Now that Manchester United have finished off “The Double” and won both the English Premier League and, most dramatically, the European Champions League (last night over EPL arch-rivals Chelsea on penalty kicks), the question can be most appropriately asked: Who is better, the 1999 treble-winning side – that also did the double but also included an historic march to the FA Cup – or these new Red Devil “babes”?
(If you were like me, then you thought the question most premature until the full measure of all competitions had weighed in to their conclusion)
To answer this, let’s start by first looking at what was accomplished last night. No doubt the two best sides in Europe waged war on the rain-soaked pitch in Moscow. On too many Champions League Final occasions you just didn’t get the feeling the absolute best were playing. Not to take anything away from Liverpool, AC Milan and Barcelona – they clearly deserved their continental crowns – but neither side won their own domestic titles the years they won the final. And don’t even get me started on Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen and AS Monaco, qualifiers by standings only who lucked out getting to the final day of the competition and haven’t come anywhere close to making it to the first day of the competition since (a fact all the more embarrassing in Bayer’s case, which was relegated out of Germany’s top flight two years ago).
I’m a purist. I believe that the Champions League should only be for domestic champions, but that’s an issue for another time.
Just this once I can forgive Chelsea for not getting here by virtue of winning their domestic league; that would have entailed them pipping the team that did – Manchester United. Chelsea has clearly built a world-class team that can crush any team from any of the world-class leagues in Europe. Despite the drama of this season man-for-man this was clearly The Bleus best side under enigmatic Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich, whose wealth paid for all the world-class players on the side.
What characterized both finalists the most is that they are clearly constructed with a run to the European crown the overarching priority. More appropriately, both teams are constructed with designs on winning all three major club competitions, the EPL, FA Cup and Champions League. A deep run through all three simultaneously requires playing upwards of 60-65 fixtures. A domestic league schedule of 38 games is hard enough on a world-class athlete, so any club with the ambition of The Blues and The Red Devils would certainly have to have several Andriy Schevchenko’s and Louis Saha’s in reserve – and the monetary resources to maintain it (Malcolm Glazer may not have Abramovich’s billions but he is certainly is forthcoming with the cheddar, his running of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL notwithstanding).
(As an aside, we Americans think of the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys as these monoliths of athletic economic might. Compared to Manchester United and Chelsea, they are paupers.)
After 22 years, 10 domestic league titles, 5 domestic cup titles, one UEFA Cup title and one European championship, Sir Alex Ferguson has earned his stripes as arguably the best football manager of the last 30 years (and that’s not even taking into consideration his two domestic league titles, 2 domestic cup titles and one UEFA Cup title with his previous employers, Aberdeen of the Scottish Premier League). What a lot of people fail to realize about those 22 years at Old Trafford is that Ferguson has had to deconstruct this side and put together a newer, championship-quality side no less than three times.
Starting in 1986 and going through the early 1990s the Glasgow shipbuilder’s boy started with Mark Hughes, Brian McClair, Bryan Robson, Andrei Kanchelskis, Lee Sharpe, Paul Ince, David May, Gary Pallister, Steve Bruce, Denis Irwin and most notably Eric Cantona. They won a couple of Premierships and a UEFA Cup but this was not a team that could keep United competitive for Fergie’s most ambitious goal, the European championship. So through the mid-Nineties he slowly nudged the old guard out and brought up youngsters David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary and Phillip Neville, and Nicky Butt, then brought in Jaap Stam, Peter Schmeichel, Ronny Johnsen, Henning Berg, Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Teddy Sheringham and most notably Roy Keane. This was the personnel that finally won it all for Fergie, culminating in a historic treble in 1999.
Believing this team would get him some more European honors Ferguson kept it mostly intact through the early part of this decade, with some help from Ruud van Nistelrooy, Tim Howard, Fabien Barthez, Roy Carroll, Andy Smith, Juan Sebastian Veron, Mickael Silvestre, Wes Brown, Luis Saha, Kleberson, Diego Forlan, Quinton Fortune and Gabriel Heinze. But around the time the Red Devils crashed out of the Champions League at the group stage – an unheard-of embarrassment – and they started losing out in the race to hardware to Chelsea and Arsenal, that is when Fergie went to work a third time. This time he eased out the previous players that brought him so much hardware and brought in Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Edwin van der Saar, Ji-Sung Park, John O’Shea, Nani, Anderson, Gerard Pique’, Darrin Fletcher and his most notable piece of inspiration, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The best part about this incarnation of Red Devils is that unlike previous editions a majority of these world-class players haven’t reached their 23rd birthday yet. The only holdovers from previous incarnations are Giggs, Scholes, Silvestre, Brown and Saha.
