#2Sides: My Autobiography

by Rio Ferdinand

  We were better than Chelsea in the first half. Chelsea were better than us in the second. It was 1–1 at the end. We can’t lose this game because we’ll never hear the end of it. Two days from now we’ll be meeting up with England: I can just imagine John Terry, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole arriving with winners’ medals round their necks. I can’t have that.

  Anelka runs up … Edwin goes right.

  There’s really no way to explain how I feel in the split-second I realise Edwin has made the save. If you could bottle that emotion and sell it you’d be like the owner of a tech giant like Apple or something. It’s ridiculous; it’s my best moment; it’s the best feeling I’ve had on a football pitch. It’s something you dream about and think will never happen. I scream and run to Edwin, and jump on everyone. You don’t know who to hug or who to kiss or who to cry with.

  You start running around the stadium. Where’s my family? They’d all come over for the game: my wife; Mum and Dad; Anton; my mates Gavin and Ray and Lorenz. You want to be with everyone. There are so many emotions.

  Then you’re standing there with officials and Chelsea go up to pick up their runners-up medals. You shake hands with your mates – with John Terry, with Ashley Cole (we were still mates then). You wish them well and stuff.

  All of a sudden it dawns on me that I’m the captain and a few seconds from now I’m going to lift the trophy. I can’t take it in – this is something other people do! I see Sir Bobby Charlton standing at the bottom of stairs before we climb them to pick up the big silver cup and … and … I well up. I can’t help myself. Vida sees me and goes: ‘Rio, man. Don’t cry, man. Please don’t cry.’

  That helps me knock it off. I shake my head. No – I can’t cry – I’m not going to lose it. Then I see Mum in the distance, clambering over all the chairs to get to where she could catch my attention. Clambering over people. Clambering over chairs. She’s going: ‘Rio! Rioooooooo! Rioooooooooooo!!’

  Now I’m losing it, I’m definitely going to start crying. Vida leans in again and says: ‘Rio. Don’t cry, man. Please don’t cry.’ And that’s it. I hold it together.

  Before I lift the trophy, Sir Bobby Charlton, shakes my hand, pulls me to him and says to me: ‘What a night! You will remember this day as long as you live, like I do mine. You’ve been great – now enjoy lifting it!’

  The club secretary says ‘Can you and Giggsy lift the trophy together?’ And I say: ‘Yeah, no problem. As long as I get my hand on it I don’t care!’ So we go up and we lift the trophy and it feels so good.

  At the afterparty I’m absolutely steaming – probably the drunkest I’ve ever been in my whole life. There’d been rumours about Carlos Queiroz leaving so I’m on at him: ‘Carlos, man, you can’t leave us to go to Real Madrid!’

  ‘I’ve got to explore it,’ he says.

  ‘No. No! We just won the Champions League!’ I shout.

  I have the same conversation with Ronaldo because there were rumours about him too. ‘You can’t leave! You just can’t! Come on let’s try and win this again. You’ve got to stay!’

  The match was played in mid-evening UK time but locally, by the time we got back to the hotel it was one or two in the morning and the only food available was breakfast stuff. Our celebration dinner consisted of sausages, toast, and eggs and bacon. So we skip food and go to the bar.

  I’m drinking anything anybody gives me. Everyone’s taking pictures with the cup. I still can’t believe we’ve actually won it. There’s one bloke (I’d love to meet him again) who’s in with a group of six fans. He’s going: ‘You can’t drink, you bunch of footballers, you fairies.’

  ‘OK then,’ I say. ‘You and me, drink for drink, let’s see.’

  Pretty soon I’m downing another six pints while he’s surrendering at number three. ‘That’s it, I’m out! I’m out!’ he says.

  But Big Bollocks here carries on. I’ve taken over from the DJ; I’m dancing like a madman. Then my Dad comes and says: ‘Rio, you’ve got to get up in an hour. Go and get changed.’

  ‘What? What you talking about?’

  He takes me up to the room. ‘Dad, just get me another plane. You’ve got to book me another plane. I’m not coming back with the team.’ That’s how drunk I am.

  ‘I’m going to sleep now, and I’m not waking up.’

