Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

‘Why? Why?’ said Gary, alarmed. ‘Does he play?’

‘How would I know?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

But Gary was already on to me. There would be no betting on Diego. He slaughtered them all. Cut them to ribbons.

‘You think we’re stupid, don’t you?’ Neville said.

I said, ‘Well, it was worth a try. I was hoping you’d say ten-to-one!’

twelve

THE first time I recognised José Mourinho as a potential threat was at his opening press conference as Chelsea manager in the summer of 2004. ‘I’m the special one,’ José announced. ‘What a cheeky young sod,’ I thought, as I watched him entertain the press with richly quotable material.

An internal voice told me: New kid on the block. Young. No point in discussing him. No point in taking him on. But he’s got the intelligence, the confidence, to deal with the Chelsea job.

I had spoken to Carlos a lot about José and he had told me, ‘He is a very clever boy.’ His knowledge of Mourinho stretched back to a time they had shared in academia. José was one of Carlos’s students in Portugal. ‘My best student by far. By far,’ Carlos told me. Forearmed with that knowledge, I watched him ride the wave of expectation he had created for himself; the wave that carried him from Porto to London to work for Roman Abramovich. José was one of those guys on a surfboard who can stay longer on the wave than everyone else. I knew straight away it would be unwise to engage him in psychological conflict. I would find another way to tackle him.

In the period from August 2004 to May 2006, we won one trophy: the 2006 League Cup. Chelsea and José won the Premier League in both those campaigns. As Arsenal dropped away, Abramovich’s wealth and José’s managerial ability became the biggest obstacle to our rebuilding.

Traditionally, our preparation for a new season had emphasised the second half of the 38-game programme. We always finished strongly. There was science as well as spirit behind our talent for winning games in the months that really mattered.

José was fresh in town, working for an employer with stacks of money, and with hype clearing his path. In the autumn of 2004 he needed to make a strong start in his first weeks at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea skated to a six-point lead and we could never make it up. Once they hit the front in the title race, José made sure they won plenty of games narrowly. It was all one- and two-nil victories. They would take the lead in games and then consolidate. Chelsea were becoming an incredibly hard team to break down. They were much better organised than before. I didn’t win a game at Stamford Bridge after Mourinho arrived.

José put in lots of pre-season work on the defensive shape and played initially with a back three, two wide men and a midfield diamond. Very hard to play against, that formation.

Our first encounter had been the 2003–04 Champions League campaign, when José’s Porto knocked us out. I had a spat with him at the end of the first leg. But I often had disagreements with fellow managers when first running into them. Even George Graham and I clashed after our first meeting when George was at Arsenal. Later, we became good friends. The same is true of Mourinho. I always found him very helpful and very communicative. I think he realised he was dealing with someone who had experienced all the emotional extremes in the game and enjoyed our conversations.

My indignation in that first leg stemmed from all the diving his Porto players were doing. I think he was a bit taken aback by my anger. I went too far. There was no need for me to vent my feelings on José. I was more angry with Keane for being sent off. Playing on my mind was the knowledge that Martin O’Neill had complained about the conduct of José’s players in the UEFA Cup final between Porto and Celtic, which Porto won. There was a seed in me. I had watched that final but didn’t think they were atypical of a Portuguese team. But when Martin O’Neill kept on and on about it, I started to persuade myself that José’s team were cynical.

My first impression in the away leg was that Roy had been the victim of a refereeing misjudgment. On review, it was clear he’d tried to leave his mark on their goalkeeper. That reduced us to ten men and meant Keane was suspended for the return leg.

In the Old Trafford leg, the referee behaved bizarrely. We attacked three or four minutes before the end of the game. Ronaldo beat the full-back and he chopped him down. The linesman flagged but the Russian referee played on. Porto went to the other end and scored.

I congratulated José at the end of that match. When a team knock you out, it’s imperative to find a way to say ‘all the best’. We had a glass of wine and I told him: ‘You were lucky, but good luck in the next leg.’

The next time he appeared at Old Trafford, he brought a bottle of his own wine, a Barca-Velha, and that started a tradition. The wine at Chelsea was awful, which I could never understand. I said to Abramovich once, ‘That’s paint-stripper.’ The next week he sent me a case of Tignanello. A great drop, one of the best.

As for José’s gallop along the touchline at Old Trafford, I’ve done it myself. I think back to when we scored against Sheffield Wednesday and Brian Kidd was on the pitch, on his knees, with me rejoicing on the touchline. I admire people who show you their emotions. It shows you they care.

That Champions League victory over United launched José. Beating Celtic in a UEFA Cup final was an achievement, but defeating Manchester United at Old Trafford and then going on to win the European Cup was a fuller demonstration of his talent. I remember saying to him around 2008, ‘I don’t know when I’m going to retire. It’s difficult when you get older because you’re scared to retire.’ José said: ‘Don’t you retire, you’re keeping me going.’ He said he had other challenges, but definitely wanted to come back to England. He won the Champions League with Inter Milan and La Liga in Spain with Real Madrid before returning to Chelsea in June 2013.

Everyone I speak to tells me that José is exceptionally good with players. He’s meticulous in his planning, the detail. He’s a likeable person when you get to know him, and he can laugh at himself, turn a joke back on himself. I don’t know whether Wenger or Benítez had that capacity.

Watching José tackle the Real Madrid job after his appointment in 2010 was fascinating. It was the most interesting appointment I could remember in the game; the most intriguing match of styles, managerial and playing. Every coach who has worked there has had to adhere to their philosophy. The galáctico philosophy. When they appointed Mourinho, I’m sure they must have accepted that they would need to bend to his thinking if they were to win the European Cup.

It’s like any profession. You bring someone in and suddenly everything is altered, and the authors of that appointment say, ‘Just a minute, we didn’t know we were going to get this.’ There would have been a few fans sitting in the Bernabéu thinking: ‘I’m not happy with this. I didn’t pay for this. I’d rather lose 5–4 than 1–0.’

So the spectacle of José’s time in Madrid held me in its grip. It was the greatest challenge of his working life. He had proved the merits of his ways, at Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan. He had won two European Cups with different clubs. Could he reshape Real Madrid in his own image, to his own thinking? From the beginning, there seemed little prospect of him abandoning his most sacred ideas in favour of all-out attack and celebrity exuberance. He knew that wasn’t the way to succeed in modern football. Barcelona would attack beautifully, but they would also hound the ball when possession was lost. They were a hard-working unit, a collective. In that spell when Real reached three Champions League finals in five years, they had the best players: Zidane, Figo, Roberto Carlos. Fernando Hierro, Iker Casillas in goal, Claude Makélélé sitting in the middle of the park to break everything up.