Sir Alex Ferguson: I won’t be Manchester United boss when I'm 70
Ferguson sets deadline to quit but promises to make Man Utd grow, on and off the field
Jonathan Northcroft
Sometimes it’s the littler moments that reveal greatness in its magnitude. John Terry was still blubbing and colleagues were celebrating when Ryan Giggs sought out Cristiano Ronaldo, cupped his head and peered into his eyes. “I said, ‘Enjoy this, and make sure it’s not your last’. At 23, and with his talent, Cristiano should be having more nights like this,†said Giggs. Ten minutes after Manchester United ended 2007-08 as European champions came the first team talk of 2008-09.
Sir Alex Ferguson did not open his mouth. Relentless, unquenchable, seldom has a club been so much in its manager’s image. Ferguson has arrived at that point of nirvana sought by men of history, where he so influences others that he does not need to be present for his work to be done. It is called legacy, and it is why, on Friday, fingers curled round a flute of champagne, Ferguson could at last reveal how his epic will end. He is not planning another “ghost retirement†as in 2001-02, but the real thing, for that serene and stately, and final, ride into the long sunset.
Ferguson, 67 on December 31, announced he would not be managing when he is 70. He has three seasons left, at most. The likelihood, wishing to keep everyone on their toes, is that Ferguson will go sooner, perhaps at the end of 2009-10. He will have served 24 years as manager by then, the same, he will know, as Sir Matt Busby.
Botoxed by silverware yet again, Ferguson did not look like someone yielding to age, but then he seldom does. He makes a lie out of the idea it is the young who have no fear. Both pre-match and when destiny called inside the Luzhniki stadium, Ferguson was the more relaxed manager, acting the more daringly, and thus shaped victory over Avram Grant.
In triumph’s afterglow, he was sparkling, teasing a Tory-voting journalist (“David Cameron will fall apart, don’t worry. He’s naw got it . . . â€) and cracking jokes about the city he has so tormented, Liverpool. During United’s all-night party in Moscow he had been too busy talking to friends and playing with his grandchildren to have more than two glasses of red wine, “and a bit of cheeseâ€. Ever Sir Polymath, he digressed to offer a connoisseur’s guide to caviar; he was disappointed that at United’s buffet (“£400 per head . . . and you paid cash!â€) only red caviar (“too stickyâ€) was available but, no matter, Andrei Kanchelskis turned up with a gift of black caviar (“the good stuff, from the Caspian Seaâ€).
Then Ferguson laid out his remaining challenges. One is making United so mammoth it would become futile for rival clubs even to try courting star players like Ronaldo. Another is helping Wayne Rooney develop as spectacularly as the Portuguese. Finally, he confirmed even men’s men can be soft as butter. This iron manager admitted a surprising taste for Meg Ryan films.
Sir Alex, your next landmark birthday is your 70th. Will you still be in charge of Manchester United then?
“No. I won’t be manager here when I’m 70 and I won’t be managing any more than another three years at the very most.â€
Why?
“You have to think about time for yourself. And my wife’s getting older, and you have to think about that. She deserves a bit of my time. The older you get, you get guilty about it.â€
When you considered retiring in 2001-02, Lady Cathy was one of the main people who persuaded you to rethink. You said she wouldn’t like you hanging about the house.
“Aye. But she would. She never brings it up, to be honest with you. The big fear is what you would do with yourself. There’s too many examples of people who retire and are in their box soon after. Because you’re taking away the very thing that makes you alive, that keeps you alive. I remember my dad had his 65th birthday and the Fairfields shipyard gave him a dinner in Glasgow with 400 people there. It was a big night for my dad. I was in Aberdeen and came down for it on a Friday. The next week my mother phones and said, ‘Your dad’s going in for an X-ray, he has pains in his chest’. I said, ‘It’ll be emotion’. Well, it was cancer. A week. One week.â€
So you know you’ll find retirement tough.
“That’s the point I’m making. That’s why I cannae do it, at the moment anyway.â€
In 2001-02 there was talk of you taking up an ambassadorial role with United. Is that still a possibility?
“We’re taking on a clutch of ambassadors within the club, like Bryan Robson. Sir Bobby Charlton’s one. That’s possibly one of the avenues for me. Bryan and Bobby do 40 days a year. And I’ve a contract with Nike — that takes a bit of your time. I’d like to travel to some of the places I’ve never visited, go to the States and spend maybe three or four months there.
