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| Champions: Sir Alex Ferguson's achievements, when totted up, make him the best-ever manager to have graced football |
There was once a debate over whether Sir Alex Ferguson merited a place
alongside Bill Shankly, Sir Matt Busby, Jock Stein, Brian Clough, Sir Alf
Ramsey and Bob Paisley in the pantheon of great British football managers. That
debate was emphatically ended by about the mid-1990s.
The next debate was whether Ferguson could be regarded as the finest of those
illustrious British managers. Again, that particular debate was surely
settled some years ago. Arguably that was the case when Manchester
United won the treble in 1999 but most definitely once he lifted a
second European Cup in 2008.
With Ferguson taking the momentous decision to retire, the more interesting
question now is just where he rates alongside the best managers in the
history of world football. From Rinus Michels to Jose Mourinho and Ernst Happel to Miguel Munoz, this
brings an entirely different list of candidates and achievements. Yet, once
again, the evidence for Ferguson is favourable.
Broadly speaking, there have been three types of great managerial achievers.
Firstly, there are those who have worked under big pressure at big clubs
with big players and still consistently delivered trophy after trophy. The
second group of managerial greats are those who have achieved their success
against the odds in unfavourable conditions or at unfashionable clubs.
Finally, there are the managers who have particularly distinguished themselves
by implementing a certain style for their teams that has altered the way the
rest of the world thinks about football.
Ferguson is unique in that he has ticked each of those boxes at different
stages of a truly extraordinary 39-year career.
As well as Paisley, there are those who have a superior trophy-winning
strike-rate. Fabio Capello, for example, won nine Italian or Spanish league
titles at four different clubs over a period of just 15 years. Similarly,
Mourinho won seven league titles, as well as two European Cups, in nine
completed seasons at Porto, Chelsea,
Inter Milan and Real Madrid.
Then there is Munoz, the Real Madrid manager during much of the 1960s, who won
nine La Liga titles in 12 years, as well as two European Cups. Others who
have created great dynasties of success include Jock Stein at Celtic
and Giovanni Trapattoni at Juventus. Yet no manager in the major leagues can
equal Ferguson's domestic haul of 13 titles.
Of the great managers who have achieved success against the odds, Happel
arguably trumps even Clough for winning the European Cup with two
unfashionable teams in Feyenoord and Hamburg.
The achievements of Guus Hiddink at so many different levels, but particularly
South Korea in the World Cup and PSV Eindhoven in Europe, also stand out.
We then come to the final group of managerial greats; those coaches who have
helped change the way their contemporaries think about football. Arrigo
Sacchi built a dynasty at AC Milan that owed much to wonderful defending,
while Arsène Wenger has delivered more than just silverware with the style
of successive Arsenal
teams. The greatest influencer of other teams, however, has surely been
Michels.
He is credited with originating Total Football in the late 1960s and was also
a winner of trophies, including the European Cup with Ajax, the Spanish
League with Barcelona and the European Championships of 1988 with Holland.
What's more, Michel's Dutch team of 1974 also remains widely regarded as the
best not to win the World Cup. It is some CV and provides perhaps the best theoretical challenge to
Ferguson's status as the greatest of all-time.
Yet as well as winning so regularly, Ferguson can also claim to have stamped a
certain style on his club. In 27 years at Manchester United, his teams have
been consistently thrilling to watch, while the tactical changes he has made
since 2000 have produced a particularly fluid and adaptable approach. His
most recent teams, which have won five Premier League titles in seven years
and reached three Champions League finals in five seasons, have developed a
devastating counter-attacking style that has influenced others across the
world.
Ferguson will, of course, be primarily assessed according to his remarkable
feats with Manchester United yet add on his achievements at Aberdeen and the
debate is surely ended in his favour. To consistently break the Old Firm dominance of Celtic and Rangers was one
thing but to guide them to victory in a major European final against Real
Madrid represented an individual achievement comparable to Clough's two
European Cups at Nottingham Forest.
Quite simply, Ferguson has proved that he can thrive in any environment. He
has been the supreme man-manager, whether dealing with millionaire
celebrities at United or players at smaller Scottish clubs who might simply
have been happy to afford the rent at the end of the week. Having consistently won trophies across five decades since the 1970s, his
longevity also sets him apart. So does the ability to constantly evolve and
reinvent his teams.
I remember once interviewing Gordon Strachan, who spent 10 years of his life
at Aberdeen and Manchester United being managed by Ferguson. The pair had
some famous fallings out but he is in no doubt that Ferguson is the best
manager of all-time. “When he was at St Mirren, they say it was the best
team they ever had,” said Strachan. “Then he did the same at Aberdeen and
then again at Manchester United. It’s no coincidence.”
Strachan then singled out two key attributes. “You can have all the sports
psychologists you like but, in terms of motivating people, he is the best,”
he said. Strachan then explained how Ferguson has almost a sixth-sense when
it comes to watching players train and knowing when they are in peak form
and fitness. “It’s like a trainer watching his horses on the gallops”, he
said. There are qualities which have endured and allowed him to conquer an
extraordinary series of challenges. No one could have imagined that he would
win nine major trophies with Aberdeen or so emphatically end Liverpool's
dominance of English football.
There were also times when he looked likely to be submerged by the brilliant
teams of Wenger at Arsenal, Mourinho at Chelsea and, most recently, the
emergence of those "noisy neighbours" at Manchester City. He
always found the right answer and, even without a third European Cup,
Ferguson’s legacy is already secure. History should remember him not just as
Britain's finest football manager but the best that the world has ever seen.
