a £65 million profit.
They would have had to cough up nearly half of that if Carlos Tévez, the on-loan former West Ham player owned, in effect, by his agent, Kia Joorabchian, had been signed on a permanent basis – and the deal would have been done had the crowd’s wishes been answered after the final home fixture of the season, the scoreless draw with Arsenal which clinched the title. But, as Tévez was withdrawn in the sixty-seventh minute, to thunderous cheers and the now-familiar chants of ‘Fergie, Fergie, sign him up’, the prolonged nature of his wave to all corners left little room for doubt that his future was elsewhere. Not far away, as it turned out; he went to Manchester City. Ferguson claimed to have tried to make the Argentine an offer; Tévez denied having received the message.
But it did leave more money over for paying the Glazers’ interest charges. As did Ferguson’s idea of a replacement: Michael Owen on a free transfer. Owen eventually and inevitably succumbed to injury. Ferguson also signed the young French wide midfielder Gabriel Obertan for £3 million and, in mid-season, the Senegalese striker Mame Biram Diouf for £4 million. Meanwhile, it was revealed that, of a £72 million profit made by United the previous year, £69 million had been swallowed up by interest. Many United fans, though still happy with what they saw on the field, did what Americans would have called the ‘math’ with mounting outrage. But almost to the last fixture of the season, when the protests extended to a couple of smoke bombs in the Old Trafford forecourt before United beat Stoke City in vain, Ferguson exuded pro-Glazer sentiment.
He still appeared to believe what he had said at Carrington after the Champions League final: ‘It’s all nonsense. They are brilliant owners. All takeovers are done by debt. Do you think that, if I wanted to take over Marks & Spencer, I could just go and get £3 billion from under the floorboards? No – I’d go to the Bank of Scotland.’
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