Chelsea finally made it to their main goal without the manager who deserves a lion’s share of the credit for putting this team together. Jose Mourinho has a driving conceit and the street cred to match. But for whatever reason The Special One was not allowed to finish what he started for Abramovich. That distinction fell upon Avram Grant, the stoic, stone-faced Israeli with a commendable record in lesser domestic leagues but no real accomplishments at this level. Whereas Jose lived to win, Grant exists to just not screw it up – a very important distinction. Whereas Jose had a superior ability to make a game conform to his will (and Gawd how he knew it), Grant tinkered to the point of distraction, coming up with lineups and formations that just didn’t make sense, even to his own players.
With the exception of the League Cup Final against Tottenham Hotspur nothing characterized Grant’s peculiar lineup choices more than the Champions League Final. In a modified 4-3-3 with a lone striker in Didier Drogba and two wingers in attack in Florent Malouda and Joe Cole, Grant chose to take a reactive rather than proactive approach for his backline.
Ferguson broke from character and instead of utilizing his customary 4-3-3 with Tevez up front and Ronaldo and Rooney servicing him, Ferguson employed a wide 4-2-2-2, a modified 4-4-2 with two defensive/linkup central midfielders, Ronaldo and Hargreaves on the flanks, and Rooney and Tevez in front of goal. Reacting to the fact that the best player in the world was playing on the flank, Grant put central midfielder Michael Essien on the right of his defense to shadow Ronaldo. This was Grant’s effort to keep Essien on the pitch without having to sacrifice Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard, Claude Makelele, Cole or Malouda.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Michael Essien as much as the next guy, and I understand that when he makes those direct linkup runs through the middle going forward Chelsea’s attack is damn near impossible to stop. Buuuuuuut – Michael Essien IS NOT A FULLBACK! Fullback is the soccer equivalent of an NFL shutdown corner. Essien, a bulking hulk for a soccer player, plays as position, linkup midfielder with some defensive responsibilities in front of the back four, that is the soccer equivalent of an NFL left tackle. In gridiron terms, Grant was asking an offensive tackle to cover Randy Moss.
This more than anything illustrates what separates Avram Grant from Sir Alex Ferguson. Ferguson waited until the last possible moment – a little bit of gamesmanship there – to turn in his lineup card, and rather than impose his team’s will on the game Grant reacts and tries to put a square peg into a round hole. Even that Grant was trying to make his midfielders happy should not have been paramount in his mind. It certainly didn’t matter to Ferguson, who not only took Ronaldo from in front goal and into a wide position of support, but left Ji-Sung Park, an integral player through 10 of United’s 13 Champions League fixtures, off the roster for this match entirely.
That this roster peculiarity of Grant’s came back to bite him in the ass really was not surprising. Rather than stay on Ronaldo on a Wes Brown cross into the box, Essien shirked his sole defensive responsibility to go after the cross – and there was a free Ronaldo to head it in for the first score.
Sure, Chelsea came back and tied it on a Rio Ferdinand defensive lapse resulting in a Frank Lampard rebound (hell, he’s probably the best central midfielder in the world, and Gawd knows he’s fearless). But what started working for Chelsea in the second half was when Daniel Carvalho, a more appropriate defender, took over primary responsibility for Ronaldo and Essien began to make those usual runs through the middle. Then United spent the better part of the rest of the game on their back heels.
Once it got to extra time, it simply became a game of attrition. Both Chelsea and Manchester United have tons of talent, probably more than any side in the world. But by extra time talent had virtually nothing to do with it. It became of function of who wanted it more.
I love slugfests like this. When you know you are watching the absolute best there is dropping all pretense of talent, fundamentals, form, strategy and tactics and just slugging it out to see whose left standing, that’s when you know you are watching something special. There was nothing really attractive or “beautiful” about this final, but it didn’t lack for tension. I would not have been happy had Manchester United lost but I would have been glad to have seen such a slugfest just the same.
