How often have we seen football clubs staging remarkable comebacks from being relegation candidates to a respectable top 10 finish? From being mired in mid-table to qualifying for European competitions? And how many times have we seen teams achieving all this and more under the stewardship of a newly appointed manager? It would be quite the tedious task to start counting the number of instances – it has happened that often.

My next question is, what is the reason behind this common yet intriguing phenomenon? What gift or ability does this new manager possess that the previous incumbent so clearly lacked? Is he better at man-management than his predecessor? Is he more adept at maximizing the resources he is entrusted with? Or is he just plainly a ‘better’ manager than the man he replaced? In fact, the reason (or reasons) is none of the above. It has nothing to do with the abilities of the manager, or of the players. It is purely to do with psychology. The abilities and resourcefulness of the manager come into play later, much later, mostly in his first full season or his second season, where he needs to consolidate the position achieved from the previous campaign. And of course, psychology can only get you so far. Consistency demands much more.

To illustrate the first psychological contribution of a newly appointed manager, I’ll need you to go back to your school days. Remember when you got news that the math or science teacher you didn’t like all that much had left the school and how, when the new teacher entered the classroom, you would do every assignment and devour the textbooks like a Marvel comic in order to become the new teacher’s pet? Well, I’m sure you get the connection now. When a new man is put in charge of the team, all the players try as hard as they can to please the new boss and win his confidence. With all the extra effort from the players, the manager is bound to get a fantastic start to his stint with the club.

Secondly, the manager brings in a breath of fresh air at the club. The moment the previous manager is sacked, all the relationships he had with his players, whether cordial or frosty, go with him. When the new manager arrives at the training ground, the players get a new lease  of life, and a chance to put the past behind them and deliver for the new boss, a chance to revive the same career which was going nowhere under the previous manager. Also, the signings made by the new manager create a healthy competitive atmosphere in the squad and a wonderful camaraderie among the players.

But most importantly, the newly appointed manager possesses the one advantage that all managers crave for – the ‘he’s got nothing to lose’ tag. Most clubs sack their managers only when the club is in a position which is completely unacceptable for the fans and the management, and when they know that improvement is possible only if the manager goes. So with the team already struggling, the manager is hardly under as much pressure as the predecessor, because he inherited a team of strugglers and didnt build it. And when the players sense that their chief is breathing easy and isn’t losing any sleep at night, a positive energy overtakes them and, of course, it shows on the field.

Having said all of this, to maintain the same amount of success for a longer period of time like Sir Alex Ferguson or, to a lesser extent, Arsene Wenger and David Moyes, takes more than a brief spell of psychological good fortune. These men, that is, the Fergusons, Wengers, Shanklys, Paisleys, and Steins, they have that x-factor which explains their unparalleled success, a je ne sais quoi, something which cannot be described. And the point that the effect of a new manager fades away in time doesn’t require a better example than that of Martin O’Neill, who took over from Steve Bruce at Sunderland and got off to a rollicking start, only to gradually lose his way the next season and leave his act to be followed by Di Canio.

But then, we did see what Chelsea did under Di Matteo, didn’t we?

Two minutes. A mere two minutes are all that separated Manuel Pellegrini and his newly invigorated Malaga side from the UEFA Champions League semifinals. If Malaga held on, they would be through to the last four which comprised of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich. Alas, both of those minutes yielded a goal each for a Dortmund team that seemed to have 90,000 players playing for them, instead of the stipulated 11. It was almost natural for people to imagine Pellegrini putting up his hands and saying – ‘Story of my life’.

And you can hardly blame the poor Chilean for that. His whole career’s been a grand amalgam of ‘what ifs’, ‘what could have beens’ and ‘if onlys’. Time is running out for him, since age – something that was always on his side when he was the potent, rising manager of Villareal – has slowly come to betray him, and all he has is a reputation of a time gone by which largely constitutes his impressive resume. And Malaga was touted to be his make-or-break, his do-or-die assignment. Failure with Malaga would certainly have deemed him more mediocre than what history would suggest, and condemn him into the lesser-known realms of European football. He has risen to the task at hand and whipped up a consistent and efficient unit out of Malaga, but, once again, if only…

Pellegrini’s managerial career picked up from where he had left off his playing career – Universidad de Chile. He had one season with them before having a series of short spells at Palestino, alternating between equally brief stints with the Chile U-20 side at O’Higgins, Universidad Catolica, with whom he finished runner-up for two successive seasons in Chile, and leading Ecuadorian club LDU Quito to the domestic title in 1999. He then had a season each with San Lorenzo and River Plate, which did turn out to be quite productive, before landing his big break at Villareal in 2004.

He took Villareal to heights even he wouldn’t have had dreamt of. In his very first season, he guided them to the third place in La Liga, otherwise considered as the first place for teams other than Barca and Real, and also reached the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup. He then took them all the way to the semifinals of the Champions League the following season, booking a dream date with eventual runners-up Arsenal. In the 2007-08 season, Villareal finished above mighty Barcelona in the La Liga table for a club record second place. His deeds with ‘The Yellow Submarines’ were not going unnoticed, and fate was conspiring to bring about the appointment of Pellegrini at Real, and give him the opportunity of directing ‘perhaps the most important club in the world’, as he put it.

It’s said some men are born great, while others have greatness thrust upon them. Most candidates belonging to the latter category tend to choke when the greatness is being forced into their mouths, and sadly Pellegrini wasn’t an exception. His summer signings, though, had people talking about a new ‘Galacticos’ era at the Bernabeu, with the arrival of Kaka from Milan, Benzema from Olympique Lyonnaise, Xabi Alonso from Liverpool, and of course, Cristiano Ronaldo, from Manchester United. He couldnt have asked for more, it seemed.

“If we want to win the Champions League and be the best team in the world, we need the best players in the world.” He got all the best players in the world he had asked for, but leave alone being the best team in the world, even the 96 points that Real garnered in La Liga proved to be insufficient as Barca retained their Spanish title with 99 points. Real was already eliminated from the Copa Del Ray by the second division club Alcorcon, losing 1-4 on aggregate. The biggest jolt came when Real went out of the Champions League as early as the Round of 16, at the hands of Lyon, losing 1-2 on aggregate. With only the league left to play for, Real failed there as well, and before we knew it, ‘The Special One’ was in Pellegrini’s office, making sure his predecessor at the Bernabeu hadn’t left anything behind.

He joined bottom-placed Malaga on the 5th of November, 2010 with a herculean task lying in wait for him. Malaga scraped through and thus began the rebuilding process of a team that eventually finished fourth with 58 points at the end of the 2011-12 season, thus qualifying for the Champions League for the first time in its history. Van Nistelrooy, Rondon and especially Santi Cazorla had vital roles to play in Malaga’s rise, and all three of those players left the club at the end of the season. And yet, here we are, left to rue a quarterfinal defeat that was unfair on Malaga in more ways than one. All we can do at this point is admire Mr. Pellegrini, wish Malaga luck to qualify for the Champions League again, and just think, if only…

Chris Gayle in action during the IPL match between RCB and KKR at Chinnaswamy Stadium,in Bangalore on Thursday 11th April 2013. (IANS Photos)

We’ve seen the trophy being lifted by the erstwhile Deccan Chargers, the wooden spooners from the first season and put up with the ignominy of having been pulverized by our bitter rivals the Super Kings. And last year, we missed out on qualifying for the playoffs by the narrowest of margins. In fact, we have enough potential to become the Proteas of the IPL – dominate the league stages, set some records on the way, then choke.

But with four games played and three of them won, two of them being comprehensive victories over two very competent sides, we’ve got off to a really promising start, almost as promising as the one we had under Anil Kumble in IPL III. The side too looks like a stable enough one, not least when Chris Gayle is in the mood to ravish bowling line-ups. So there is a bit of excitement among most of the RCB fans regarding our prospects and title hopes for IPL VI.

Of course, this is more than a little similar to what was being said in 2010 when Kumble’s boys were taking the league by storm, but then there were a few doubtful tells that we failed to notice under Kumble’s confident grin. Besides, there was a bit of a ‘too good to be true’ factor surrounding our blockbuster start to the season. It was, as we crumbled in the second half, scraped into the semis and lost to a fresh and confident Mumbai side.

RCB’s Henriques celebrates the wicket of KKR’s Yusuf Pathan with his skipper at Chinnaswamy Stadium,in Bangalore on Thursday 11th April 2013. (IANS Photos)

This year, however, there seems to be a really good adhesive bonding among the men in red and gold (and blue) under the leadership of Virat Kohli. Some people are just born to be leaders. Some predicted Kohli’s coronation the day he was signed up by RCB, when he was 20 years old and people were beginning to forget his exploits with the triumphant U-19 team of the previous year. He can empathize with the youngsters of the team and also coax every bit of potential out of the seniors. The likes of Mayank Agarwal, Lokesh Rahul, Jaidev Unadkat and even Arun Karthik to an extent, will feel a hundred times more secure under someone like Kohli than Daniel Vettori. His hands-on approach to captaincy and his desire and ability to lead from the front, sparks up his team mates into life.

Our batting has always been our greatest strength as well as our most apparent weakness for a while now, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime in the near future. We’ve lacked a quality Indian batsman apart from Kohli ever since the departure of Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey, and Saurabh Tiwary would have won the ‘Dud of the season’ award last year hands down if there had been such an award. But we all know that if our top order fires, we are as close to being ‘Invincible’ as it can get. Agarwal has really understood his role in the side and has become really vital to RCB’s game plan. As Gayle settles in and finds his footing, Agarwal assumes the role of the loaded gun at the top and his job is to score around 30-35 runs at a brisk enough rate and ensure that RCB get at least to the mid 40s at the end of the Powerplay overs.

Then come Kohli and AB De Villiers, whose roles are largely dictated by how Gayle is playing at the other end. If Gayle is out, it rests on either or both of these batsmen to construct the innings, and if Gayle is batting and batting like he did last night against KKR, their role is to simply rotate strike and punish the odd bad ball.

RCB’s RP Singh celebrates after the wicket against KKR at Chinnaswamy Stadium,in Bangalore on Thursday 11th April 2013. (IANS Photos)

A lot has been said about the lack of a ‘genuine’ pace bowler in the RCB ranks. But RP Singh has been clinical in his two games and Vinay Kumar is, well, Vinay Kumar. The fact that we haven’t conceded anything over 165 yet, already having played three in Bangalore, is good enough. And the one game we lost, we lost it in the super over after almost defending a modest total of 130. That should be attributed more towards luck than anything else, if you ask me.

Muralitharan hasn’t really been the most effective spinner in the tournament, but there’s always Vettori to be brought in if Muralitharan isn’t in form. Murali Kartik is a really good enough complement to a fresh pace battery and overall, RCB look good enough for a place in the playoffs at the least.

Let’s just hope that this is the year when they become more ‘Royal’ and less ‘Challengers’ and get that trophy to the Garden City.

Right. Before I even start, I had to get this off my chest.

‘David de Gea is a fantastic keeper! With enough potential to become the greatest ever! Besides, you, yes you, random de Gea critic or hater, are not playing for Manchester United at Upton Park and dealing with a Joe Cole cross lashed in front of the goalmouth! So just shut up!’

Now. Oh yes, the article.

