“For some time the game has moved in one direction. The systems and the
strategy and the way the teams approach the game, so defensive and cautious.
We proved it is possible to win trophies with an attacking style of
football” – Carlos Queiroz, Manchester United assistant manager
The personality of a football club is evident from the field to the stands.
Old Trafford on Wednesday: Manchester United are going at Internazionale
with heedless, extrovert movements. In the directors’ box is another picture
of football as expression: Paul Scholes and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, two of the
most burnished attacking talents in the history of the Premier League, sit
alongside Nani and Anderson, who United hope will become two more.
Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs already grace the pitch; here
is what is in reserve. Among the players, sharing observations with
Solskjaer, is Rene Meulensteen, devotee of Wiel Coerver, the great Dutch
skills coach. The “Coerver method” puts technique, tricks and creativity at
the centre of football teaching. Having operated at academy and reserve
level before leaving to manage Brondby, Meulensteen has been rehired by Sir
Alex Ferguson to work with the first team and was prominent on the training
ground on the Red Devils’ Asian tour. He is another aspect of United’s mien.
Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea entourage involves Baltemar Brito, a grizzled
Brazilian, Rui Faria, an exercise scientist, and Andre Villas, a clipboard
man who compiles studious scouting reports.
Ferguson surrounds himself with men such as Queiroz, who believes a United
footballer should be “more of an artist than a player”, and the aesthete
Meulensteen. Red and blue, heat and ice, passion and control. Romantics and
pragmatists.
Ferguson’s United and Mourinho’s Chelsea sit on opposite sides of the divide
in modern sport, and, emboldened by regaining the Premier League title,
Ferguson is entrenching his position. Even last season’s 123 goals were
plainly not enough. By Wednesday formalities are expected to be completed to
finally make Carlos Tevez a United player. The Argentinian will bring yet
more colours to their kaleidoscopic play. Ferguson says we are about to see
the most adventurous side of his long Old Trafford reign. But he does not
want to be misunderstood. “I think there’s plenty of entertainment there [in
United’s squad] but at the end of the day we have to be winners. We did that
last season playing in the right way and that was the satisfying thing.
“We played some fantastic football, we were top goalscorers and we won. I hope
this season we’ll improve further in the attacking part,” he said, “but we
want to be winners again. For me, attacking football is winning football. We
don’t attack just to make it look pretty. We attack to win. We try to get
the goals that mean you win. You can play chess for about 10 hours and lose,
know what I mean?”
The knight had a knave in mind, surely. Mourinho has often likened coaching to
playing chess. What were Chelsea’s two Champions League semi-finals against
the Liverpool of Rafael Benitez, who lists chess as a hobby, if not
marathons of shuffling pieces without winning? If Benitez and Mourinho are
on the same side of the divide, Ferguson has for company his old foe Arsène
Wenger. Ferguson and Wenger share a belief that football teams achieve
victory by pursuing it. Mourinho and Benitez prefer to lurk and try to
snatch victory. United have their style and challenge opponents to deal with
it. Chelsea never mind altering in the interests of negation.
“We understand better than anybody else the way they [United] play,” Mourinho
said. “For me, they counter-attack with beautiful football, absolutely
beautiful football. When they win the ball in defensive positions and the
opponent does not have a good tactical balance, it’s, ‘Goodbye, see you
later’, then the ball is in the centre circle for the restart. So you must
understand the way they play and you must adapt to their style of play.”
Ferguson’s problem is that attacking football has rarely been winning football
in the face of Mourinho’s strategising. Only once in 11 head-to-heads has he
beaten the Portuguese. In the FA Cup last season Chelsea were expansive,
scoring 20 goals en route to the final, but once there they adapted so that
they became spoilers. Mourinho asked his players whether they would rather
have a nice time during the game or leave enjoyment until afterwards, when
they could clasp winners’ medals in their hands. They chose the latter. In a
performance filled with the muscularity and concentration that makes
Mourinho sides so formidable, they enveloped every United player who crossed
the halfway line and pressed their opponents, especially Ronaldo, early and
hard. Only Scholes, lying too deep to be tracked, was a threat.
