Red: My Autobiography

by Gary Neville

  The partnership of Coley and Yorkie was a joy. Coley was always quiet, which some people misinterpreted as arrogance or moodiness, but once you got to know him he was great in the dressing room. And now he was loving his football, Yorkie helping to bring the best out of him. At the same time, every time Teddy or Ole were involved, they seemed to have a match-winning impact.

  With Yorkie taking to United as fast as any player has done, Jaap like the Great Wall of China, Keano at his peak and half a dozen young lads who were maturing together, we had a really strong, balanced eleven. At last we had a spine to compete with the best teams in Europe, with Giggsy and Becks as effective and hard-working as any wingers in the world. And we had a sense of adventure, a confidence to go on the front foot that surprised even the best opposition.

  Perhaps we could be too gung-ho. It wasn’t the most sophisticated type of football. None of us would pretend we reinvented the game or outwitted opponents tactically. Mostly it was 4–4–2 (or 4–4–1–1) but played at an incredibly high tempo with real quality.

  But we were learning to control games better, and there were a couple of tactical tweaks. Faced with Inter Milan in the Champions League quarter-finals, we knew that Roberto Baggio would float into a tricky position as a deep-lying forward just off-centre. Del Piero used to do it brilliantly and Giggsy learnt to do it too, floating in what seems like no-man’s land. It gives the defending team a difficult choice. Does the centre-half come out, does the full-back move inside, or do you deploy a midfield marker? Fail to deal with it properly and as soon as you lose the ball a player of Baggio’s class will cut you in half.

  Every time we had the ball and went forward, I moved into midfield to pick up Baggio rather than stay back as a natural right-back. It would detract from my attacking play. There would be very few overlaps from me past Becks. But Baggio didn’t get a kick in the game, and Denis Irwin did the same to Youri Djorkaeff on the other side. We won 2–0, blitzing them in the first half, hitting them with crosses they couldn’t handle. We were hanging on a bit at the end. Schmeichel made an unbelievable save from a Zamorano header – a world-class player making a difference. But we’d proved we could cope against a top-class Italian team, and we’d be smarter than them in the second leg, too.

  In the San Siro we were pelted with oranges as soon as we went on the pitch for a warm-up. I’d not heard noise like it since Galatasaray. The manager must have wondered if we’d stand up to that sort of pressure but he’d already taken precautions. He picked Ronny Johnsen in central midfield instead of Scholesy, and it proved an inspired choice. Ronny was everywhere, taking the sting out of the game.

  The boss had told me and Denis that we’d have to be brave, we’d have to show for the ball, because otherwise we’d be under too much pressure. ‘Take the ball, take the ball,’ he kept saying in the dressing room. He was giving us the confidence to play in a testing environment. And it worked.

  Nicola Ventola came on for a half-fit Ronaldo and scored but, despite being under the cosh, we came through, helped by Scholesy’s late equaliser. I looped a ball into the box – I wouldn’t flatter myself by calling it a cross – Scholesy did the rest, and we were through.

  Tactically we were becoming so much more aware as a team, and as an individual I was feeling right at the top of my game. That match at Inter was a night when I felt total confidence in my ability. It was like a utopia moment when you can do nothing wrong. You feel completely in control. Your dummies come off and every pass seems to fly to feet. I felt great, and why not? We were top of the league and through to the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and the Champions League.

  *

  We relished the looming challenges, so much so that Jim Ryan, who had now become first-team coach alongside Steve McClaren, started a countdown – as if he was counting down the steps to greatness. ‘Twelve to go, boys,’ he’d say when we came in after another victory. And then we would knock another one off and it would be eleven to go, then ten. Ten games in which to make history, though the mighty Juventus stood in our way.

  We’d lost to them three times out of four in the last couple of seasons. We had ghosts to banish. Since the men-against-boys beatings of 1996 we’d felt like we were closing the gap; it had reached the point of now or never. Juventus were still a great team with Montero and Pessotto, Conte, Deschamps, Davids and Zidane, but we’d won trophies, we’d grown as players. They were good, but we weren’t frightened.

  At home, we lived on the edge once more. At 1–0 down we were clinging on a bit in the first half. But we battled and deserved to get our goal. Giggsy scored with seconds to go, a huge strike in terms of the balance of the tie and for keeping our unbeaten run going. That now stretched to more than three months and twenty-one matches.