I’m dead certain that you have read countless posts on Facebook or Twitter about how Schmeichel and Van der Sar started playing for United at the age of 27 and 35 respectively and they (especially Van Der Sar) had considerable amounts of success, if not just experience playing with their former clubs. This would probably have convinced most of you anyway, but then being such an ardent admirer of de Gea, I could not sleep at night thinking that there are more of his haters out there lurking in their bedrooms, coming out only at night to make known their disapproval of the young Spaniard. So I decided to do my bit and tell you exactly why David de Gea, who most think is the weak link in an otherwise perfect United chain, could potentially become the greatest custodian in the world and begin a new era of consistent silverware triumphs in the future, like the way Van der Sar had for four years.

You ought to have heard of the Chinese Bamboo and its bizarre growth pattern. Unlike other plants or trees, it doesn’t grow fully in its first growth season, and doesn’t even have a growth season or such. Plant a sprout in the ground, and be prepared to wait for four to five years -or even more in some cases- for it to start growing. Once it starts doing so, however, ready yourself to let your mind be blown. The same bamboo which showed close to zero growth in those five odd years, grows to a height of ninety feet in just a couple of months! If Aguero’s stoppage time goal against QPR last season was ‘staggering’, what am I going to have to call this?

Now I’m pretty sure you know where I am going with this. David de Gea is our Chinese Bamboo. The only difference, is, that he has grown twenty inches even before his actual growth spurt has begun. This could sound weird if we weren’t talking about football. But jokes apart, don’t you see that improvement in de Gea? Those twenty inches? The slightly more muscular arm that isn’t afraid to step out and deal with crosses unlike the scrawny one that stayed put in its position last season? That sudden vociferousness as compared to the silent introverted kid who let the centre-backs do all the talking for him? He hasn’t improved leaps and bounds of course, but he is making crucial saves for us almost in every match, most of being the reason why those three points weren’t  just one point gained, or why we went into half-time still possessing the lead.

Now if you’d lost patience and pulled out the bamboo sprout to see why it wasn’t growing, there would have been zero chance for it to grow the way it otherwise would have. And who knows? Maybe de Gea is in his fifth year. I know Sir Alex Ferguson is not daft enough to sell him because of that one mistake at White Hart Lane. I’m positively sure about that, but I still have to make you see the light, don’t I? After all, you are only anxious about him because you are concerned about the club. In the end, we all have one common desire, and that is too see Manchester United win. Anything and everything: just win!

So give the lad a bit of breathing space and a wee more time (trying to sound like Sir Alex here) and you’ll get to see for yourself what the boy is made of. David de Gea is one for the future. United’s last two Champions League successes were pioneered by the ‘keepers, and in all probability, de Gea will be that one deciding factor with that one last penalty save who is going to win us our fourth. As the footballing cliche goes, ‘A good attack wins you matches; A good defence wins you tournaments’. To add to this, ‘A good keeper makes sure that the strikers keep winning you matches and the defence keeps winning you tournaments’.

Hope I made a little sense!

Troubled times ahead?

The Champions League is undoubtedly the final frontier for any European football club. It is the ultimate glory, the absolute conquest and it is the cut-off point to qualify for the inevitable debate about the best teams of a particular era. Which is why it comes as no surprise that there have been countless European teams throughout the competition’s history that have almost or completely shunned the domestic competition to pave way for launching a bid for Europe’s elite club competition. We saw that with Chelsea last season, who, under Di Matteo, gave up hope and interest in an already futile league campaign, and switched their complete focus to their European ambitions. This season, Real Madrid have all but lost out on the Liga, trailing by 16 points midway through the season, and look to be treading down a similar path.

There have been a few doubts regarding Jose Mourinho even staying long enough to manage Real for their showdown against Manchester United, a club they’ve always had a cordial relationship with. And this has led to most Chelsea fans aimlessly sauntering around the internet searching for baseless stories about Mourinho’s return to Stamford Bridge and increasingly annoying smart-a** memes about Mourinho losing and making stupid decisions like resting Casillas in favour of Adan on purpose, in order to get sacked. Not my point, of course. My point is, why are Real going through this slump? Have they really started believing that it’s going to be a tenth European Cup or nothing? Yes, they do still have Copa hopes, but that is irrelevant because in the event that they do win it, Ramos is going to drop the cup anyway.

If they have, in fact, lost all sense of professionalism and started placing all their eggs in the European basket, then Real have officially contracted Mourinho’s psychosis virus. As mentioned, the season is but halfway through, and if not for some needlessly dropped points, Real would have still had a really great chance to set their season back on track and mount pressure on Barcelona. Winning the league seems out of sight now, and so Real are faced with the daunting task of either triumphing in Europe for the tenth time, or preparing themselves to face the ultimate ignominy of finishing behind their city rivals – Atletico Madrid. So let us look at the the Plan, along with its Pros and Cons.

The Plan:

Real Madrid resume their league crusade after a refreshing winter break on the 6^th of January against Real Sociedad, at home. They have six games on their itinerary from then up to the first leg of the Champions League clash, with the most evidently challenging one being a game away to Valencia. So the team need not do a lot of chopping and changing every weekend, but they need to make sure that when United travel to Spain, Arbeloa isn’t plonked on a hospital bed. He’s effectively their only right back, and if Nani is fit for United, Real will be subject to torment from both flanks due to the uncanny talent of switching plays in a flash; a talent both Scholes and Cleverley possess.

Manchester United is now synonymous with ‘goal-fest’ across Europe, and it flatters them as much as it doesn’t. This is where Real’s prolific front-line comes into play to take maximum advantage. If Marcelo is fit, he would have to be Real’s first choice as his left-wing partnership with Ronaldo (and I have to fight back the tears saying this) is the best in the world. the Brazilian fracas to follow between him and Rafael would be delectable for the eye.

Too much for United to handle?

However, Real also need to keep in mind the away-goal rule, and must be aware that two or more away goals conceded would mean certain death for them, as United’s defence may not be as leaky then as it is now, going into the second leg, for Vidic is getting back into the groove, and with Smalling fit and Rafael recovering, United are striving to peak at the right time.

So, the mantra for Real is to not only keep Arbeloa, Marcelo and Benzema (because United’s CBs would find it easier to keep Higuain down due to his traditional Centre-forward traits) fit enough; they need them to tweak their playing styles because United and the direct English game is a whole new challenge to Real.

Pros:

Nobody, including Jose Mourinho or the Real Madrid backroom, actually expects Real to win the league title. Besides, the Champions League and Real have this eerie background romance between them, something Real has never had with the La Liga. They have a perfectly logical reason to make Europe their first priority now more than ever, and a victory over Manchester United will make it clear that Real are here to win it, and everyone else might as well step aside.

If they manage to collect maximum points from the next six games, then a win against United will do their morale a world of good, and will effectively rejuvenate their league campaign. It sounds stupid, but I’m actually saying that giving up on the league is going to help their league campaign. Provided everything goes to plan, that is. Otherwise it’s going to be one catastrophic season for Real and especially Mourinho.

Cons:

Nobody, including Jose Mourinho or the Real Madrid backroom, actually expects Real to win the league title. Of course, but gift-wrapping the trophy in Red and Blue paper and speed mailing it to Cataluña as a belated Christmas present is an entirely different issue. No one wants the most successful European and Spanish club to go down without a fight. Not least the Bernabeu faithful. Sacking Mourinho after failures of this magnitude is a trifle too obvious and inevitable, but the manner of their fiasco will decide the gate revenue and not least the merchandise sales the following season.

So yes, Real are going to go easy on domestic commitments and focus mainly – if not only – on the job at hand in Europe. There is no guaranteeing that Real will win the Champions League if they beat United, but they will still have hope enough left for some silverware at the end of May, provided Ramos keeps distance. And if not anything, Real get to keep their dignity and save some face, which is a whole lot better than ending up empty-handed and red-faced with angry fans pelting stones at you and uttering hilarious Spanish cuss words.

I promise I’m not going to drop it this time!

To quote an appropriate internet meme: “Not sure if it’s Hala Madrid, or Haha Madrid”.

This is exactly what Real wouldn’t want.

In the first installment of this three-part article about Sir Alex Ferguson’s days before taking over as Manchester United manager, we read about Ferguson’s boyhood, as well as his aspirations and exploits as a teenager. In this article, we will learn more about the lesser known side of him, that is, Ferguson the football player.

As mentioned in the previous article, Ferguson had promising enough seasons at his youth club Queen’s Park and St Johnstone. The only notable incident during his amateur days was a hat-trick scored for St Johnstone against Rangers at Ibrox. He immediately resolved to get a transfer from St Johnstone, and turn professional. To his extraordinary luck, Dunfermline Athletic, formerly managed by Jock Stein (manager of Celtic’s European Cup winning team), came knocking on his door and Ferguson quite willingly struck a deal with the Fife club. At Dunfermline’s East End Park, he discovered a second home, and along with it, new brothers, as the club thrived in a harmonious and jolly atmosphere. He was to make friends for life at Dunfermline, and most noteworthy among then was a certain Willie Callaghan.

In his first season with Dunfermline in 1964/65, Ferguson did what was expected from him and became the club’s leading scorer as his team lost out on the league title by one-tenth of the proverbial whisker, losing out to Kilmarnock on goal average (goal difference came into existence only some years later). Nevertheless, Ferguson’s team had one more opportunity at glory, for they had managed to reach the final of the Scottish Cup. Their opponents were Celtic, who were now managed – with a touch of irony – by none other than Jock Stein. The result seems so very irrelevant when considering what preceded the actual game!

Of the three strikers fit to play on the day, Willie Cunningham, the Dunfermline manager, chose to drop his leading scorer, Ferguson, but decided to keep the team line-up to himself until an hour to kick-off, whence he announced that he would be reading out the team names. Ferguson was distraught that, contrary to his belief, his name wasn’t announced at the end of the list. And mind you, back in those days, there was no concept of substitutes either. Naturally, something snapped, and Ferguson erupted. “You bastard!” he roared at the boss, and continued ranting and raving, consumed by a cocktail of fury, disappointment and frustration, ignoring repeated warnings from the Club Chairman to get a hold of himself.

That the incident was only used by Ferguson to grow into a finer player was clearly manifest in his second season, when he notched up forty five goals in fifty games in all competitions. At the end of the season, he proceeded to secure his future in football by completing his coaching qualifications. He returned to Dunfermline as a certified coach at twenty five, and agreed to another season with them, after being promised a pay rise and a transfer the following season. Dunfermline had a bad season and slithered to eighth, a slump which could be attributed to an uncharacteristically long dry spell for Ferguson, who also was sidelined with an injury later.

However, everything around him wasn’t going as awry (for him, that is) as it was at East End Park. Rangers were getting more and more frustrated by the impeccable ascent of the Stein Machine at Celtic, and set about searching for strikers after a wholesale export  of their own incompetent ones. Ferguson’s stars were shining bright. Or so he was to believe until he actually came to experience the putrid system of administration practised at Ibrox and his nose hairs curled at the rancid reek of Protestant bigotry prevalent in the Blue half of Glasgow.

Ferguson arrived at Glasgow Rangers in the summer of 1967, and from then on he wished he never had left Dunfermline. The ominous signs were obvious and in front of his eyes from the very day he put pen to paper at Ibrox. It all began with a club director questioning Ferguson if his wife was indeed a Roman Catholic and if they were indeed married in a Catholic Church. Upon being answered in the negative about the latter question, the director heaved an audibly curt sigh of relief. However, Ferguson was able to conceal his distaste for the director’s audacity under the ceremonious occasion of having signed for his dream club.