  ‘Get in the shower,’ says my Dad. He puts me in the bathroom and turns on the water. Five minutes later he comes back and finds me in the shower … with my clothes on.

  ‘Dad, just book me a plane. I’m not coming.’

  Somehow he gets me clean, dry, and dressed and out the room. I have no idea how. Onto the bus, and I’m still doing mad stuff and singing; the lads are crying-laughing.

  Finally, a few hours later, me and all the other newly crowned champions of Europe land back in Manchester. And we’re not just champions of Europe – we’d won the league too. It’s a better Double than the League and FA Cup Double and the gaffer, being the gaffer, made sure we brought along the Premier League trophy for this very moment.

  On the steps of the plane we step out and pose for the cameras. I’m holding the Premier League trophy; Giggsy has the Champions League trophy, and the gaffer is standing in the middle.

  It’s a picture I love.

  Sir Alex Ferguson

  Clarity

  and

  Energy

  I didn’t appreciate just how brilliant Sir Alex Ferguson was. ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,’ right? We took Fergie for granted but now I can see he was a genius. Coaches like Louis van Gaal talk about their ‘philosophy’. Ferguson didn’t make such grand declarations, but under him we played fantastic attacking, winning football. I’m often asked what his ‘secret’ was. There wasn’t one thing – it was a mixture of things. He was a master of psychology, knew how to get the best out of every player and created an unstoppable winning mentality.

  One of his principles was to give us freedom to express ourselves. He finished most of his team talks with: ‘Now go out and enjoy yourselves!’ It was never ‘Do this, do that’ because that can take away a player’s flair and imagination. He gave people the confidence to try things and didn’t mind if you made mistakes if you were trying the right things. There was always a balance between discipline and giving us freedom; but at the same time, every player had to adapt to the general pattern of play which was rooted in Manchester United’s history as a team known for exciting attacking football.

  Dimitar Berbatov was an example of someone who just couldn’t adapt or didn’t want to. Berba, technically, is one of the best I’ve played with: a ridiculous amount of talent. But he wanted us to play a tiki-taka Barcelona passing game and I had arguments with him about that. I said: ‘If that’s how you want to play then go to Barcelona.’ He wanted United to adapt to him, as Spurs and Bulgaria had done, but United doesn’t adapt to any individual player.

  Ferguson gave us the desire, the work ethic and the chance to go out and play with imagination in the final third. That was the stardust that he sprinkled over everything. He let us play without any kind of fear or pressure. If anything did go wrong – if we lost or the referee made a mistake – he always took the stress off us by creating an argument in the media, or picking a fight somewhere with someone. It distracted attention from what had done wrong on the pitch. I think José Mourinho learnt from that: as a manager, you’ve got to play the media. But later, at the training ground, Ferguson wouldn’t forget. If we needed to be nailed, he would do that. But no journalist ever heard about it.

  Psychologically, Ferguson knew exactly how to press people’s buttons to get the best out of them. Somehow he always had me wanting to prove myself to him. I could count on one hand how many times he gave me compliments. He knew that if he praised me, I would probably get bigheaded. I wouldn’t show it outwardly but inside I’d be walking around thinking, ‘I’m the fucking man!’ Instead, he had me always wondering if he even respected what I was doing. He was always
talking about other players in the media and said nothing about me. But since reading his autobiography and hearing him speak after his retirement I realise that was part of his management; he’d identified certain traits in me that he didn’t want to bring out.

  One time, when Craig Bellamy was playing well, we were on the bus on the way up to Newcastle. The manager walked past me and flicked the top of my head, and went, ‘That Bellamy has been telling Mark Hughes that he’s going to destroy you. He reckons he’s quicker than you, that you’re not good enough to stop him any more.’ I sat there and thought ‘that cheeky little bastard.’ So I went out and played Bellamy off the pitch – he didn’t get a sniff all game. As I got back on the coach afterwards I said to the gaffer as we’re leaving, ‘Go and ask Mark Hughes now what he’s got to say.’ That’s all he needed to do: he’d press your buttons like that – very simply – and it would get you going.