“But you can only do that once. You can go to Australia once, but you can’t go every year. So you’re left with that thing you say to yourself. What about these mornings when you wake up at 6am and you go to get up out of your bed, then remember, ‘Oh, but I’ve finished’. That’s the hard part, the hard thought. But you’d hope you can survive that.
“Every year mates from my boys’ team, Hampden Road, come down to Manchester. Every one of them has been married for more than 40 years. One or two have died, but there are 11 or 12 who still visit. Well, I’ve got a pal, Duncan. I was in nursery with Duncan at four years of age, we’ve been pals for more than 60 years. He retired when he was 50 and spends six months of the year travelling. He bought a house in Florida and his wife looks on the internet. ‘There’s a deal in Cyprus, we’ll go to Cyprus. There’s a deal in Australia, we’ll go to Australia’. They visit Canada. Duncan’s got brothers in Ottawa, in the same town some of my family moved to.
“He’s fit as a fiddle. He plays his golf, sees his grandchildren. It can be done. And Manchester United will still be part of my life. I’ve got a good relationship. There’s no question of me ever being sacked. Most things will be my decision and David Gill is happy with that.â€
Can you keep Cristiano Ronaldo?
“Ronaldo will not be leaving here in the next two years at least. He knows what’s best for him. When he becomes 25 or 26 he might have a different view and want something else out of life. And I wouldn’t be against him in that respect. What we’ve got to try and do is make sure we’re bigger. We can’t rest on what happened in Moscow. We’ve got to make ourselves bigger.
“It’s like this. Do you remember that movie called ‘I’ve Got Email’. With, um, Meg Ryan. The wee shop round the corner gets engulfed by the big one owned by Tom Hanks and she can’t do anything about it. That’s been happening in society for 30 or 40 years; the wee shop gets engulfed by the supermarkets. Well, we don’t want to be one of the small shops. I’d bloody hate to think Real Madrid can ride roughshod over us about a player. Yes, they courted Ruud van Nistelrooy and his agent courted Real Madrid. That was a marriage made in hell. The minute Van Nistelrooy signed his new contract it was a certainty he was leaving here. His one idea was to go to Real Madrid. We wanted him to go. Same with David Beckham, we wanted to sell Beckham. We don’t want to sell Ronaldo.â€
How do you make United bigger? Is expanding the stadium part of it?
“I’m on to David Gill all the time about that. I know what we can do. In the main stand, at both ends, you build a steel structure up and across. Right? We can’t build back, because of the railway line behind, so we build upwards the way I’m talking about. Or shove all you press boys somewhere out of the road. That would get us 200 or 300 seats . . .
“Building just one corner of the main stand would get us another 6,500 seats and take us up to around 83,000 capacity. We could sell 100,000 tickets for our games but, architecturally, that’s not possible. At least if we build the way I’m talking about, it would make the façade of the stadium symmetrical all the way round and we’d reach Real Madrid’s level in terms of capacity, and it would make us bigger than anyone in England could do.â€
How else can the club expand?
“Well, commercially we’ve done well. David Gill’s got a good team together. But that’s not my department. To me, the money we make doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters to me is that black type, as they say in racing circles. You want to play in European Cup finals. If someone like Ronaldo is playing in the European Cup final every year, he’s not going to go anywhere.â€
Are you ever worried Wayne Rooney might feel uncomfortable about the rise of Ronaldo? When he joined United he was supposed to be the star.
“They’re great pals. I don’t think it affects the boy, no. Wayne’s a winner. It doesn’t bother him one bit. He’s got that, I suppose, Liverpool attitude, that ‘bugger you all’ type thing. And he doesn’t court celebrity. His girlfriend is great that way too. She’s a clever girl, down to earth.â€
Some fans say Rooney is too unselfish for his own good, that he’d get more glory if he wasn’t such a team player.