Rangers were under unparalleled pressure from supporters, what with Celtic having won the European Cup under Stein and along with it the distinction of being the first –and only –Scottish club to do so, overshadowing Rangers’ European Cup winners’ Cup victory in the final over a Bayern Munich team comprising of Gerd Muller, Sepp Maier and Franz Beckenbauer. And then, fate decided to play its cruel hand. Scot Symon, the much revered Rangers manager, was sacked, and Ferguson didn’t exactly take a liking to his successor, Davie White. Although, he vented his frustration on the opposition, thankfully, and his resentment became his driving force, as he became the club’s leading scorer that season.

But he was growing more disgusted with the shamelessly ill-concealed bigotry, most discernible in the form of the Rangers’ PR officer, Willie Allison, who Ferguson describes as a ‘muck-spreader’ and a ‘diseased zealot’. The muck that Allison spread, was that Ferguson’s eldest son Mark was christened in a Catholic Church (which was proved untrue and entirely baseless).  But Ferguson did cross the line when he got drunk with a teammate and went to Allison to give him a dressing down after reading a story in the papers about his days at Rangers being numbered.

The story turned out to be true, however,  as the following season White asked him to accept a transfer to Hibernian as part of a makeweight deal to sign Hibs’ Colin Stein. Ferguson refused, and White promptly responded by dumping him into the reserve squad. Stein was signed nevertheless, breaking the Scottish transfer record of £65,000 that Rangers had shelled out to secure the services of Ferguson. He was picked for the Cup final against Celtic, thanks to Stein being ruled out due to injury, and was made the prime scapegoat in a 4-0 chastening. White accused him of not properly picking up the Celtic captain Billy McNeill at corners, and being the primary reason for Celtic’s first goal after all of two minutes.

Ferguson never trained with the first team again, let alone play for them. He was made to train with the apprentices, but was further demoted after White spotted him coaching them during a session. On one occasion, he was left on the bench while playing for the third team. Yes, Ferguson was given a taste of hell long before he would ever get a chance to visit it. And there, a career which would have been one of Scotland’s finest and most distinguished, but for lack of discipline, was torn apart. The theatre of his boyhood dreams turned out to be one of his most hellish nightmares.

He was approached by Nottingham Forest the next season, but he headed to Falkirk, managed by his old boss Willie Cunningham, the bastard. No description of his time at Falkirk would be necessary, nor would it be advisory to waste time dwelling on his not-so-golden sunset at Ayr United.

Ferguson was one bad-a** player on the pitch, with his devil-may-care attitude and his indifferent outlook to cracking ribs with his elbows. He was to allude to his two bony weapons while naming a section of his pub Fergie’s as ‘The Elbow Room’, vainly trying to cash in on his decreasing popularity. If you looked at him from his waist down and cut out his torso and face, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell him and Roy Keane apart. Atleast not their tackles, anyway. But what he lacked in natural ability, he made up for with a smart ability to cash in on mistakes made by the opposition defence to score lots of goals.

His crowd-pleasing energy and his combative spirit was the focal point of discussions about him at the time, although some did believe he liked to save his breath for the job of putting the ball into the back of the net and did not contribute much apart from goals to the team, thereby failing to keep to date with the modern striker, whose responsibilities aren’t restricted to scoring goals but also include forming his team’s first line of defence by trying to intercept or win the ball back in the opposition half.

Maybe Ferguson wasn’t destined for greatness as a player, for then the glory fate had in store for him as a manger would have been too much to take. But he was a good player, and that goes without saying.

In the next part of the article, we will take a look at the clubs he managed before succeeding Ron Atkinson at United. Please leave your opinions about the article and any suggestions for the next one in the comments box.

Well, quite understandably so. But the Rojiblancos made no fuss and chose to look at the bright side of their situation. They went about painting themselves as the ‘Rebels of Madrid’, therefore effectively marketing themselves as the ‘underdogs’ or the ‘good guys.’

After all these years living in the shadows of Real, however, a glimmer of hope has flashed at the Calderon. The light projecting from across the Atlantic, all the way from Colombia.

When Radamel Falcao was signed from FC Porto breaking the club transfer record in the summer of 2011, we couldn’t help but laud and commend the genius of then manager Quique Flores, in getting hold of an individual, who not only replaced Sergio Aguero, but who would undoubtedly have a massive impact and influence the club’s fortunes more than any other name on the squad would have done (with 16 goals in the Liga alone this season).

But with Flores gone and Simeone having been put in charge last year, Atletico Madrid have undergone a remarkable transition phase, emerging as a confident new threat to Spanish football’s equivalent of the Old Firm.

So, Radamel Falcao apart, what has changed so much about the Rebels that has turned them into cocksure but efficient title contenders? Let’s just attribute a slight tweak in the team’s footballing philosophy to this nouveau-riche bounty of success the team has enjoyed under Simeone.

Starting with the fantastic positional play the new coach has infused into his men. Over the last two seasons, Atletico have developed into a fast-breaking, nearly impossible to catch counter-attacking team. Naturally, this means that they have had to sacrifice any degree of possession football they employed previously.

50% of average possession in the previous season has dropped considerably to 45% of the ball seen on average this season. But the sacrifice has been made in order to make room for a more penetrative playing style, which has evidently reaped far richer benefits.

Atletico Madrid started their season off with a draw away at Levante. Since then, the only three matches in which they haven’t emerged triumphant, have been away losses at Valencia, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Yes, good, continue with those calculations in your head. They are staggering figures indeed!

13 wins out of 13 games played otherwise. Meanwhile Real have been losing at Getafe, Sevilla, and Betis, where Atletico won 4-2. And quite a lot of this success has owed to the fact that the team has embraced the mantra of ‘you only score, if you shoot’, averaging around 14-15 shots per game. They have completely shunned the idea of keeping the ball at their feet, instead feeding them over to Falcao, who just know how to score better than most others.

Their shape off the ball is pretty standard, but they are very hard to break down, because of their indifference towards ball possession. In Gabi and Mario Suarez, they have two very effective deep-lying central midfielders, who can never possibly get caught out of possession because they rarely spend time in the opposition half, instead moving the ball up the pitch immediately.

And if they are unsuccessful in their attack, they are going to be least affected by a counter-attack because their positional play is second only to Barcelona. Diego Simeone has oiled his machines commendably. In addition to this, they average over 20 tackles per game, which indicates their desire to win the ball back before long.

It is what they do after they win the ball back that has the opposition defence tied up in a knot. After watching a couple of Atletico games with squinted eyes, I’ve noticed that the wing-backs narrow the field of play, instead of expanding it, and the wingers keep very little distance between themselves and the wing-backs. When the ball is recovered, they immediately break away, and the ball is fed to them.

Atletico have averaged over 20 crosses this season, with the primary reason for their preferred wide play being the hard to catch movement of Falcao. Defenders are left scratching their heads if the burly Colombian would come from in behind to head the ball or if he’d slip past them, move near the near post for a tap-in. Falcao takes full advantage of this indecisiveness from the defenders to slam goal after goal past the hapless ‘keepers.

Although nearly half the season is past the Rojiblancos, it will be too naive and probably a hostage to fortune to suggest that Atletico will actually challenge for the title, let alone win it. But finishing above Real and defending their Europa League title would pass of as more realistic – albeit challenging – tests.

In order for that to happen, Atletico must believe in themselves, hold onto their start hit-man in January and forget the three domestic away losses as false blips on an otherwise impressive radar. Failing to qualify for the Champions League, however impossible it may seem at the moment, would definitely mean that the team has let down everyone at the Calderon.

Who knows? Maybe the mutiny will be successful and with Ronaldo and Mourinho reportedly leaving this season, they can overthrow the dominant majority and take over Madrid.

MOSCOW – MAY 21: Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson (R) and assistant Carlos Queiroz hold the trophy after the UEFA Champions League Final match between Manchester United and Chelsea at the Luzhniki Stadium on May 21, 2008 in Moscow, Russia.

Everybody knows the story behind Alex Ferguson’s appointment as the manager of Manchester United, the initial disapproval and derision at his appointment and also the success that followed.

Well, you better.

But not a lot of people are completely aware of the background story of the great man who turns 71 in two and a half weeks. The story of how one of the most maverick, controversial, notorious, and yet beloved – to some, at least – figures of Scottish football was chosen to take over the reins at the club with the most romantic and poignant history in the history of European football. The story of how Alex Ferguson, the young bloke who grew up as the obstinate mule who would score lots of goals for the various clubs he played for in a fascinating playing career, became the man who knocked ‘Liverpool off of their perch’ (Quote censored for quite obvious reasons).

It was on New Year’s eve that Ferguson took birth, as the first child to his parents. He was born to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother (such aspects of a marriage were remarkably rare in Scotland those days) and grew up in Govan, a place where, for the countless men who went to work at the shipyard every morning, happiness was synonymous with survival.

Or at least that’s how Ferguson likes to put it anyway.

MUNICH, GERMANY – JULY 28: Head coach of AC Milan Leonardo, head coach of Bayern Louis van Gaal, head coach of Boca Juniors Alfio Basile and head coach of Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson attend the press conference during the Audi Cup 2009 at the Westin Hotel on July 28, 2009 in Munich, Germany.

He was brought up in a home with which the word ‘poverty’ would have been unfair to associate, yet so would have been ‘well-to-do’. Ferguson did not grumble about it, though. ‘We never had a lot’, he wrote in his autobiography, ‘but I wouldn’t call it poverty. You always had your meals, you never missed school. You were always clean and tidy’.

Cleanliness, punctuality and discipline were the values instilled in him by Alexander Ferguson, his father, at a tender age. And he found the first two of these qualities easier to imbibe from his old man than the last one, as hundreds of Scottish professional footballers were to discover when they tried knocking Ferguson off the ball in his playing days. Nevertheless, Ferguson displayed a gift and passion for the game, as he and his younger brother Martin would cheerfully take to Ibrox to watch their beloved Rangers play, although their father secretly favoured the green and white hoops of Celtic to the blue of rangers predominant in Govan.

He played football with and for the Life Boys, and later the Boys’ Brigade, to which the Life Boys graduated to. He also played for his secondary school, Govan High, and that his football wasn’t going unnoticed was clear when he was invited to train with the Drumchapel Amateurs, a prestigious footballing academy which holds the distinction of having produced a lot of professional footballers (some more successful than others), including Ferguson and David Moyes.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – MAY 16: Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson (R) and Assistant Mike Phelan celebrate with the Barclays Premier League trophy after their side won the Premier League title at the end of the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Arsenal at Old Trafford on May 16, 2009 in Manchester, England.

After a couple of promising seasons as an amateur at Queen’s Park and St Johnstone, which included a hat-trick at Ibrox, the theatre of his boyhood dreams, he proceeded to turn professional by joining Dunfermline Athletic, and under Willie Cunningham, with whom Ferguson was to have a love-hate and cheerfully foul-mouthed relationship, flourished. He left his trade at the toolmaking factory he worked at, and put all the eggs in his footballing basket. Having spotted Cathy Holding (now Ferguson)in a dance hall, he approached her and they hit it off from the start. With a much needed fillip coming in the form of love, Ferguson resolved make the most of his playing career.

Ferguson was never the player who adroitly slid past two defenders, turned another and finished into the top right corner. Nor was he the one to run fifty yards at blistering pace to recover the ball after losing it in the opposition’s penalty box. Which, quite obviously, was why Ferguson never managed to reach the highest echelons of Scottish football, leave alone elsewhere. But, that hardly implies that he turned out to be a failure in professional football. Despite not being the most gifted or technically sound striker, if there was one thing Ferguson knew to do, loved to do, and did very consistently, it was scoring goals. He scored lots and lots of them for a handful of clubs in his days as a pro footballer, and you can expect to read all about it in the next instalment of this article about the pre-United years of the most successful manager in European football.