As a rule, I hate penalty kicks. I think they are the worst way to decide a championship – any championship. I know that these guys have killed themselves for 120 minutes and to ask them to do any more would be sadistic, but there has to be a better way to decide these things than this. Furthermore, I don’t know that Didier Drogba’s sending off in the 116th minute would have made a difference, but I do know that slapping Nemanja Vidic with his open hand was colossally stupid. I hope he has played his last game for Chelsea, if for no other reason than because I’m tired of him torturing the Devils every time he plays them.
By all accounts Chelsea should have won this game, and Gawd knows they had more than a few opportunities to do it, whether it was shots that rang off the crossbar or penalty kicks they had no business missing. On so many fronts Manchester United were lucky, but good teams make their own luck, which is why it is I go against the axiom and would rather be good than lucky. I never thought I would ever see a team come this close to winning without having done so. Somebody had to win but nobody, not even Chelsea, deserves to lose like this.
Two key acquisitions got Manchester United back to English and European supremacy. The first came after a friendly back in 2004 against Sporting Lisbon, where a then unknown 18-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo shredded United like a food processor, and Ferguson spared no expense acquiring him even though at the time they were going through a stock takeover by the Glazers and had no transfer funds. The second was the acquisition of a star-quality defensive midfielder in Michael Carrick, who may not be the best DM in the world but had enough quality and heart to close down the opposition attack before it gets to the back four, provide ball-winning and anticipation in the center, and link up with the attack, an indispensable skill set missing from the side since they let Roy Keane and Nicky Butt go.
Even though Nani, Anderson and Carlos Tevez were the marquis acquisitions, I can understand why it was more important for Ferguson to get his hands on Owen Hargreaves and why he spent a year begging, prodding and pleading trying to pry him loose from Bayern Munich. You don’t see hybrid players of his kind with the star-quality skills to play fullback, defensive/holding/central midfielder, winger and forward flanker like him very often. Makes you wonder if Munich were ever really aware of what they had.
For whatever reason Manchester United spend an obscene amount of money on star-quality players, even when they probably don’t have to. But when you see the results you can’t argue with them.
What happens to Avram Grant from here? Hard to say at this juncture. Roman Abramovich had made no secret of his desire to make Chelsea the standard in international football and market them on a global stage. He wants Chelsea to have the same kind of global brand recognition and brand loyalty as the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus – and Manchester United, the most expensive and most profitable sports entity in the world. To that end, domination of the Champions League is imperative. I’m sure Abramovich believed it couldn’t have been set up for him any better: Beat the juggernaut Manchester United and get supremacy of Europe on his home soil of Moscow…
…And if Jose Mourinho had been at the helm I would have been worried. But Avram Grant just doesn’t have The Special One’s mojo. I’m sure Grant is a good technical director (what they call head coaches in football), and I’m sure he thinks his stoic calm keeps his charges at an even keel. But what this collection of Chelsea players need is what Jose provides; demonstrative ego coupled with an unmatched grasp of everything going on around him and the ability to force his will on the game. That just isn’t Grant.
The three competitions Chelsea was in contention for – and quite frankly were in the best position to win ever — were waiting for a demonstrative personality like Jose’s to take it over. That Abramovich didn’t recognize that is bewildering at best. In 10 lifetime meetings against Alex Ferguson, Jose lost only once. And most telling, Jose never lost when a trophy was at steak. NEVER! Not with Chelsea and not at FC Porto. Every time Jose made it to a final he won. EVERY TIME! If there ever was a time when Chelsea needed a coach who just knew he was going to win this was it, and Grant just didn’t step up to the plate.
It’s not like you couldn’t see it coming. Chelsea had embarrassed Tottenham 41 times in 43 meetings over 13 years, yet it was Tottenham, with a new adventuresome coach in Juande Ramos (not coincidentally the two-time defending UEFA Cup winner with Sevilla when he took over Spurs), who forced his will on the League Cup Final and ran Chelsea into the ground. The Special One would have never lost that game.
Grant is more of a reactive coach. You could see it at the end of the Champions League Final, where he played to role of fatherly consoler to his players. What they needed was somebody to kick them in the rear before them, and then come up with a proactive approach that would make Ferguson have to react to. It has been reported that Grant has long since lost the training room, that his players respect him to some extent but don’t expect anything from him on a daily basis either tactically, technically or fundamentally. Grant is more of a tinkerer; he tells his players where to play and when, then because they are star-quality players expects them to figure it out on their own once they are on the pitch. How else to explain putting Essien on Ronaldo? That just isn’t Jose, who would have never accepted losing the training room.