“Rooney’s not a selfish boy. He is a committed winner. He makes a lot of sacrifices, which don’t reflect on his individual performance, but as a team player he’s fantastic. He’ll play anywhere you ask. I mean, he says to me the other week, ‘Boss, I can play centre-half’. He’s said it half-a-dozen times. ‘I played centre-half for the school, you know’. I said, ‘But we’re playing against Drogba…’
“It’s a fantastic asset if you’ve got players like that. I had Brian McClair, a fantastic footballer. You could say to Chalky, ‘Go and play at right-back’, and he’d say, ‘Nothing surprises me about you’. He was so nonchalant, so temperamentally capable, that he could go and do it. And Rooney’s got the same assets in terms of saying, ‘Yeah, for the team, no problem’. He’s great.â€
His progress has not been as dramatic as Ronaldo’s, though.
“Ah, but he’s eight months younger. Wait and you might see something…We know we have to work with Wayne in terms of finding his right position. I’m not sure what that is sometimes. He’s fantastic when he’s aggressive up front but when he drops in he offers so many options in terms of balance and looking at a situation quickly. So we’ve got to make up our mind. It would help me if we could get another player, a centre-forward maybe.â€
Rooney and Carlos Tevez are quite small. Would you be looking for a taller striker?
“Possibly.â€
Can you tell us who? As a present?
“Aye, that’ll be right.â€
Unlike Ronaldo, it’s hard to picture Rooney leaving United.
“Yeah. He’s a local boy. He comes from 35 miles away. Okay, so not exactly ‘local’. I mean, you can’t say Liverpool’s ‘local’ to anything….â€
You got the big decisions right in Moscow, going 4-4-2, using Ronaldo as a conventional winger to attack Michael Essien, making positive substitutions. What was your thinking?
“I’d picked the team a week before. The subs were the problem and I had to leave out Park Ji Sung. Chelsea set themselves up in midfield with three very experienced players and I had to get myself an option of playing Owen Hargreaves, so I could put him in central midfield at some point of the game. Chelsea dominated the second half and we brought Hargreaves into the centre. As far as I’m concerned, that stopped the rot. It was a good night.â€
And soon he was gone, off to attend to his legacy, ready for one final working week before a family holiday that begins on June 1. This knight of a thousand trophies is savouring his last days in football like he would Caspian Sea caviar. Or a Meg Ryan chick flick.
Who will replace Fergie?
THE MAN IN POSSESSION Carlos Queiroz Sir Alex Ferguson declined to be drawn on who he favours as his successor, but it is thought to be Queiroz. The Portuguese has enjoyed two successful spells as United No 2. His ï¬ rst, in 2002-03, coincided with United regaining the Premier League title from Arsenal and his second, after managing Real Madrid in 2003-04, has seen United climb back to the pinnacle of club football. His tactical nous has improved United in Europe, especially defensively, and Ferguson praised the ‘modern vision’ he has brought to offï¬ eld aspects such as medical stafï¬ ng. His appointment might offer the best chance of keeping Ronaldo, to whom Queiroz is close, but United already face a challenge to keep Queiroz, who is rumoured to be wanted as manager of the Portugal national team
THE FORMER PLAYERS
Mark Hughes Worked wonders with Wales and Blackburn Rovers, despite limited resources. Teammates did not expect Hughes to become a manager, due to his reticence in the dressing room, but his steel and intelligence have made him a formidable operator. Needs to take Blackburn into Europe again to improve his prospects
Roy Keane A legendary captain, Keane would be a hugely popular appointment. Has shown remarkable promise in guiding Sunderland into the Premier League and keeping them there in his ï¬ rst two seasons in management, but is unlikely to have gained experience of managing in Europe by the time Fergie retires and he might be a better bet as United’s next manager but one
Laurent Blanc A leftï¬eld candidate but a possibility after almost winning the French title with Bordeaux in his ï¬rst season as a manager. Blanc may have been criticised by the press during his two years at United but he was vastly respected by the players and has a calmness and bearing that seems ideal for bigger jobs
THE ESTABLISHED COACHES
Jose Mourinho ‘Mourinho to United’ rumours were being heard in Moscow and the Portuguese undoubtedly has the personality and CV to be successful at Old Trafford. Despite early run-ins, Fergie grew to like him when Mourinho was at Chelsea, but would the Special One’s scientiï¬ c, percentages-based brand of football be regarded as so special by United fans?
Martin O’Neill He has the charisma for the job and, given what he achieved with Celtic, Leicester and Aston Villa, it’s intriguing to think what he could do at a major European power. His transfer record has not always been the best, however, and he could never win away in the Champions League with Celtic