Heading into the third game-week of December, we have now reached the junction where most of the incompetent or (as in some cases) out-of favour managers are given a polite and courteous boot up the backside and another gentleman, for whom fate has the same gift in store for next Christmas, is hired to grace his predecessor’s office with his presence. It has become so common that bookies and teenagers alike now look at it as a way to make a quick buck. And it would be injustice of the highest order to chide only them. Football just does not operate the way it did a few decades back, when a certain Alex Ferguson (sans the title of ‘Sir’) was struggling with his Manchester United looking bleakly down upon the drop zone and an FA Cup 3^rd Round tie away at Nottingham Forest looming ominously large. Martin Edwards, the then Chairman, decided to keep faith in Fergie and the rest, as is the cliché, is history. Busloads of it, too.

These days, though, managers are being sacked –as far as we can see –just for the fun of it. It’s almost like having the same person in the hot seat for a longer period is monotonous and mind-numbing to the ever edgy and success-hungry gluttonous club-owner(s). If the AI of the Board Of Directors in the Manager Mode of Fifa games or on Football Manager was designed keeping Roman Abramovich in mind, we’d all be probably playing only Revelations by now. But, on a more serious note, what is this phenomenon that has been taking place right under our noses all this time? For all the stick he gets, Abramovich has won the Blues their only Champions League, three of their four League titles, and four FA Cups. In doing this, he has effectively ensured that when our kids grow old enough to quarrel with other kids over which of the clubs they support is best, they can’t taunt Chelsea fans about not having history. What a bummer!

Sure, the likes of Ferguson, Wenger, and to a lesser degree David Moyes command insurmountable and unparalleled levels of respect and reverence, but anyone who says that this is the only road to glory has obviously not only neglected Chelsea’s trophy harvest in the Roman Era, but has overlooked the entire history of Real Madrid. With the plausible exception of Miguel Munoz, [who, as Real manager from 1960 to 1974, won the Madridistas nine Ligas, and their fifth and sixth European Cups] the average aged Blancos fan has seen at least fifteen to twenty managers strutting proudly or stomping the Bernabeu sidelines furiously. But which club, may I ask, has won the European Cup the most number of times? And which club, may I ask, was awarded with the insanely prestigious recognition of being ‘FIFA Club of the Century’?

Exactly.

So, there is a certain degree of madness involved with this system of running a football club. But –at least apparently –there seems to be a method to it as well. For instance, under Neil Warnock, QPR started last season reasonably well enough but by November they were a team on the decline and looking like sure-shot relegation favourites. The sacking of Warnock and roping in of Mark Hughes brought a fresh breath of air at Loftus Road, and they somehow scraped through. Another ideal example would be Chris Hughton’s dismissal from Newcastle. At the time it looked like a real howler to many. But the truth is that, though Hughton got Newcastle back into the top flight as Championship winners, and the club was contentedly mired in mid-table, Hughton lacked both the ambition and the capability to re-establish the club’s European status. Alan Pardew’s influx at St James’ Park witnessed a fine ascent by Newcastle in the table, when Newcastle were inches away from booking their spot in the Champions League playoffs. That he knew how to give a half-time talk was made evident when the Magpies came back from four goals down to draw a game with Arsenal despite fielding a frontline that now lacks Andy Carroll.

You see, getting rid of redundant baggage is just as effective when we’re talking about managers as it is when we’re talking about players. There are times when even Ron Atkinson has to be dismissed in order for Ferguson to be appointed. Who knows? We saw the courteous welcome that Benitez received at Stamford Bridge in his first game in charge, but are the same banners going to be hoisted high if Chelsea –miraculously – win the league? It would take a really brave man to do so.

Sometimes, you need to make decisions that aren’t going to be well received by the fans to ensure that the ensuing events are going to make for a more harmonious crowd in the stands. In fact, it was the dismissal of a series of pretenders to the Juve throne that led to the hiring of Antonio Conte, the man who pioneered Juve’s unbeaten season in the league in 2011/12.

So, after all natter and chatter, what have we learnt? Is regularly chopping and changing the managerial style and along with it, the unfortunate manager, good for the club? Well, again, it depends. If your club has won every honour there is to be won in club football under a particular manager, *cough* *Ferguson* *cough*, then you would need a really sturdy bodyguard by your side at all times if you were to sack him without valid reason. But then again, if you’re ever-pushing for solid-metal gratification, then yes, you need to set firm targets and deadlines for the man you hand the reins to, and quickly replace him with a better candidate if he’s a sure shot cup-winner.

LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 05: Goalkeeper Petr Cech of Chelsea looks on during the UEFA Champions League group E match between Chelsea and FC Nordsjaelland at Stamford Bridge on December 5, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Scott Heavey/Getty Images)

Goalkeepers probably have the worst job in football. Their position demands insanely high levels of focus, awareness, reflexive ability and a zeal for their unduly thankless, unrewarding work. Rigorous practice, painstaking physical training, and countless encounters with the manager’s fury. And yet, if you master the art of annoying the strikers with unmatched stubbornness in not conceding goals – The Promised Land is yours for the taking. In the recent past we have seen that with so many shot-stoppers : Schmeichel, Buffon, Casillas, Oliver Kahn, and so on. If we were to add one name to that elite list from the most recent past, it would take a man of some nerve to utter any other name than ‘Petr Cech’.

Petr Cech moved to London in the summer of 2004 and started his career at Chelsea as Carlo Cudicini’s understudy. At first, fate took a bit of a fancy to the young Czech goalkeeper (although it was to change its mind and wreak a terrible cataclysm upon him two years later), as Cudicini sustained an elbow injury even before the season could commence. And guess who Chelsea and Cech opened their league campaign against? Mighty Manchester United. The scoreline? 1-0. I mean, who keeps a clean sheet against United on their debut? Everybody sensed a star in the making.

In truth though, he was a star in the making from the very beginning. He still holds the record for longest time elapsed without conceding at Sparta Prague (903 minutes) in 2001. This was when he was 19. And in his second season at Chelsea, he set a new Premier League record of 1025 minutes without conceding (which was broken eventually by Edwin Van der Sar). Petr Cech gave off a whole new aura of tight-fistedness. In both senses of the term, as strikers were to discover. His introduction at Stamford Bridge infused a new level of professionalism and efficiency at the club, as Chelsea took the Premier League home for the first time since 1955.

Cech made 34 appearances in the league the following season, in which Chelsea conceded a grand total of 22 goals. That in itself indicated the measure of the man. That Chelsea relied on him was clearly manifest in his first two seasons. Just how heavily they banked on him was going to be revealed shortly, albeit through a dreadful and nearly-tragic twist of events the following season, when Chelsea made that fateful trip to Reading’s Madejski stadium. It was the 14^th of October and, in the very first minute, Cech stepped out to challenge Reading’s Stephen Hunt for the ball. Hunt sloppily kneed Cech in the skull, and it took several minutes for the Big Czech to be stretchered off the pitch. It was only after the surgery that the doctors realized the gravity of the situation. They reported that the skull fracture had nearly cost Cech his life. A million prayers might have had something to do with his fortunate recovery.

Petr Cech was advised to take an elongated break of three months from football to wholly overcome his injuries. He returned in January the following year, but could not stop Manchester United from ending their title drought of three years. Cech was now sporting rugby-style protective headgear. In the same scrum cap, Cech kept a clean sheet against United in the new Wembley stadium, as Chelsea won the FA Cup through an extra time goal from Didier Drogba, and both Drogba and Chelsea began their love affair with the stadium.

Cech, in an interview on Chelsea TV, said that he did not have any memory of his horrific head injury at Reading. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t changed a darn bit after making his return. But unfortunately, his team had. A lot, in fact. Gone were the prosperous days of Mourinho. But fate was never going to let Cech get away with it. If it couldn’t afflict him externally, it conspired to torment his mind. It succeeded in doing so in the summer of 2008.

After taking a rampant United team with its elite squad of snipers to the penalty shootouts in the 2007/08 Champions League final, and saving Cristiano Ronaldo’s ridiculously tame spot kick, Petr Cech thought he had done significantly more than enough to ensure that Chelsea would triumph in Europe’s elite competition for the first time in their history. John Terry and the liberally watered Luzhniki surface had other plans in store. United gleefully capitalized on Terry’s mis-kick and made sure that Sir Matt Busby watched his team lift the trophy he had desired to lift half a century ago.

Being a Red Devil through and through, I have firsthand knowledge of how Cech can get on the opposition’s nerves with his obstinate and resolute ‘keeping. The reason that Chelsea fans still adore Jose Mourinho so much is that although he might have got them those two titles and left after a whirlwind romance and break-up (blame it on Roman) with London, he built them a team that could march on for many more years. Petr Cech was just one of the components of that team, along with Drogba, and both of them were to play vital roles – if not the only roles – in Chelsea’s momentous triumph at Munich.

Petr Cech is needed at Chelsea, now more than ever, with the jokers that now adorn their defensive line. Petr Cech has gradually become the primacy of life at King’s Road. Almost reaching up to the heights of Terry and Lampard.

With Cech, you never get that feeling of completeness. He is undoubtedly one of the best ‘keepers  in the world. His name gets on the Top Five without a shadow of a doubt. He may lack the respect and devotion that John Terry commands, and he may fall miles short of the admiration that Frank Lampard generates among the Blues faithful. But if there is one thing about him that cements his place among the legends to have graced Stamford Bridge, then it his grit and his appetite to battle. Even when he knows that his team are fighting for a lost cause, he fires up the boys with his never-say-die attitude. He had a lot of critics to toss into the fireplace last season, and he did that with the eternal grace that characterizes his exploits on the field.

And as every Blues fan would say after an awe-inspiring save from the Czech:
Cechmate!

You can read more about other such club legends here.

Oh, Keano’s F***ing magic,
He wears a magic hat,
And when he saw Old Trafford,
He said “I fancy that”
He didn’t sign for Arsenal,
Or Blackburn ‘cos they’re shite,
He signed for Man United,
Because they’re f***ing dynamite.

Old Trafford has witnessed many spectacular individuals donning the Manchester United captain’s armband during its 113 year history, and has also witnessed quite a few ordinary players being entrusted with this armband. No prizes for guessing which category Roy Maurice Keane goes under. That he used to play for Manchester United just seven years ago is now somewhat amusing because it seems ages ago. It’s like there has been a famine, a Great Harvest, and Hell has long frozen over since. Sure, his quality in midfield was replaced by the delectably soft-shoed Michael Carrick and the full bodied presence of Darren Fletcher; but if you thought that was all that Roy Keane contributed to the team, take a deep, yoga style breath and think again. And again.

Now continue reading this article.

Roy Keane, unlike many other ‘iconic figures’ (let’s keep the term ‘legend’ aside for a while) in the Red attire of United to grace the Theatre of Dreams, was not a product of the famed United Academy. He was purchased from Nottingham Forest, by now in decline just like their manager Brian Clough, at a reasonably young age of 22. An ideal age to sign a promising youngster, as he would have already gotten a fair deal of experience at the top level but could still be moulded into a far greater footballer and the coaches would be able to instil in him composure, develop within him the raw talent required at a club like United and watch him bloom. Composure on the ball was one quality that Roy Keane’s shelves brimmed with.

Off the ball of course, he was something else.

MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM – SEPTEMBER 01: Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson (L) and Sunderland Manager Roy Keane watch the action during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Sunderland at Old Trafford on September 1, 2007 in Manchester, England.

