Franz Beckenbauer once explained the secret of total football: it didn’t exist. ‘There was no such thing,’ he said, recalling the magnificent Dutch team built around the skills of Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens and Robbie Rensenbrink. ‘It was just 11 great footballers in orange shirts. By the time the other teams had worked that out, the orange shirts had scored two goals.’
Sir Alex Ferguson’s mind games work something like that. They are the Keyser Soze of the modern game, and like the mythical and ruthless criminal mastermind whose legend is central to the film The Usual Suspects, their narrative power blurs our sense of reality.
So, on Saturday, when Roberto Mancini, manager of Manchester City, refused to shake hands with his counterpart at Stoke City, Tony Pulis, it was in some strange way first blood to Ferguson. Actually, Mancini was unhappy with what he saw as roughhouse tactics by Stoke, but that didn’t matter; he was cracking under pressure, because Ferguson’s psychological warfare was taking its toll.
The fact that Ferguson was quite possibly watching the game at home with a glass of something warming, and had about as much influence over events at the Britannia Stadium as Mancini will have over tonight’s match between Manchester United and Fulham, is irrelevant. The clocks have gone forward, so let the mind games begin. That is what always happens at this stage in the season; or at least we think it does.
Arsene Wenger got closest to the truth when he said that Newcastle United’s defence, not Kevin Keegan’s outburst on Sky television, handed the title to Manchester United in season 1995-96. The same could be said of Rafael Benitez’s famous list of facts in 2008-09. Both were sideshows that took on unreasonable significance because to list the many complex reasons why a title is won or lost is, well, a bit dry.
Far easier to pull a colourful strand of pseudo-logic from mid-air and adorn it with all manner of magical powers. At least Holland’s claim to play total football was built on a tangible philosophy, tactical and technical. Mind games are just ephemeral moments, a press conference quip, the unrelated exposure of vulnerability. We make the connections. We join those dots.
Keegan’s outpouring of pent-up emotion is often cited as evidence of the successful application of Ferguson’s mental vice. Their spat started on April 17, 1996, after Manchester United had endured a particularly difficult home match against Leeds United, who played with 10 men for 74 minutes but went down only to a Roy Keane goal with 18 minutes to spare. The fact that Leeds were in 13th place and had performed with an uncommon intensity affronted Ferguson.
‘I can’t understand the Leeds players,’ he said. ‘If they had played like that all season they’d be near the top. They raised their game because they were playing Manchester United. It was pathetic. We can accept any club coming here and trying their hardest, as long as they do it every week.’ One of Newcastle’s remaining games was away at Elland Road.
Ferguson continued this line of attack over the coming days, claiming that teams were trying harder against Manchester United. He singled out Nottingham Forest, another mid-table opponent on Newcastle’s to-do list.
Keegan was furious at this slight and both Leeds and Forest caretaker manager Stuart Pearce are mentioned in the less-quoted portion of the explosion that ended with him telling the world he would ‘love it’ if his Newcastle denied Ferguson the title. It was this loss of public composure that has, ever since, marked Ferguson as the master of the mind game.
In popular recollection, Keegan’s meltdown was the turning point in the title race. Yet, his words came at the end of a match that Newcastle had won — 1-0 away to Leeds. Furthermore, when Ferguson first speculated about the attitude of the Leeds players, Manchester United were already three points clear at the top, having once trailed Newcastle by 12.
So what happened between January 21 (Newcastle 54 points, Manchester United 42 points) and April 17 (Manchester United 73 points, Newcastle 70 points with a game in hand)? Simple. Newcastle lost away matches at West Ham United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers and, most importantly, were beaten 1-0 at home by Manchester United, thanks to a goal from Eric Cantona.
Before the mind games had ever begun, Manchester United had turned around 15 points. So getting in Keegan’s head wasn’t the clincher; getting in behind his back four was the key. As for the fateful night of Keegan’s fury, well that wasn’t exactly the stuff of popular imagination, either.
On March 31, Manchester United had reached the FA Cup final and were to play Liverpool. The staple Cup Final preview feature at the Mail on Sunday newspaper involved bringing the competing managers together for what was termed a ‘crosstalk’. A convivial lunch, a bottle of wine or two and a taped conversation full of, it was hoped, shared laughs, memories and the odd headline-grabbing quote.
Tuesday, April 30, was arranged as the day Ferguson would sit down at a posh Cheshire location with Roy Evans and the Mail. He came late, caught up at the training ground, but instantly ditched the chosen libation as unworthy, opting for something substantially more upmarket. Work done, he was determined to completely relax. And relax the managers did, for most of the day. Indeed, by the time Ferguson returned home he was so relaxed that Newcastle’s match with Leeds was over. He turned on the television, and was immediately startled out of his repose by the sight of Keegan, jabbing an angry finger at the camera and announcing he would love it if Manchester United’s title went down the tubes. So much for Machiavelli.
This is not to say Ferguson isn’t pin-sharp. He is a perceptive man who will attempt to gain advantage any way he can, whether it is applying pressure to a referee in Europe or seeking to pick at the perceived weakness of an opponent the way a fast bowler once worried away at a loose steam.
Yet he knows much of the work will be done for him, by a media anxious to find richness and depth in what is basically another two-horse title race.
So Ferguson mocks the return of Carlos Tevez — in response to Patrick Vieira of Manchester City deriding the return of Paul Scholes — and suddenly it is another masterful mind game.
This ignores the fact that Ferguson actually refused to answer the leading question about Tevez’s restoration, which was whether he would have done the same in Mancini’s position.
‘I don’t need to get into that,’ he said. Meaning, yes. It also ignores United’s status going into the weekend, a point clear of City having once trailed them by seven. One might say the hard work was done before the mind games started, considering United held a four-point lead after beating Wolverhampton Wanderers. United turned around 11 points without so much as a twirled moustache.City then dropped two points at Stoke on Saturday and Mancini ducked a press conference, leading to the instant abandonment of reason and rabid speculation that the mind games were already having an effect.
Of course, the events are unrelated. Ferguson didn’t get into Mancini’s head, Dean Whitehead’s forearm got into David Silva’s face, and the Manchester City manager thought not enough was being done by referee Howard Webb to protect his team. Is he feeling the pressure at the business end of the season? No doubt. Is he feeling pressure because Ferguson is messing with his mind? Unlikely. Stoke striker Peter Crouch caused more psychological trauma than Ferguson ever could, by scoring the goal of his life, and arguably of the season, to put City behind.
These are the moments at which even the most composed coaches lose reason. Had it happened against Arsenal, Wenger would have been doing his Basil Fawlty impression. It is possible that City will surrender the title in the coming weeks and, if they do, the explanation will be considerably more intricate than a little baiting between friends. The untimely injury to Vincent Kompany, the increasing exhaustion of Silva and Sergio Aguero, the momentum lost when Yaya Toure decamped to the Africa Cup of Nations, Mario Balotelli’s unpredictability, Tevez’s selfishness, all are tiny factors, plus a hundred others unseen.
Titles are won, not lost, remember. What of the return of Scholes from retirement and Rio Ferdinand from injury, the recent form of Ashley Young and, before misfortune again intervened, Antonio Valencia? That of the fact that Wayne Rooney is the greatest footballer this country has produced since Paul Gascoigne? Indeed, what of Ferguson’s position as the finest manager of this or any other generation?
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