JOSE MOURINHO TO TAKE OVER FROM SIR
ALEX FERGUSON AT UNITED AFTER ALL
- WITH 'THE MANAGER'S' BLESSING
Staying on the ball with FRANK WORRALL's latest report for your Weekly Sport!
IT WAS a truly wonderful gesture by Manchester United.
To name a stand after their most successful manager of all-time – while he is STILL alive.
Most monuments to football bosses come years after they have died – as in the Matt Busby statue, also at Old Trafford, the Bob Stokoe one up at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light and Bill Shankly’s at Liverpool.
The sentiments behind them were the same gracious, reverential ones in all those cases. But it always struck me as a shame that the men who had earned their everlasting tributes at the grounds where they were worshipped would never see them.
United, to their credit, have bucked the trend, naming their massive North Stand (which holds 25,000 people) after Fergie. They also plan to unveil a statue of the man behind the very same stand next year.
You could see what the gesture of naming the stand after him meant to Fergie. A man accustomed to taking whatever is thrown at him, he was visibly moved and found it difficult to put together a speech of thanks.
He had certainly earned the honour after notching up 25 years’ service at Old Trafford. His trophy haul over that silver jubilee period makes remarkable reading – 2 European Cups, 12 league titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups and one European Cup Winners’ Cup.
But it is not only with the cups and medals that adorn the United trophy cabinet that Fergie has played a blinder: the old man of the Theatre of Dreams is also ensuring that the club he loves is left in a hell of a better condition than it was when he arrived in 1986.
Old Trafford on and off the pitch is simply unrecognisable from 25 years ago – from the still thriving youth policy that propelled the likes of Beckham, Scholes and Giggs through the first team door to the construction of a modern, awesome 78,000-seater stadium.
When Fergie arrived in ’86 he bemoaned the lack of any youth policy at all – now, when he finally hangs up his chewing gum, he will bequeath a team that is laden with the a new batch of youthful talent. The Da Silva twins, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck to name but a few.
But it is his vote on who follows him that will arguably be the biggest gift he leaves the club. Fergie is big enough and confident enough in his own legacy being remembered with affection to say out loud that the man who follows him into the hotseat must be a big, experienced character. Indeed he has already voiced that opinion.
And now I hear that he has been asked who should take over and has apparently nominated Jose Mourinho as the only man who could step into such a huge shadow without any trepidation. That will not sit well with some of the board members at United – Sir Bobby Charlton in particular has deep reservations about Mourinho’s questionable temperament and style of football.
But this season the Portuguese has been a changed man in Spain – keeping a relatively low profile, avoiding the temptation to drift into controversial disputes and his team are playing exciting, breathtaking football, with goals galore, that is simply out of this world. They are now on a par with Barcelona and I can see them winning the Champions League in Munich next May.
Such a success is Munich, if achieved with the same swashbuckling football as Madrid are currently offering up, would certainly help change the perception of Mourinho as ‘an enemy of football’.
But it is likely that Mourinho’s change of attitude comes from a quiet discussion with United’s decision makers – yes, he has been told that he is next in line and needs only to reinvent himself (ie stay out of trouble!) and keep up the new brand of mesmerising football and the throne awaits.
When will he be anointed the new king of United? That depends upon Fergie and his health. I am told the ideal scenario would be for Jose to do two more years at Madrid and then step in, maybe working in tandem with Sir Alex as a director of football for one year.
And will he be a success at Old Trafford? Of course he will – he is a natural-born winner who comes with the guarantee of trophies and, and this is the key reason United have plumped for him, he is the only one on United’s shortlist of three who can promise that. Of the other two, David Moyes needs to prove himself at a club a level above Everton and a level below United (say Tottenham) and the jury remains out on Barca’s Pep Guardiola.
OK, Pep has won the lot and manages the greatest club team in world football – but it was all there for him on a plate. Me and my dog could have won things with the squad and youth conveyor belt he inherited.
So, barring some unexpected quirk of fate or Jose losing it one time too many, Mourinho it will be – and United fans will have Sir Alex to thank for that.
ENGLAND POPPY ROW COULD BE A BLESSING
FOR STRESSED CAPELLO
I HEAR that FIFA will abandon the England v Spain friendly at Wembley on Saturday if England take to the pitch with poppies sewn into their shirts.
Footballs’ world organising body claims that such a move is unacceptable as it would ‘open the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football’. To cut through the bullshit, what they are really saying is, ‘What if it had been the Germans who had been due at Wembley…wouldn’t that have inflamed tensions between the two nations’?
The Germans have already said they would not be offended, so I don’t see why FIFA are being so stupid (then again it does come as second nature to that idiot Sepp Blatter and his cronies!)
But my take on this is that, yes, England should wear the poppies – and get the game abandoned. After all, that is surely the only way Fabio Capello is going to avoid an embarrassing afternoon at the national stadium.
He is facing the world champions without his best three players – Rooney, Gerrard and Wilshere. He will have to contend with the likes of Xavi, Fabregas and Iniesta via a midfield spine of Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry, two old blokes with no pace. And he has no Ashley Young or Rooney to take on Spain at the back.
Yes, this poppy row could provide a godsend for Sgt Major Capello…who will hardly savour a team of his being outclassed – don’t rule out a 3-0 defeat - in front of a worldwide TV audience. Especially as the grumpy Italian is having to miss being at his son’s wedding for what is likely to be a very unpleasant, demoralising Wembley occasion.
No comments:
Post a Comment