Roy Keane resembled the man who signed him from Forest in many ways. Of course, although Keano was an infinitely more gifted player than Sir Alex Ferguson in his playing days, the fire in his belly seemed to blaze just as intensely as Ferguson’s did. The referee baiting, needless insults towards colleagues, even his own teammates, the unnecessary and unprofessional acts and the avoidable opinions (read his rant about fans at Old Trafford enjoying less of the game and more of the munching of prawn sandwiches) that seemed jocular to others but were anything but, coming out of his mouth. Even the approach to physical play seemed similar. Ferguson played with his elbows parallel to the ground, with the bony weapons ready to stab anyone that dared step within its range, and Keane played with his feet ready to glide on the pitch any time he felt like taking the ball back. He was the Ferguson replica writ large. And the gaffer was more than willing to acknowledge:

“I’m happy seeing myself”

- Sir Alex Ferguson on Roy Keane

But that can barely be called criticism. It would be so, if we were talking about a mediocre midfielder. But the myriad other qualities that Keane possessed greatly outweighed his flaws. And even those flaws were only internal. Technically, he came close to the blueprint of the ideal Premier League midfielder. With due to credit to the Irishman, a recognition that he was his greatest nemesis led to the finest phase of his career, coming in his late twenties and early thirties. He would remain tough (as Patrick Vieira would testify) but would maintain enough discipline to stay away from cards and hospital beds :

“I’d come to one firm conclusion, which was to stay on the pitch for ninety minutes in every game. In other words, to curb the reckless, intemperate streak in my nature that led to sendings-off and injuries.” 

- Roy Keane

He was handed the captaincy after Eric Cantona’s unexpected retirement at the end of the 1996/97 season. He continued in the role for eight more seasons with the club. Keane had already played five years with the club when the captain’s armband was given to him, and had already won the League thrice and the FA Cup and the League Cup twice each. Under his captaincy, United were to add four more League trophies, two more Domestic Cups and that iconic Champions League which was a part of that iconic season. There was a memorable performance written in the stars that season, waiting for Keane to tie his shoelaces and step onto the Turinese stage.

That day… That man… That year…!

It is described as Keane’s finest hour. Some say that had it not been for the skipper, the idea of completing a European Treble would still remain just that, an idea, for United fans. After a draw at Old Trafford, United travelled to Turin to pursue the most exciting element of their treble quest. Juventus had been in the last three finals of Europe’s elite competition and looked to be just about booking their tickets to Barcelona for their fourth, with Pippo Inzaghi scoring twice in the first ten minutes when Roy Keane announced that their flight had been cancelled. He began the comeback with a raging header in the twenty fourth minute. The equaliser came after ten minutes when Dwight Yorke headed Andy Cole’s lofted ball past the Juventus goalkeeper. United were ahead on away goals but Keane and Co. pushed forth and the Old Lady finally stepped aside as United took the lead six minutes from time. Keano received bravados and bouquets from every corner, after a warrior-like performance that we are now so familiar with.

“It was the most emphatic display of selflessness I have seen on a football field. Pounding over every blade of grass, competing as if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose, he inspired all around him. I felt it was an honour to be associated with such a player”.

Ferguson’s take on Keane’s performance in the game.

He missed the final due to a yellow card, as did Paul Scholes. Both of them joined the frenzied celebrations at the Nou Camp with a fair bit of bitterness for not contributing in the team’s win, which only showed their commitment and dedication towards the club and an itchy yearning to help the team win. Keane extended his contract with the club until 2004 and although he was more disciplined and had a – comparatively – cool head on his shoulders, the most shameful incident of his career was still to come. In the 97/98 season (his first as United captain), in an away game at Leeds, Keane had sustained an injury while trying to foul Alfe Inge Haaland. He missed the rest of the season. But what really sparked Keane’s ire was the fact that as Keane writhed in anguish, the Leeds player stood over him and accused him of feigning the injury to avoid being booked.

MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM – MAY 09: Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United applauds Roy Keane of Celtic after his Testimonial match between Manchester United and Celtic at Old Trafford on May 9, 2006 in Manchester, England.

He neither forgot nor forgave Haaland for this, and three years later, when Haaland was playing for Man City, Keane wreaked his vengeance upon him, with a deliberate knee-high foul on the Norwegian. This is how apologetic Keane was in his autobiography:

“I’d waited long enough. I f***ing hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***. And don’t ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries. My attitude was, f*** him. What goes around comes around. He got his just rewards.”

Roy Keane was not an angel. Roy Keane was a devil. If Ferguson was Lucifer, Keane was Beelzebub. They had loyalty, passion, devotion and dedication,  but were dark personalities on the pitch. His tackles had malicious intent and his policy was ‘two eyes for an eye, and the whole upper jaw for a tooth’. But then, this was exactly what United wanted to replace Cantona with. After years and years of only domestic cup wins which came along once in a while to lift fans’ hearts, and with managers like Tommy Docherty and Ron Atkinson stepping out in charge of increasingly lethargic United outfits who looked more like office clerks just filing out their paperwork than football players who had an opportunity to win over one of the most devoted fan bases in the world, Ferguson and Keane were a fresh breath of air at Old Trafford.

But Keane wasn’t simply a poor tackler with a dark and twisted mind. He wasn’t just looking to break legs and let the referees have some fun with their cards. He was a fine orchestrator of United’s passing game, and could do anything required from someone in his playing position. Sometimes, just out of boredom, he would do more than that. The extra assistance proved helpful to United on some occasions.

And on others it was just disastrous.

But the fact remains that Roy Keane is the most successful captain to lead United, and probably the most maverick, reckless one at that too. United flourished under his leadership and played some of their best and most alluring football with him in the centre. He was ready to take more than one for the team, and had everyone’s back, just as they had his. A tunnel warning to Arsenal’s Vieira not to pick on Gary Neville made unforgettable television, and showed how protective he was of teammates. When he got down to criticizing them on MUTV, it was because he wanted them to thrive on the pitch, not because he wanted to bring them down.

“Happiness is not being afraid”. 

 - Roy Keane

If that is the case, Keane is one of the few men who can claim to have been happy their entire life. Roy Keane knew no fear.

For he was a legend.

1) Ralph Sampson v/s Jerry Sichting

Ralph Sampson, Houston Rockets’ giant of a center/forward, gets entangled right under the basket with the Boston Celtic’s guard Jerry Sichting. He snaps, and starts throwing punches at him. Sichting is a little man, at least in front of the man mountain who is assaulting him, but does not let a 1 foot 3 inches height differences dissuade him from fighting back. This is Game 5 of the 1986 NBA Finals and this is Sichting and Sampson. Ring that bell:

2) Larry Bird v/s Julius Erving

This incident finds itself on the list simply because of the two men involved in it – Julius ‘Dr.J’ Erving and Larry Bird. The Celtics’ man is obviously having a better game than The Doctor and with a minute and a half left to go in the third quarter, a frustrated Erving charges at Bird and throws a jab which lands straight in Bird’s face. As usual, everyone else intervenes and spoils what could have made a remarkable piece of televison. Although the Celtics beat the Philadelphia Sixers in this game, the Sixers’ fans still consider it a win, having seen Dr. J beat the… stuff, out of Bird. Come on now, ring that bell:

3) Knicks v/s Bulls

Well, this happened in the 1994 NBA Playoffs, and I can’t really make out who actually sparked the jab-fest, but this is one hell of a pile-up. And to make matters worse, or better, from where we’re standing, in the stands is Commissioner David Stern, watching all the hoopla with a bemused look on his face. I really don’t want to make up a bad pun about his second name now, so, where was that bell?:

4) Tree Rollins bites Danny Ainge

The Celtics, yet again, are playing the Atalanta Hawks and Tree Rollins, the seven feet tall Rollins elbows Danny Ainge, apparently as retaliation for the latter calling him a ‘sissy’, which sounds weird on countless levels. Ainge takes on the big guy and floors him, what follows is the usual middle school brawl and they are separated. But the weird part is, in the midst of that pile of testosterone, Tree takes a bite at the middle finger of Ainge, all the way down to the tendon. Hmm.. is someone even going to ring the bell now?

5) Larry Johnson v/s Alonzo Mourning

These two individuals never got along even when they were on the same team. So when Mourning and Johnson were drafted from the Hornets to the Miami Heat and NY Knicks respectively, it created the perfect ring for them to bout. In an Eastern Conference QFs Game, both these ex-Hornets met near the basket, and since Mourning did not like how physical Johnson was getting, he took a swing at the Knicks man. They continued to throw jabs at the wind until Van Gundy, the Knicks coach came in to save the day. Both were suspended for the next two games. Ahhh, there’s that bell… *DING DING DING* Enjoy the show…!

There has been a lot of debate surrounding who is the finest of the Fergie’s Fledglings, and although there are many who think David Beckham is a cut above the rest and a few more who think that Ryan Giggs possesses qualities the others never even came close to displaying, I think it simply cannot be anyone apart from Paul Scholes. Gary Neville is inspirational, Ryan Giggs is skillful and David Beckham is flamboyant; but Paul Scholes … is Paul Scholes. Manchester -born, bred and fed, he is nothing short of inspirational, incredibly skillful, and flamboyant in his own way. What? He’s the Ginger Prince after all, isn’t he?

Paul Scholes was one of those boys at school who are not bad at anything, fantastic at what they do, the ones you just can’t hate. Apart from football, Scholes also displayed an eye for cricket. He clearly made the right choice, however, and began training with Manchester United at the age of 14. He had three years with the United youth team, a stint which included an FA Youth Cup Final appearance, in a team that also included future senior team-mate Phil Neville. He ceased to be an apprentice and turned professional on the 23^rd of July 1993, and was given the jersey No.24, but he had to wait for a little more than a year to step out on the pitch wearing it. But wear it he did, on the 21^st of September 1994, and he did so proudly, scoring both goals in a 2-1 defeat of Port Vale in the League Cup. The trend of giving young players a run-out in the League Cup, started by Ferguson, continues this day, but at United it’s hardly fetching the success as it did back in the days.

Paul Scholes meanwhile, was working his way up the United ladder and after his debut, he hardly bothered to look back, and at the end of his first full season with the Red Devils, he had made seventeen league appearances and scored five goals, and the first one at Old Trafford came as the opener in 2-0 home win against Coventry. In the next season, which was his first full season with United, Paul Scholes partnered Andy Cole upfront due to the unfolding of a sequence of events, including the departure of Mark Hughes and the suspension of Eric Cantona. Scholes justified the manager’s decision to move him upfront by scoring a total of fourteen goals in all competitions. A decent enough aggregate for a midfielder, even an attack-minded one like Scholes. He played a crucial role in United’s second double in the 90s.

Manchester United won the next Premier League too, and Paul Scholes was a key figure in the campaign once again –and he still continues to be one – and was required to drift back to centre midfield following a Roy Keane injury early in the 97-98 season, which ruled him out for the remainder of it. United did not get to witness any major silverware that season, as Arsene Wenger announced his arrival in England. Guess who were to put his Arsenal in their place the following season?

By the beginning of the historic ’99 season, Paul Scholes was an established figure and a vital cog of the United machine. The backbone of United’s midfield, he was involved in the making of almost every single goal they scored with him on the pitch. Which is saying a lot because United were anything but shy in front of the goal that season. He had also earned more than 15 caps for England and scored seven goals for them before the season got underway, including a hat-trick at Wembley in March against Poland in a Euro Qualifying match.

