მოურინიოს ასისტენტობა ფერგისთან გაასწორებდა
Could Fergie and Mourinho form the most deadly double act in football history?
By Michael Calvin
Pigs flew, politicians recited love sonnets, and hardened hacks forswore the drink.
In Milan, a certain Portu-geezer lit yet another prayer candle.
The world, as we knew it, had ended.
Sir Alex Ferguson forgot himself so completely that he gave an interview to the BBC.
He was as giddy as a schoolgirl, consumed by an achievement that proved there’s life beyond football.
What A Friend, one of his racehorses, will be aimed at next year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup after winning at Aintree.
Fergie’s own schedule is rather more uncertain, but he has a simple choice.
Rebel, renew, or retire.
Second-guessing a man who treats defeat as a bereavement, but life as an opportunity, is pointless.
Jose Mourinho can only hope that Fergie will find a release from the stresses of *management increasingly irresistible.
Il Uno Speciale has already given what we are contractually obliged to call a ‘come and get me plea’.
He couldn’t be more open about his unhappiness in Italy if he padlocked himself to the altar at Milan’s gothic cathedral in protest.
Real Madrid can’t wait to show him the colour of their money. They have tradition on their side, unlike those in the Bedouin encampment at Eastlands.
But, if football operated on the principles of an internet dating site, Mourinho and Manchester United would already be in the registry office – their profiles fit.
Regime change at Old Trafford will be more politically driven than a Papal election.
United’s College of Cardinals, led discreetly by Sir Bobby Charlton, are already judging candidates’ character and philosophy. The speculators, supporting the Glazers’ debt, will demand more trophies as a distraction while they shake the money tree to its very roots.
Mourinho will never have a better chance to make his case, to be all things to all men.
He stockpiles managers’ scalps with the relish of a schoolboy collecting Panini stickers.
Outwitting Pep Guardiola, in the Champions League semi-final, would complete the set. Mourinho made his bones at Old Trafford, with Porto. He effortlessly burrowed under the skin of Rafa Benitez. He eclipsed Arsene Wenger and, for good measure, got inside Carlo Ancelotti’s brain.
Succeeding Fergie need not be football’s equivalent of following the horses at the Trooping of the Colour with a broom and a bucket.
Mourinho’s priority now is beating Barcelona. If anyone can shackle the world’s favourite team, he can.
He will not wait forever for United, and has a habit of defying convention. Agreeing to work alongside the great man, for a transitional season, would reek of respect for *Fergie, the club, and its legend.
Such an arrangement has its precedents. Bob Paisley quietly advised Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool. Fergie himself valued Sir Matt Busby’s counsel in his formative years at United.
Despite his paranoid ramblings about media bias, I admire Sir Alex’s devotion, his private support for lesser colleagues, toiling in the lower Leagues. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wins his fourth successive Premier League title.
Yet the past week has been brutal.
He has demeaned himself twice in defeat with transparent diversionary tactics.
He dispels talk of a purge, but only the terminally naïve take his public words at face value.
Since a new strategy is obviously unfolding, he is unlikely to defy the Glazers. Impending arrivals Javier Hernandez and Chris Smalling are investments in potential, shopping on a budget.
His first instinct would probably be to reject the chance to share the burden. Yet some believe he will be carried out of Carrington, feet first.
But he admires the intelligence which underpins Mourinho’s mischief-making, and is broad-minded.
They’d be a dream team for United. And a nightmare for the rest.
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ამათი ინტერვიუები წარმოიდგინეთ მატჩის შემდეგ
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Manchester United Supporters' Association, United We Love You