Mourinho admits that last season Chelsea played “football of survival”. He
promises to be more bold in this campaign, but it is unlikely that any new
policies of openness will be previewed at Wembley today. He will want to
win, to enjoy himself after the game, not during it.
Ferguson will pursue victory the only way he knows how. The match is too early
for Anderson, who made his debut on Friday against Doncaster, and Nani is
still nursing an ankle injury and may feature only as a substitute, but even
without these two, Solskjaer, Scholes and Tevez, United will be unabashed.
Told of Mourinho’s suggestion that he has United’s number, Ferguson smiled.
“Oh, really? Well, he says many things. I’m not sure he always thinks them
through too well, but anyway. I’ve got nothing to say about that. It’ll be a
good season. We’ll certainly be there,” he said.
Ferguson is overjoyed to capture Tevez because “you can see the market. There
are not a lot of strikers who can play at this level”. Explaining his other
signings, he said: “They’re young and they’re attacking players. We made
decisions with Nani and Anderson based on the future. We felt we might as
well spend now and stop others getting them. We could have waited a year,
but then everybody might be after them.”
Nani will understudy Giggs; Tevez has similar qualities to Rooney; Anderson
“could develop into a similar type of player to Scholes. When he came back
from his broken leg [last season] Porto played him up front, off the
striker, where he did really well. There’s options there. He can play on the
left side of midfield, he can play as a central midfield player
attacking-wise and he can play as a front player.”
It was put to Ferguson that sages, such as the former Brazil manager Mario
Zagallo, predict that Anderson could grow into the next Brazilian superstar.
He did not demur. He addressed the point with a sparkle in his eyes and in
terms – a sure sign of when Ferguson is enthusiastic about someone – that
made it seem as if he was talking about one of his racehorses rather than a
player.
“Yeah. He [Anderson] has got a chance, the lad. He’s strong. The shoulders
he’s got on him . . . good shoulders.” With so many talents ready to throw
open the shutters and let air into their football, it may become more
difficult for United to keep their house secure.
Inter, ruthless on the counter-attack, inflicted severe punishment on
Wednesday on a defence that seemed to be elsewhere, mentally.
Ferguson admits that by reconstructing his team so it is even further oriented
towards thrills and goals, “it puts a great responsibility on the back four
players and [Owen] Hargreaves and [Michael] Carrick”. Hargreaves made his
comeback from tendinitis at Peterborough yesterday and will not play at
Wembley, but it is hoped that in big, especially European, games where
United are pouring forward, this prodigiously energetic player and paid-up
Stakhanovite can get through all the covering required.
“We’ve signed a lot of attacking players and everyone’s talking about those,
but don’t forget we signed Hargreaves and he is a player who works very hard
in the middle of midfield. He helps the defence a lot and he could make a
difference for us,” Nemanja Vidic said. Of course Hargreaves wouldn’t
be a Ferguson signing without a certain dimension: with his free kicks he
might also offer goals.
Wembley showdown: why Ferguson aims to show Mourinho who’s boss
- Jose Mourinho’s record against Sir Alex Ferguson is the envy of his Premier
League peers. In 11 matches Ferguson has managed to beat a side managed by
Mourinho only once – a 1-0 league win at Old Trafford in November 2005
- That statistic must rankle with the man acknowledged as English football’s
manager supreme, but Mourinho, inset, has had him on the back foot since
their very fi rst encounter. That came in the last 16 of the Champions League
in 2004, when Mourinho’s unfancied Porto sent United crashing out with a
dramatic, albeit fortunate, 89th-minute goal in the tie’s second leg at Old
Trafford
- Porto went on to win the Champions League and Mourinho’s reputation was
established. Since joining Chelsea he has kept the upper hand and now has
six wins and four draws to set against the United manager’s solitary success
Community Shield Chelsea v Man United Sky Sports 1, 2.30pm, kick-off 3pm;
highlights, BBC1, 10.20pm