The ’99 season was one in which everyone chipped in, and valuable contributions came from all over, not least from Paul Scholes’ magical right boot. He was now wearing the No.18 jersey he had picked in the ’97 season, which he was to hold onto for a decade and a half. He scored one of the two goals in the FA Cup Final against Newcastle, and an away goal in the Champions League quarters against Inter. His yellow card in the second leg of the semi-finals against Juventus meant that he would be suspended for the next European game – which happened to be United’s momentous date with Bayern Munich.

His form dipped considerably for the next few years due to his inability to adapt to the system Ferguson adopted to accommodate new signings such as Van Nistelrooy and Juan Sebastian Veron. Scholes outlived both at Old Trafford and returned to his best, bagging a career-best tally of twenty goals in the 2002/03 season. He was ruled out of about half the 2005/06 season due to blurred vision. He played the last game of the season, although reports suggested he hadn’t still completely recovered his vision. United too missed Scholes’ vision as they failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League.

United won their ninth league title under Ferguson in 06/07, a season in which Paul Scholes, now 33, made 45 appearances, proving his fitness as well as his burning desire to continue in the top level. He was shortlisted for a place in the English Football Hall of Fame, although eventually the honour went to Arsenal’s Bergkamp. During the 07/08 season, he sustained a knee injury in October and returned only in January the following year. Scholes scored only twice that entire season, and one of those two goals came in the form of a thrilling drive at Old Trafford against Barcelona in April to seal a superb tactical victory for Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz in the semi-finals of the Champions League, after they held Barca to a goalless draw at the Nou Camp.

In the final, though, Scholes did not look completely match fit and also received a yellow card and was ultimately substituted in the 87^th minute, which meant that he did not take part in the penalty shootouts which United won 6-5 to take their third European Cup – Scholes’ second.

“A role model, for me, and I really mean this, he’s the best central midfielder I’ve seen in the last 15, 20 years. He’s spectacular, he has it all, the last pass, goals, he’s strong, he doesn’t lose the ball, vision. Players love him. If he’d been Spanish he might have been rated more highly. “  – Xavi

Apart from that last line, which was completely unnecessary and delusional to an extent, Xavi couldn’t have got his analysis of the Ginger Prince any more accurate. A role model to Xavi, is a role model to all. Scholes was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in September 2008 and made his 600^th appearance for United in April 2009. Although United lost the Champions League to a Barca team that looked near-unplayable that evening, Scholes and United earned another Premier League and went just one short off Liverpool’s 18 titles. Scholes scored only three goals, but for a 35-year-old midfielder, 35 appearances in all competitions seemed impressive. It seemed even more so the next season when he made 38 appearances as United were unsuccessful in all competitions save the League Cup. The 2010/11 season was Scholes’ swansong year with the club (as we thought back then) and he was gifted a Premier League medal and a 6-0 win over the NY Cosmos in his testimonial match.

With Manchester United hardly looking like three time European champions and the defending English Champions, and nearly half the squad either on hospital beds or walking wounded on the pitch, Ferguson was compelled to bring back Scholes out of retirement and back to the team. It worked with almost immediate effect. I say almost, because Scholes looked more than a tad out of touch in his first game – An FA Cup 3^rd round match against City. From then on though, Scholes looked more like being in his elements than he had looked for the past three years. United stormed into an 8 point lead at the top. Defensive lapses cost them the title, but Scholes once again received a barrage of bravados from all corners.

His return to football was marked with the familiar –and even predictable, to an extent –reckless tackling that some United fans called passion and took it as another reason to put up more of his posters on his wall, and the rest of the entire world criticized and claimed was a hindrance to the making of one of ‘The Gods’ of football:

“For me he was not a fair player. There’s a little bit of a darker side in him, sometimes, that I did not like. I respect him highly as a quality player but I did not like some things he did on the football pitch”. – Arsene Wenger

Now although I really don’t take all of Wenger’s opinions seriously, this one has more than a fair bit of meaning and truth in it. Paul Scholes did always look like he had that dark side in him, and it has more than once ruined his or United’s match. Over 120 bookings in his entire career, and the dubious distinction of being the third most booked player in the Premier League, is a black spot on one of football’s most distinguished careers. Although the criticism has never exceeded a certain degree, which owes mostly to his other deeds on the pitch, there has been a visible level of malicious intent in his tackles on occasions, like the high foul on Zabaleta in the FA Cup semi final against City in 2011.

But then, if Zinedine Zidane can headbutt an opponent and still command the levels of the respect that he –deservedly – does, then Paul Scholes must be forgiven for his poor tackling, as he himself criticizes his inept skills at it, and more emphasis must be laid on his pin-point passing skills, and he has become to accurate passing what Bruce Lee was to Kung Fu. He has achieved almost complete mastery over the art of it. Cristiano Ronaldo would be happy to acknowledge this:

“When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at the club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Scholes. After I finished it, Scholes took the ball and pointed to a tree which was about 50m from where we were standing. He said, I’m going to hit it in one shot. He kicked and hit the tree. He asked me to do the same; I kicked about 10 times, but still couldn’t hit it, with that accuracy. He smiled and left.”

So there it is, Paul Scholes –William Wallace on the pitch, Da Vinci with the ball at his feet, and off the pitch? He’s Paul Scholes the family man.

“I’m star-struck when I see Paul Scholes because on the pitch you can’t catch him. Off the pitch he disappears.” – Luis Figo

 He’s the Ginger Prince, and he scores goals galore.

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 11: The two teams line up for a minute’s silence in remembrance of those who died during the First World War in St. James’ Park, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England

More than a quarter of the 2012/13 Barclays Premier League season has gone by, and the league table still looks like it is only five games old. West Bromwich Albion are soaring high, probably too high for their own good at fifth on the table, and shockingly, the club that finished at that position, seem to be completely out of the picture. What is going on at St. James’ Park? Why is Newcastle United, the club that had Manchester United leaving them with their tails between their legs after handing them a 3-0 beating at home, languishing in tenth spot? What are Alan Pardew’s men doing wrong?

At this stage last season, Newcastle were unbeaten and had collected 25 points out of a possible 33 and sitting pretty in third position, with only the Manchester duo above them. Fast forward a year later, and Newcastle, having already lost three games already – and two of them at home – are struggling to take off from where they left off last season with just 14 points from the possible 33. That’s 19 points dropped already. And this may be mainly attributed to the malfunctioning of a defence that was clinical through most of last season’s league campaign.

But most of all, Tim Krul’s not been the same imposing and highly reliable figure he was all through last season, and his brief absence and some rusty showing by Steve Harper between the sticks has only worsened the case. The Magpies have already conceded sixteen goals in eleven games. Fabricio Coloccini has given enough reason for Pardew to consider bringing in a replacement for the burly centre back and Newcastle skipper.

Food for thought: The team has been captained by four other players this season. And Coloccini’s signs of wear and tear is only emphasized by the red card received against Liverpool. So, inconsistency under the bar; uncertainty in front of it. But you could blame a lot of that on injuries. Both Krul and Coloccini sustained injuries on national duty, and this problem did not stop at the back. Cheick Tiote and Danny Simpson, two vital fixtures in the Newcastle line-up, were both ruled out for close to a month. What has made matters worse it the fact that due to injuries and other problems, Newcastle have had to field as many as seven different full-backs this season, including Simpson, Santon, Perch, Anita, Ryan Taylor, Tavernier and Ferguson.

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 11: Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew looks on during the Barclays Premier League match between Newcastle United and West Ham United at St James’s Park, Newcastle, England.

So, it has been just bad luck and more bad luck in the first quarter of the season for Newcastle.

Then again, there is the attack to be considered. Twelve goals in eleven matches does not look like European success material. It rather reeks of the foul smell of mid-table. Surely, with the likes of the Ameobis, Ba, and Cisse upfront, and dazzling midfielders like Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa to boot, not to mention Gutierrez’s flashy runs and crosses, you would have expected the Magpies to be swaggering forth and destroying teams with their attack. Sure, the defence was weak against West Ham, but that doesn’t take anything away from the fact that none of the stalwarts mentioned above scored a goal. Demba Ba has matured into a much more complete player than he was last season, and Ben Arfa and Cabaye seem to be playing with more flair than ever, but they are lacking the bite and the killer instinct they had last season, with Ba providing it in the first half of the season and Cisse taking over from January until the end of last season.

But again, a lot of that can be ascribed to the current formation adopted by Newcastle. The 4-4-2 is not working as well as the 4-3-3 or the version of it that Newcastle United employed last season. On top of that, seemingly mindless substitutions at times when they are least required or least suitable to the situation has not helped Newcastle’s case one bit. The team looks out of steam, the manager out of ideas, and it wont be long before the fans are out of patience.

However, countless teams have been in the situation Newcastle find themselves in, after a good run in the previous season. All Newcastle have to do is calm down, give themselves enough time and space to recollect their thoughts, regroup themselves, start enjoying their football again, and they’ll be back in their groove in no time. They don’t lack quality, they just look off-colour and I think it will be just a matter of time before they get back to playing the game they maintained all through last season.

The 1998-99 season is undoubtedly the most successful campaign for Manchester United in their 110 years of existence under the name.  On 26^th May 1999, Manchester United overturned a one-goal deficit in three minutes of additional time against Bayern Munich to win only their second European Cup (back then) as a misty-eyed Sir Bobby Charlton watched on wistfully from the stands at the Nou Camp. The European triumph completed a European treble –United had already completed the Domestic double of the League and the FA Cup in that season, United were near-unplayable. That season, United were an amalgam of all the qualities required to become the champions of Country and Continent. That season – United were perfect.

The team of the ’99 season has since provided as a benchmark, a point of reference to the teams that Ferguson has built after the turn of the century. But no team since built by Ferguson has come close to attaining the levels of perfection of the treble winning team. Sure, there was the third European Cup in 2008, but that can be mostly attributed to a couple of outstanding players rather than saying it was a perfect team effort. But for some reason, ever since Robin Van Persie scored that hat-trick at Southampton, I feel that this team comes the closest to that treble winning one of a decade and a half ago.

It’s not so much the resemblance of the individuals of the team as the actual spirit in which they play together. Sure there are a few cases in which some of the players of ’13 look and play like photocopies of their ’99 counterparts, Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez being the perfect illustration of that (referring to his uncanny resemblance to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer), but otherwise, some of the players hardly look anything like their ‘99 peers. Take David De Gea, he’s probably half the size of Peter Schmeichel.

Yet, just like Schmeichel, De Gea has made some really crucial saves to ensure that United haven’t dropped points. All the controversy at Stamford Bridge completely overshadowed a fine goalkeeping display by the young Spaniard at Chelsea. Even with all the unnecessary refereeing mistakes, we still could have managed to lose that game, if not for some inspired shot-stopping from De Gea. If not for Schmeichel’s penalty save against Arsenal in that extremely entertaining FA Cup semi final, United would never have got the treble and Giggs would never have made that mind-boggling run to score the winner. Who knows? Maybe fate has assigned such a moment for De Gea too.

The defence though, is where United still don’t match upto the back four of ‘99. Even thirteen years later, the whole back four pleasurably rolls off the tongue: Gary Neville, Irwin, Johnsen and Jaap Stam. Wes Brown, Gary’s younger brother Phil Neville and even Henning Berg, all made valuable contributions throughout the season. On the other hand, we have Rafael, Ferdinand, Evans and Evra. Although Rafael is a much more attack-minded full back than Gary Neville was, Neville always contributed a lot of assists and put a lot of pressure on the opposition with his crosses along with defending stubbornly when required, whereas Rafael is yet to reach such levels of maturity and spends more time looting the opposition’s left flank with Antonio Valencia and gets caught hopelessly on the break too many times.