Ultimately this is why Jose deserves a lion’s share of the credit for Chelsea being the world-class team they are even though it has been eight months since he had anything to do with them. This collection of world-class quality is all due to Jose, and the foundation for it all is due to him. It was Abramovich and Grant that blurred the details. Now for the first time in five years Chelsea end their season with no hardware. Again, something that just wouldn’t have happened under Jose.
Bottom Line: Alex Ferguson remembered who he is, and he remembered who Avram Grant is not. In both cases the answer is Alex Ferguson.
I get the impression that Grant is more of a caretaker manager. He is not going to come up with anything on his own either tactically, technically or fundamentally that will take this or any group of players to a championship at this level. He is just a don’t-screw-it-up manager; what’s here in place has worked and he’s not going to drastically change the broad picture. I’ll even bet that he will have virtually no say in the close-season transfer market; that whatever tens of millions Abramovich wants to spend of a name Grant will take even if said name doesn’t really fit into what’s already there (see Schevchenko, Andriy or Crespo, Hernan). That said he at least has earned one more season just to see if the rest of us are wrong.
As for the big question at the beginning of this stream of consciousness: Who is better, the 98/99 Red Devils or the 07/08 Red Devils?
Both teams were loaded with world-class talent, so much so that there were internationals sitting in the stands not even suited up for many games. Both teams had to survive injuries to key players at inopportune times but had the star-quality depth to deal with it. And what I love about both incarnations of Sir Alex Ferguson is that he was able to find talent under the radar that turned into indispensable cogs in the machine; in 98/99 it was Solskjaer, Johnsen and Berg; in 07/08 it was Vidic, Park, Evra and Pique’.
Both teams did not have easy routes to their hardware. They both had to wait until the final fixture to win the Premier League. But the differences in schedule end there.
The 07/08 squad lost three league fixtures between December and the end of the season, including home losses to Bolton and Manchester City (who swept them this season), and they lost at home to Portsmouth in the FA Cup quarterfinals, a team they hadn’t lost to in any competition since the mid-Eighties. The 98/99 side did not lose a single game in any competition after mid-December, and that included three fixtures against Chelsea, three against Liverpool, four against Arsenal, three against Bayern Munich, two against Barcelona, two against Inter-Milan, and two against Juventus. That is a total of NINETEEN fixtures against the absolute best soccer teams on the planet. I wouldn’t wish that fixture list on my worst enemy, yet the 98/99 Red Devils negotiated it without ever dropping full points.
In contrast, the 07/08 Red Devils got Barcelona, Chelsea and then Barcelona again in one six-day stretch. Fergie didn’t put a full-strength squad on the pitch in the first two fixtures, locked up the back in getting a goalless draw in Barcelona and conceding the three points in West London, knowing that that was not going to lose him the Premiership. This more than anything even illustrates the differences in Fergie’s, because the 98/99 Fergie would have thrown up at the prospect of fielding a less-than full-strength team against anybody no matter the scheduling anomaly. In 1999 Fergie wouldn’t have just tried to survive and hoped for a result; he’d have gone balls to the wall and furiously tried to win those matches.
So I’d have to say the team with the best individual star-quality or world-class talent is the 07/08 Red Devils, and they are young so we are going to hear a lot from them in the coming years. That said the best team, the squad that was much greater than the sum of its parts, was the 98/99 edition. They certainly didn’t lack for star-quality or world-class talent; they had it in spades. But on the pitch together they were just on another planet. Given what it is they accomplished and the plethora of soccer land mines in front of them on the way to accomplishing it, I think you can make the case for Manchester United 98/99 as arguably the greatest single season football team ever.
But let’s not cast aside the new champions of Europe so easily. It is fitting that on the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster that claimed the lives of so many of United’s first-team players that it is Manchester United that lifts the European Championship cup. There is no better way to honor those who died and were seriously injured – as well as honor the team of “Busby Babes” that rose from the ashes of that disaster that included Denis Law, Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes, Brian Kidd, Noel Cantwell and George Best and won the 1969 European title – than a claim at the top of the European summit. The club with England and Europe’s best offensive and defensive record won the prize they so deserve.
daveydoug