  Every individual needs motivating in a different way. Sometimes he’d hammer Nani because he could get a bit complacent. More often, though, he’d build him up: ‘Nani’s unbelievable today. Keep getting the ball to Nani. I’m telling ya …’ That was because forwards, especially wingers, are confidence players. ‘Get the ball to Antonio [Valencia] because he’s really on.’

  One of the gaffer’s masterstrokes in Robin van Persie’s first season was to call a meeting about ten games in. The entire meeting was about getting the ball to Van Persie. ‘Look at him! He’s making all these runs and how come you’re not seeing him? Are you lot not good enough? Am I going to have to go and find people who are good enough to get the ball into Robin van Persie? He’s going to score you goals. Just get the ball into him. Wazza, when you get the ball, I want you to find him … Scholesy, Carrers, when you get the ball … Rio, when he’s making his runs …’

  Looking back, I think, of course we were seeing him, what are you talking about? But he wanted to emphasise it, so everyone would focus a bit more. It created a mindset. He knew that if Robin gets chances, he scores goals. And if Robin was scoring goals we were going to win the league. Which is exactly what happened.

  When preparing us for a game, everything was designed to keep us sharp, focused and positive. The main emphasis would be on us. Not much time would be spent on how we were going to stop the other team playing; Ferguson just gave us a few key points. For instance, against Arsenal, we used to always get very physical with them, overpower them and outrun them – then counterattack quickly. He really wouldn’t focus on their individual players but he would say ‘Make sure you stay with runners. If they play one-twos, stay with runners.’ That was it. It was a small detail but it was important because their main strategy was to play one-twos around the box and have people running off the ball. So: stay with the runners.

  He also made sure we got on whoever it was that made them tick. For a long time that was Fàbregas. Later it was Arteta. The manager would say: ‘Don’t give him any time on the ball. You get on him. Smash him. Overrun them. We’re quicker. We’re stronger than them, play aggressive …’ They never liked it. We beat them almost all the time.

  Another thing he was clever at was hammering an individual to affect the team. He never suffered egos. When we played Benfica in Lisbon, Cristiano Ronaldo thought he had to prove to people in Portugal why he’d gone to United. The game became the ‘Cristiano Ronaldo show’. He was trying to show his skills and nothing was coming off; we lost and afterwards the manager absolutely destroyed him. ‘Playing by yourself? Who the hell do you think you are?’

  Ferguson was brave to do that. He knew Ronaldo at that time was the key to us winning anything. If we were going to be successful and dominant he had to be in top condition. A lot of managers would have been scared of taking him on. I never saw England managers hammering Beckham like that, or Stevie Gerrard, or Frank Lampard, or Wayne Rooney. But Ferguson would go for anyone. It didn’t matter if you were the main man, he’d open you up if you needed it for the team.

  I remember Ronaldo getting emotional in the changing room after that game. He knew he’d played badly and he was upset by what Fergie had said. The reaction in the rest of the team was interesting too. Some people would be like: ‘As long as it’s not me I’m happy.’ Looking back, I realise that it was Ferguson’s way of saying to the whole team: It doesn’t matter who you are, you’d better perform in the right way that helps the team.’

  But at the same time Ferguson was a reader of personalities and someone like Berba couldn’t really take that sort of treatment. He was a 6ft 3in, strapping lad, but his personality was such that if you hammered him, Berba would just go into his shell and wouldn’t play at all. Ronaldo, on the other hand, used something like that to motivate himself: ‘Right, I’ll fucking show you …’

  Sometimes, we might be a bit flat in a match but the manager wouldn’t have anything to shout about, so he would pick on a little thing. Gary Neville might have let the ball run under his foot and conceded a throw-in so we’d come in and Ferguson would muller him. ‘You’ve been playing for 15 years at a top level and you can’t even control the ball!’ Or he’d come in and say to Giggsy, ‘You gave the ball away so much in that half.’ Giggsy probably wouldn’t have given the ball away any more than anyone else, but because he is the most experienced player, it makes everyone else think: ‘I could be next. I’d better stay on my toes.’ Even with me sometimes he’d say, ‘You’d better sort yourself out, you’ve not even won a header!’ And I’d go: ‘Hang on I’ve had four headers and I’ve won three of them, and the other one I left because I knew the keeper was behind me and he covered it, so what are you talking about? You’re wrong.’ But he always had to have the last word. ‘Well, we’ll see that tomorrow on the video. Just fucking do what I tell you.’