To make matters worse, Ferdinand has almost completely lost his pace, his back problems have come to haunt him at all the wrong times, and Evra too spends a lot of time probing around the opposition box and gets caught on the counter attack. This leaves only Evans and a really slow Ferdinand to fend for themselves when the opposition counter, and this is precisely where we lost two crucial league games against Tottenham and Norwich yesterday. Once Phil Jones gets back, the defence will probably be given a shake-up, since Chris Smalling already is back, playing the whole game last night. Alex Buttner is another quantity who needs to be given more opportunities.

In Valencia, Young and Nani we have three good wingers who can strive to get us goals or win us spot kicks when required. Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley are excellent passers of the ball, and with one of them in a holding role, we can hope onto hold the ball for long periods of time and frustrate the opposition, with Valencia and Rafael then teaming upto launch one of their blitzkrieg attacks from the right flank. Ferguson seems to have lost all his faith in youngsters as Nick Powell is barely getting any game-time at all. Anderson is finally looking like he’s coming good at Old Trafford – finally looking a better and more assertive midfielder than Kleberson. Ryan Giggs has lost his sheen and understandably so but Shinji Kagawa, sadly, has failed to live upto expectations from the United fans, and left many of us red-faced after the comparisons we drew between him and Eden Hazard at the beginning of the season. Unless he puts his foot on the pedal and comes back with fire in his belly and goals on his mind in the next few months, he will have to go down as a flop signing.

Coming to the attack, it looks almost awkward, and yet frighteningly dangerous to the opposition. Hernandez is identical to Solskjaer and Van Persie to Andy Cole but that’s as far as the resemblance goes. There is no Dwight Yorke in the team and the role of Teddy Sheringham who looks and plays much like Solskjaer, too is played by Chicharito.   Danny Welbeck doesn’t seem to really understand his position in the team and frankly, he isn’t getting enough matches to do so. Wayne Rooney  is playing the roles of David Beckham, Roy Keane and the Scholes of ’99 by himself along with, well, being Wayne Rooney the talismanic centre forward. But that is hardly a thing to frown about as he seems to be enjoying himself in that floater role and United are soaring with destructive attacking play from everywhere.

One thing I still don’t quite get is, why is Ferguson still so intent on finding his No.1 Goalkeeper when it has already been established long ago that David De Gea is the man, to man the post? All that Anders Lindegaard can boast of being better than De Gea is that he has more of a physical presence and apparently being better at handling set-pieces. Well, we are now quite sure that De Gea is clearly superior in handling free-kicks, and he has also become more adept at staving off the aerial threat from corners. As we saw yesterday, the goal that beat United at Carrow Road came from a cross and went in from a header. As long as we’re conceding such goals, we might as well have Dea Gea to do it. Neither of the two are as good as Peter Schmeichel, both in terms of presence or shot-stopping anyway.

The way the team is coming back from precarious positions to secure wins, however, suggests that the team has already discovered the recipe to success. Almost all the ingredients are in the pantry, too. But the one secret ingredient that is absolutely essential to the Secret Ingredient Soup is still not brought out by the gaffer – Youth.

Almost all of our successes have come because of our outstanding youth policy, and Ferguson’s willingness to promote graduates of the Academy to the first team. So, with two more inconsequential Champions’ League group games remaining, Ferguson would do well to give the likes of Buttner, Powell, the Keanes, Wootton, and even Macheda an opportunity to prove themselves and give Ferguson his favourite headache.

So, have United and Ferguson found the way to conjure up the magic of the ’99 season again? I think not. I think we still need another season at least to hit our peak.

But then, I’ve been wrong almost my entire life, and I desperately hope I’m wrong now too.

Before I start addressing the question at hand – although there shouldn’t be one at all – let me remind you all, that, when a fighter is trained by a doting uncle who never made it to the top himself and took it upon himself to train his nephew, and is one of the two greatest fighters in the UFL, he will, no doubt, be considered better than the other contender, who is trained at an elite fighting academy from a very young age. La Masia (the Barcelona youth academy, if the club’s plastic fans weren’t aware of it. It’s never too late to learn) is, by leaps and bounds, a far superior youth academy to Academia Sporting, the youth club of Sporting Lisbon. Sporting Lisbon is, of course, the club that Ronaldo played for joining Manchester United. Phew! It’s a strenuous task talking to Barca fans, I tell you!

So, none of your statistics are going to help judge which of these players tops the other. It’s football, for heaven’s sake! Don’t just copy-paste some stats from wherever possible and quietly sit back as the fans start to declare that one is better than the other. That just spoils the romance and the emotion that envelops the beautiful game. Like for example: ‘Ronaldo fouls more than Messi’. Well Messi fans, being a fan of Cristiano, I don’t think that it says Messi is more ‘disciplined’ than Ronaldo. It just says Ronaldo has more commitment towards his team. Stats never speak about the overall performances that the player puts in over the course of the game: The runs made forward, coming back to assist the defence, holding the ball up, and so on.

If you really need to keep drawing comparisons and putting down one to make the other look better, then you need to look at their backgrounds and how hard they had it breaking into the major leagues and clubs. Oh wait, Messi never had any trouble with that, as he was signed by Barcelona even before his first shave!

Ronaldo has seldom had it easy in his life. While Messi was whisked off to Spain just as he entered his teens, Ronaldo had to overcome competition from his clubmates, the responsibility of his family, an ill  father whose health was steadily deteriorating, and his own health problems, for which he was even hospitalized briefly when he was 15. But he braved all of this, came out with soaring colours, and managed to sign a contract with a top European club in the form of United, the club that was going to mould him into the greatest footballer of the modern era. Yeah, you heard it right. Sir Alex identified his grit and his mental toughness and gave him the most coveted No.7 jersey straight away. And he lived up to everyone’s expectations from day one.

And, yes, Leo Messi may have good ball control and dribbling skills and everything, but he is a far cry from being called a ‘complete player’, whereas few can match the requirements of the tag as perfectly as Ronaldo does. He can do everything that you want an outfield player to do. Where Messi’s height ends, that’s where Ronaldo’s height begins. If Messi ever attempts to imitate Ronaldo’s step-overs,  he faces the risk of ending up in one of the funniest YouTube videos ever. But Ronaldo can do what Messi does, elegantly beating defenders, perfectly measuring lobs over the keepers’ heads, and finish off movements with as much precision and accuracy as the diminutive Argentine. The way he led Portugal into the semis of the Euros and just missed the final berth, courtesy a penalty shoot-out in which he wasn’t even allowed to take a shot because his team-mates lost the shoot-out even before Ronaldo could take his designated last shot. Again, an indication of his team-mates who rarely do him justice.

DONETSK, UKRAINE – JUNE 27: Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal shows his dissapointment during the UEFA EURO 2012 semi final match between Portugal and Spain at Donbass Arena on June 27, 2012 in Donetsk, Ukraine. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

Messi’s Argentina, meanwhile, crashed out of the Copa America in the quarter final stage. A team that boasts of such attacking talent like Higuain, Di Maria, Tevez, and Sergio Aguero.

So, there, Ronaldo is a better man than Leo Messi, a better footballer than Leo Messi and a better leader than Leo Messi.

Ronaldo > Messi. Period.

‘That Lippi, he had us all beat’

Sir Alex Ferguson’s assertion in praise of his then Juventus counterpart Marcello Lippi back in 1997, now seems more appropriate when used with reference to Antonio Conte, the architect of Juve’s unbeaten Serie A campaign last season. Although Juve’s aura of invincibility was finally shattered after a 1-3 away loss to title contenders Inter Milan this weekend, Conte’s feat of last season will probably go down in the history of Juventus, as well as Italian football, as the season that turned things around for Juve and re-established the might of the Old Lady of Turin in Italy. Conte is facing a ten month ban for his alleged involvement or failure to report match-fixing in the most recent Italian fixing scandal.

So, what was it that enabled the Bianconeri to go through an entire season unbeaten in the league, as well as stretch that undefeated streak onto the following season, then painfully fall short of Milan’s record of 58 straight games without a defeat by just nine matches? To be fair, there are more than a few reasons why. But to go on and do a complete analysis on the tactical astuteness of Conte and his ability to bring a club together and infuse them with team spirit like he did, would take more than 50 instalments of this article. Hence, let us have a less detailed but equally informative walk-through of Juve’s 49 match unbeaten run:

1) Conte’s Character: As I’ve already mentioned a few times in this article, he was one of the main reasons why Juve had such a terrific season. He was quickly and easily accepted in the dressing room and by the fans on his appointment, having been a former player for Juve. He also quickly revolutionised Juve’s outlook by instilling a sense of team spirit and creating a positive family atmosphere in the club, where every player was, before anything else, a representative of Juventus Football Club, his main job doing his club proud.

He also drew comparison with Jose Mourinho – inevitably – due to their similar passion for the tactical aspect of the game and the common ability to win over and bond together with his players. Conte also introduced a brand of quality attacking football, almost always using either the 4-3-3 or the 3-5-2 formation. His only loss as Juventus manager, out of 56 matches in charge of the Turinese club, came in the form of a 0-2 defeat by Napoli in the final of the Coppa Italiana. His charismatic personality reflected a real sense of confidence and purpose about him.

2) Free agent Pirlo: After ten years at Milan, Andrea Pirlo was thought to be past his sell-by date. He made only seventeen appearances for Milan in his last season, and considering that he plays in a deep-lying playmaking role, this was quite a surprise. Juventus signed the seemingly putrid playmaker from Milan on a free transfer after Pirlo confirmed that he would not be signing a new contract with the champions of the season. Once he arrived in Turin, the atmosphere created at the club by the gentleman mentioned above, seemed to be acting like a re’juve’nating drug on Pirlo. (What?! I’m not allowed even a single bad pun?) Pirlo had an outstanding season with the Bianconeri, as he summoned all his powers, or superpowers – Long range shots, defence splitting long passes, pin-point set-pieces, incredible vision, the whole lot. “L’architetto” (the architect), constructed goal after goal, victory after victory after victory, and did a tidy job at the back whenever needed. He even had a great Euro 2012 campaign with Italy, taking them to the final, something he probably could not have achieved had he stayed with Milan.

3) Gianluigi Buffon and the Turinese wall: Juventus did not thrive without a stable back four and a champion between the sticks. They went through the entire league campaign conceding just twenty goals. Twenty goals, in thirty eight league matches, keeping around twenty clean sheets! In itself, it is a remarkable feat and a reflection on the fine work of Italy’s World Cup hero Buffon and the men in front of him, including the likes of Chiellini and Caceres.

4) Backroom team: Apart from Antonio Conte, the coaching staff of Juventus made sure that every single time the men in black and white stepped onto the football pitch, they were well-drilled, well-oiled, and completely match fit, both physically and mentally. Generally, when a good goalkeeper enters his thirties, he usually goes through a bad patch, at least initially, before maturing into a great goalkeeper. Since Buffon was already one of the most reliable between the sticks, keeping him in that league was always going to be a challenge. In this respect, Claudio Filippi, the goalkeeping coach, did a fantastic job. The inspired physical performances by the Juventus team every time they out-muscled and outran their opponents, owed largely to the fitness coaches. Even the president himself was a fantastic support all through, to the team, the manager and so on.

