As Manchester United face Liverpool sitting at the base of the English Premier League, a Melbourne Victory marquee’s insight into Sir Alex Ferguson’s drive shows why the club have not won the title since he left, writes Tom Smithies.
Nani can tell you the train station involved, the year, the team he’d missed a penalty against – and most of all, the feeling of fear in the pit of his stomach.
Melbourne Victory’s marquee signing laughs at the memory now, 12 years later, but back then the idea of annoying Sir Alex Ferguson was frightening enough to drive his Manchester United teams towards constant success.
But this is a story that also tells you why Ferguson was so revered by his players, and why United have never been able to replace him.
It was at the start of Nani’s fourth season at United – by when, he also explains, he was settled in and overflowing with confidence – that he took the ball out of the hands of Ryan Giggs to take a penalty away to Fulham, with his team 2-1 up. He missed, and Fulham then equalised.
That was bad, and Ferguson’s anger in the dressing room after was worse. Nani had time to stew on it on the train back from London to the town of Macclesfield in Cheshire.
“Then he was my neighbour, and he didn’t have someone to take him home from the station,” Nani relates. “And so he asks me, ‘Nani! You’re going to (take me)!’ I say, ‘Yes boss, I can take you boss, no problem…’”
At this point, sitting in AAMI Park in Melbourne in 2022, Nani’s face is mimicking the dread he was feeling then at the prospect. “Then he came in the car and we didn’t talk nothing.”
Minutes went past that clearly felt like hours. “Then he started talking about (other things) and asking me questions, and I relaxed myself. So I said, ‘Oh, sorry, sorry boss for the penalty.’ And he says, ‘No, no, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. Ryan Giggs should take it, he should not let you take the penalty, he’s older, it’s okay, it’s okay.’
“Because on the moment he can be very hard on you, explode on you and say a lot of things but after, as a human being out of the field, it was the best, he could talk with you like nothing happened before. That’s the good thing.”
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It seems to run counter to the laws of solar physics for the shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson to loom ever more broadly over United the more time elapses since his retirement in 2013.
But each reset, each new manager, has wilted in the face of succeeding the legend, to the degree that United face Liverpool early on Tuesday (AEST) in Erik ten Hag’s third game sitting joint bottom of the table.
The sort of hapless performance that left United 4-0 at Brentford before half-time last weekend was anathema to Ferguson and the culture of footballing domination he lived, breathed and shouted by the time Nani joined United in 2007.
The players he loved were the ones who responded to the hothouse by growing stronger – even a nervous 20-year-old winger from Lisbon.
“(At first) it was a little bit tough for me to understand the person and the coach, it was hard because he was so strong and sometimes I really didn’t understand why he wanted to do what he was saying,” Nani says.
“That’s why Cristiano Ronaldo and (assistant coach) Carlos Queiroz were important because they speak Portuguese and they were translating to me and explaining the reason for this, for that.
“But my second year was totally different and I adapt to the mentality and to the club, the rules, to everything. And from there we have a good very good relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson and he was understanding me much better, I was understanding him.
“We had much more conversations in his office and then from there even I felt much more comfortable on the team, more responsible and they gave me much more power, more responsibilities on the team.
“I told myself I was a very important player so from there it was much, much easier to deal with the coach because sometimes he could be very, very tough on you and then you had to handle (it).”
As Nani talks, there are all sorts of insights into the delicate ecosystem which spawned such success, and how having a collection of driven egos compounded the club’s culture rather than splintered it.
He only overlapped with Ronaldo at United for one year, having been earmarked by Ferguson to replace his compatriot. But Ronaldo’s hospitality was essential in the first weeks after Nani had swapped the warm climate of Lisbon for the cold of Manchester, and spoke very little English.
“At the beginning (when he first signed) there was a lot of excitement,” Nani explains. “But after two weeks you find yourself in a difficult position because you are alone, you are not with your family or your parents. It’s a different language which then I didn’t speak.
“So it was helpful that I had good teammates in Ronaldo and Anderson, and we had the idea to live together for a month (in Ronaldo’s house) – that helped a lot, made my life so easy. Otherwise it would be very complicated for me as I wasn’t adapted to the new culture and the new challenge I had.
“The most difficult thing was the language and the cold weather. So I had to adapt and (living) with them was making it so easy because we had a lot of fun. We were trying to help each other every single day. And that was the thing that made the beginning of my time in in Manchester so easy.”
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So easy, in fact, that when Ronaldo left a year later to join Real Madrid, feted as one of the best players in the world, Nani felt ready to assume that creative mantle for United.
“On the team was a lot of players who really was taking the pressure, [like Wayne] Rooney, we had so many stars in the team,” he says. “Obviously there was a lot of comparison between me and Cristiano because the style of the game – left foot, right foot, scoring beautiful goals, dribble fast and all those things. [We] came from the same country, the same team.
“So yes, I assume the responsibility always, even when Cristiano was there. [But] when he left, yeah, I saw the manager and all the players give me all that space, trying for me to fill that gap.
“And absolutely it was good for the first two seasons, I made my two best seasons at Manchester United. I felt so strong and fast and so skillful. But unfortunately, I had some injuries after and I couldn’t maintain the high level and expectation.”
Nor, it turns out, could United once Ferguson left (and it’s no coincidence that Nani’s form at the club waned from that point). Ten Hag has numerous personality issues to grapple with; Ferguson was able to make them a virtue.
“In our team in that time, they would give us 100% responsibility,” Nani recalls. “You take care of yourself, you do what you want, but afterwards don’t come here and ask [Ferguson] why you don’t play or why this decision or that.
“We were free to go out, we were free to do parties. We were free to go wherever we want. But the mentality in the club doesn’t give you much opportunity for you to be out of the road.
“The ones who was out of the road, you could see where they are now – [that] was a very small group of players. Almost everyone was very professional, very focused. And then we had time to enjoy our moments [like] our Christmas parties, you know, to celebrate, you had time for everything. That’s why we achieved so many trophies in that moment.”