  I had a good and bad relationship with him. I could be fiery at times and quite vocal, and it didn’t go down well sometimes. In 2010 we played Bayern Munich away in a quarter-final. The manager always preached that getting an away goal and winning 1–0 away from home is a good result in Europe; it means the other team have to score three goals to beat us at home in the second leg. So on this occasion, we’d gone 1–0 up; Rooney went off injured and the manager sent on Berba to try to finish the tie by attacking. On the pitch, I was waving my hands as if to say, ‘what are you doing? This ain’t the way we know how to play.’ Somehow Bayern scored a couple of lucky goals. One was a deflection and another was right at the end of the game, making it 2–1 to the Germans. I’m on the pitch screaming and frothing at the mouth, and I walk down the tunnel still angry and emotional. I thought that tactics had gone against the principles he’d taught us and I couldn’t get my head around it. I’m screaming, ‘Why did we fucking change? That’s why we fucking lost!’

  As I came into the changing room, it was obvious he’d heard me. Gary Neville is trying to get me to calm down and as I walked through the door, I saw the manager standing right in the middle of the changing room, waiting for me. He just unloaded. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he screamed. By the time I sat down, he was standing over me shouting: ‘I make the decisions. I’m the fucking manager. Don’t ever question me and my staff again.’

  ‘You’ve brought us up to play a certain way, and you fucking changed it,’ I said in reply.

  ‘That was two lucky goals,’ he shouted in my face. ‘They were there for the taking. We should have wiped the floor with them. They were there waiting to be smashed and you let it go.’

  Gary Neville was saying: ‘Rio, calm down. Leave it, leave it.’ But the manager always got in the last word: ‘You’re finished.’ I forget what he said. It was just a blur of F-words really.

  Gary Neville didn’t even understand why I’d even said anything. ‘What’s the point?’ he said after the row. ‘You know you’ll never win the argument.’ I sat there thinking, well, someone should’ve said something here. Why is it just me? You all think it as well.

  I kept thinking about it on the flight home and when I got home that night I couldn
’t sleep at all. I kept turning it over. Maybe I should’ve just sucked it in at the time and said what I thought in a quiet way later, when no one was there or maybe at the airport. It had been a big thing because I said it in front of everyone. So next morning I got up early, went to the training ground, got in at about 8.30am and went to his office. I knocked on his door. He just looked up and said, ‘Come in. What do you want?’

  ‘Listen. I’ve just come to say sorry. Maybe I should’ve spoken to you at a different time. The emotions of the game and losing just kind of got to me and I probably went too far …’

  And he unloaded again! He went bananas. There was no respite. ‘Who do you think you are? This isn’t the first time you’ve questioned the tactics,’ [referring to the Barcelona final in Rome].

  I was trying to say, ‘If you want someone to just sit here and just accept everything all the time when we lose, then I’m not that guy,’ but of course he didn’t accept that.

  That’s how our relationship went. In fact, it’s probably why we got on. We had spats, but I think, in the end, he realised I wasn’t ever doing it just for my own personal crusade. It was for the betterment of the team. Sometimes, I crossed the line a bit and he had to kind of bring me back into line. Yet I always accepted that if I was wrong I would apologise. I think his mentality was that he would never let a player get the better of him. That’s the way he led. But I think I earned his respect. Of course there was part of me that made me say to myself, ‘Right. I’m going to prove this bastard wrong. I’m going to prove it to him.’ That was Ferguson’s genius: he had you wanting to prove something to him. I’m not criticising him at all; he was doing his job and I think he was probably right. I always respected what he was doing.

  Another important thing was that he backed his players through thick and thin. That counted for a lot. There was the Patrice Evra and Luis Suárez incident; the John Terry situation involving my brother. And he backed me wholeheartedly over missing the drug test: he gave me a character reference and spoke in glowing terms about me. It is an essential part of Ferguson as a manager: when he believes his players are in the right he backs them to the hilt. That earns the trust and the desire to go out and work for him.