Anyway, it has come to an end. And probably, for the better. Maybe the disappointment of that away loss to Inter can provide the spark that Juventus need when it comes to their European campaign. Maybe that loss is a reminder to Juventus, that if they want to be the club they were in the last two decades of last century, it is going to take more than an unbeaten season to do so.

Anyone who has played Football Manager with a club in the Second or Third Division of any country will testify to this assertion by Brad Pitt, who delivers a fine performance as Billy Beane in the critically acclaimed Hollywood movie ‘Moneyball’, without a second thought. It is one hell of a headache to assemble a team with a budget that is sometimes half of what even mediocre players in the Premier League or La Liga earn every year. And yet, there are some exceptional managers who still manage to attain promotion with the club. A summer full of elation and optimism follows in the city where the club is based. Until the season starts, however. Then the fans feel the hard and cold rush of reality hit them and prick them like a thousand needles shot at the body all at once.

We saw that with Blackpool in the 2010/11 season. And we’re witnessing the same with Reading this season. Why do most clubs who are promoted to the top-flight find it so hard to cope with the rigours of the top-flight? Hull City, Burnley, Blackpool… see the pattern?

In the movie ‘Moneyball’ (which is based on a true story, and those interested might check out Billy Beane and his achievements as General Manager with the Oakland A’s), Beane (Pitt) is the general manager of the Oakland A’s, a team whose new owner Steve Schott is keen on balancing the books before the season begins. As a result, the team loses a couple of its star players, who are sold to bigger and more ambitious clubs. This is heard of only too often in football.

Beane meets Peter Brand, a Yale graduate in economics, and this is where this article comes to its main point and ceases to be a movie review. Brand devises a scheme of assembling a team with the limited budget on offer, by employing his ‘sabermetrics’. Players who are generally ignored by the bigger clubs for one or the other defect, but who could be effective otherwise, are collected to form a roster, which, once it gets together, sets off on a remarkable winning sequence.

The Championship clubs that make it to the Premier League next season, must take a leaf out of this concept that revolutionised the Major League Baseball since. Take, for example, Blackburn Rovers. In case they get promoted this season, they will be every bookie’s best bet to stumble back to the second tier. But, there are about thirty to forty players in the Premier League who are tailor-made for Rovers and  just waiting to be snapped up, that Rovers can use to great effect and not only stay in the top tier, but do so convincingly. This is where the ‘loan’ system can prove to be a boon for such clubs.

Top clubs like Man United, Chelsea and Arsenal continue to produce decent footballers who, even if they don’t make it at their parent clubs, can carve out a decent career elsewhere. Henning Berg, newly appointed manager of Rovers, can easily build a decent team of such players. The Gabriel Obertans, the Kenwyne Jones’, the Kevin Davies’, are all players capable of having a good season with a club where the expectations are as low as they get. Then there are the U-21s and teenage fliers like Scott Wootton and Keane duo of United, who the manager would be desperate to give some quality game time but can’t because of the quality of their main squad. One year on loan is all they need. Every party involved in such a transaction benefits.

Case in point, West Ham’s loan signing Andy Carroll. Although we are not sure if Brendan Rodgers was high on something when he agreed to the deal, we can be sure that ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce would have been delighted with Carroll’s addition to his squad. Carroll is an Allardyce player in every sense. And look how it is paying off. West Ham are comfortably placed in mid-table with the likes of Carroll, the nomad Kevin Nolan, Vaz Te and Benayoun all delivering for West Ham, along with goalkeeper Jaaskaleinen, signed from Bolton, who were also relegated last season. Relegated teams too, can be a treasure trove of players.

But most profitable among all, is the signing of free agents. Not a penny paid to any other club. Only the club’s wage structure can prove to be an obstacle in such a signing. And if the team can eke out about ten to fifteen goals from a striker signed on a free transfer, they will have made quite the bargain. A handful of clean sheets from a free goalkeeper would be a real value for money signing, so to speak.

So, this is the best and the most positive way out for teams that will be promoted this season, anywhere in the world, because the shrewdness, the tact, and the practicality of the roster building is proportional to the points amassed in the league. Or they can just do what Blackburn did last season: Take all the wrong decisions, hire all the wrong people, and buy yourself a one way ticket to the relegation zone.

But ‘Moneyball’ is a concept that the managers must give a thought about.

I still remember when we first heard about India having its own Formula 1 fixture.

That was around two years back, and having been enthralled the previous year by a young Sebastien Vettel, who looked far younger than his birth certificate would have suggested, and showed far more maturity in the Red Bull car than his looks might have suggested, I was bouncing off the walls with poorly concealed excitement. It is not unfair to say that the inaugural Indian Grand Prix lived up to every inch of its hype and expectations.

Now here we are, in the year 2012, and the second edition of the exceedingly extravagant racing event seems to have lost a bit of its sheen from last year. Sure, the race in itself was, honestly, much more exciting and was of infinitely more significance with respect to the championship. Vettel’s win at the Buddh International Circuit, could prove to be the turning point of the championship. But the event lacked the buzz of last year, and the ‘First Indian GP’ tag having gone, the excitement was considerably lessened, as the attendance showed.

So, is that going to be the future trend for yet another sport trying to seduce a country, where half of the population is infatuated with the bat and ball game? Maybe so. Maybe not; hopefully not.

But is the Formula 1 a little too rich for a country like India, where only the likes of Chennai and  Coimbatore can boast of quality racing culture and quality drivers’ production? I mean, just landing a seat in teams like Hispania Racing costs around $10 million for an aspiring driver. That seems like a joke, when compared to the bare minimum you require for cricket, or football.

Even then, if you have the skills in cricket or football, people would line up just to pay for your kit. And also, does it make any sense to have a Grand Prix in India?

Well, the perks are – it establishes India as a reliable venue to host other upcoming international sporting events. It is a sign of encouragement for motor sports in India, and it also enhances the country’s prestige in itself. To have a Grand Prix in India, currently makes it one out of just twenty venues around the world to hold that honour.

But consider the financial burdens it imposes on an economically backward(ish?) country, especially considering the state of other countries who have GPs, like Australia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi etc. The cost of building a brand new permanent circuit can amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

$400 million dollars were invested on the track alone, and a further amount of $10 million is to be paid for every Grand Prix. In a country where around 60% of the people are below the generally agreed upon ‘below-poverty-line’ (living on less than $2 per day, according to World Bank in 2011), it is quite obvious that F1 is popular almost entirely with the nouveau riche breed of upper class Indians, comprising mostly of those in the age group between 15-30. So, is the hosting of the Grand Prix a bit of a squeeze for a struggling Indian economy? Well, you could say so.

However, Formula 1 is a giver. The revenue that is generated from all angles of the Grand Prix, amounts to staggering figures. Ticket sales, broadcasting and advertising are bumper prizes in F1 because in terms of viewership, the sport is right up there with the likes of the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. The official caterer for the Grand Prix generates around $6 million dollars through the course of the event, from a target audience of around 300,000. That’s saying something.

Besides, the maintenance of a world class racing circuit can’t be managed by just a couple of stewards here and there and a few janitors to sweep up every day. You would think that a circuit which is spread over an area of 874 acres would employ a huge task force for its upkeep. And the circuit can also generate revenue from various other sources, most notably like a MotoGP Indian Grand Prix in 2013.

Although there are a considerable number of people who think that the F1 is more of a bane than a boon for India, I personally disagree, and think that it should be given a couple more years of observation. Hopefully, people will start to see that although the whole concept sounds like a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks up money at an alarming rate at first, it is undoubtedly –as the annual revenue of the BIC would illustrate –a real money train.

And I think India must get on it.

Everton and Fulham: The first two games of the season were sound evidence that our defence this season does not even come close to the ones that Van Der Sar and Schmeichel commanded during their respective reigns in between the sticks. At Goodison Park, had De Gea not summoned his fantastic reflexes to make some great saves, United wouldn’t have gotten away with a not-so-disgraceful 0-1 scoreline. No points gained, nonetheless, as a defence featuring a rusty Vidic and Carrick filling in for the injured centre-halves sent out a clue to the other title challengers as to where United’s weak points lay.

The midfield shape for both the games was in many ways, similar to the one applied last season, where Evra’s overlapping runs on the left mirrored the more effective ones from Nani or Valencia on the right. Kagawa smoothly drifted onto the left when required, and Cleverley’s long-ball ability was hardly questioned. But Vidic’s horrific misunderstanding with De Gea in the second game, resulting in an own goal, showed our shakiness in front of our goal.

Southampton, Wigan and Liverpool: Anders Lindegaard took over from De Gea as United No.1 for the next four games, three of which were wins. At Southampton, Ferdinand’s return did not witness too much jubilation among the fans, as Rickie Lambert and Southampton bullied United with their aerial prowess. However, Robin Van Persie just pushed them over the edge, re-establishing United’s ability to win games out of nothing. The team was slowly re-adjusting itself into the diamond shape that was to take form after a couple of games. At home to Wigan, Alex Buttner made his league debut with a fine showing that included an assist and a goal. Evra had found his successor. We still used the width provided by Nani and Rafael on the right, but the formation hardly resembled the typical 4-4-2 of the old United. All that was needed to complete the diamond was its tip. Wayne Rooney was still injured. His presence was missed at Anfield, where Liverpool completely dominated United until Shelvey’s dismissal. Luck had a great role to play as we took three points from Anfield without much pomp, as a mark of respect for the 96 unfortunate Liverpool fans, who’d finally gotten their deserved justice a few days ago.

Tottenham Hotspur – The Completion of the Diamond:  That we had so dearly missed the indefatigable workmanship of Wayne Rooney was given away when it was his introduction at half-time that spurred a frighteningly dull United side in the first half to give Spurs the fight of their lives in the second. Spurs prevailed, but United had come away with a moral win. And Ferguson finally seemed to learn that irrespective of his illustrious career with United, it was Ryan Giggs who was holding the team back. The tip of the diamond had been formed. Wayne Rooney was back. Carrick served as the base, and Kagawa found in Cleverley his central midfield partner in their next game, a walk in St. James’ Park.

Newcastle and Stoke – The diamond can stab: The last half hour of the home game against Spurs had given Ferguson’s men such a lift they returned all the three goals of the 0-3 defeat away at the Toon last season in January. The midfielders were simply superb, as was Wayne Rooney, the razor sharp point of the midfield. De Gea was back to his agile best, and the defence was peculiarly clinical. Tom Cleverley’s dream goal sealed the win, and Steve McMahon’s crying and whining was ignored as United played host to Stoke, conceded the now traditional early goal, went into a 3-1 lead just after half time, and Rooney killed the game off with his second goal.

My preferred formation: The 4-1-2-1-2

Patrice Evra does not find himself in this team because his days as a reliable defender are almost upon him. It was his waywardness that cost us a win at home to Everton last season and with it, the title. In just one game in the league, Alexander Buttner has made his case and made it well, showing that even when he gives the ball away, he has the legs to sprint back and recover it. Once Smalling is completely fit, Ferdinand’s position goes to him and Phil Jones fits in either Rafael’s or Carrick’s position, the latter being occupied by Scholes now.

Cleverley must remain a fixture in this formation as must Wayne Rooney, and Welbeck and Hernandez can be swapped, depending on the opposition and the scenario. Ashley Young’s well, dribbling ability would prove more than helpful on occasions, so will Valencia’s sly wing craft, and either of them can fill in Kagawa’s position when needed. In Valencia’s case, of course, Cleverley has to swap positions with the Ecuadorian. And Nani, if he sheds his negative image and undergoes a metamorphosis out of which he comes out a new footballer and a new person, can come close to emulating Cristiano Ronaldo.