  It was a fortnight until the return in the Stadio delle Alpi and we had the small matter of an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal. When that finished goalless, we knew our mental and physical reserves were going to be tested to the limit. Now the depth of squad was to prove invaluable because we started the replay at Villa Park with Teddy, Ole and Jesper Blomqvist which allowed Coley, Yorkie and Giggsy to spend some of the evening on the bench.

  This wasn’t the first or last time that the boss would leave out big players in a big game, showing the courage that makes him such a great manager. The truth is that he pioneered the squad system in England. He had the foresight to start using the Carling Cup to blood younger players. He took a lot of stick for it at the time, but now every club does it – for all the right reasons. People have looked at teamsheets and said he’s mad for leaving out certain players, but the boss recognised that the demands on players had changed. He adapted. And he’s been brave.

  What a game that replay was – quite simply the best I ever played in. Two great teams giving their all, battering each other to a standstill. Of course reaching the FA Cup final mattered, but this went deeper than that: after losing to Arsenal in too many games we had to show to the world and to ourselves that we were the better team.

  I feel knackered just thinking about it. Becks scores, then Bergkamp equalises with a deflected shot. With seventy-odd minutes gone, Roy gets sent off. Then a penalty to Arsenal in the last minute and the chance for Bergkamp to finish us off, to knock us out of the cup, to end our run and our Treble dreams, to give Arsenal momentum for the rest of the league season. But Schmeichel saves it brilliantly.

  On we go to extra-time. Patrick Vieira hits the pass of a tired man across midfield. Giggsy, fresher than most having started as a substitute, goes on a mazy run before arrowing a shot into the roof of the net. He went through one of the best defences in the history of the English game and smashed it past England’s number one – the FA Cup’s greatest ever moment, surely. It was also the night when the world found out that Giggsy had an Axminster rug on his chest.

  It was an incredible match, the most dramatic of my career. The pitch invasion afterwards was like a scene from football in the sixties. We were swamped by fans, most of them reeking of booze. ‘Christ, lads, what have you lot been on?’ I’d never had so many kisses, sadly all of them from pissed lads.

  After wriggling out of the clutches of our fans, I made it down the tunnel to find Lee Dixon and Tony Adams waiting by our dressing-room door. They’d been standing there for ten minutes just so they could say, ‘Well played, all the best.’ It was a big, generous gesture, reminding me of Maldini. That’s how to lose with dignity.

  Inside the dressing room there was champagne everywhere, except down our throats. It was being sprayed around, but with games coming thick and fast we only had a swig each. Luckily I was experienced enough to know that you put a towel over your suit if you don’t want to sit on the bus home smelling of stale booze.

  We had some special games at Villa Park in that era and I loved the ground, my favourite one away from Old Trafford. It’s got history and tradition, and you drive up to that great big brick stand – a proper English football stadium. It holds a special place in my me
mories.

  They were a great team, Arsenal, but our momentum was now unstoppable. Every time we should have lost a game, someone – Schmeichel, Becks, Giggs, Keano, Yorkie – made a match-winning intervention. The manager summed it up after that victory at Villa Park: ‘We never gave up. The time to give up is when you are dead.’

  We’d need to prove our resilience again a week later at Juventus for another make-or-break match against a top-class team. Every game was now like this, even in the league. Arsenal were giving us a run for our money, as you’d expect from a team led by Tony Adams with all their big-hearted competitors. We couldn’t afford to relax for a minute.

  Our confidence was sky-high, which was just as well as we found ourselves 2–0 down in the first ten minutes in Turin. Had we climbed within touching distance of the summit only to slip all the way down again?

  I was responsible for the first goal. Zidane whipped a cross in and I was convinced it would never reach me at the far post. Then it did. Filippo Inzaghi nipped ahead and scored as I tried to rugby-tackle him.

  Then Inzaghi got down the side of Jaap, shot, and the ball bounced up off Jaap’s foot and looped over Peter. Two goals down to Juventus in Italy – ninety-nine times out of a hundred that’s game over. But a few minutes later we created a chance and suddenly they looked a bit shaky. Becks turned to me, clenched his fist and said, ‘We can do this, you know.’

  When we did score a couple of minutes later, Roy heading in Becks’ corner, the old spirit stirred. Look back at the tape and see how Roy scores and then turns and sprints back to the halfway line. Forget the celebrations. He’s waving everyone back to the restart. We’ve got plenty of time on our side, an hour to play. Come on! We can win this!

  We were level by half-time thanks to Yorkie’s diving header – a fantastic comeback, though still not enough to satisfy the manager who had an almighty dig at the defence at half-time. ‘We’re playing great football but you lot had better sort yourselves out.’ He was as hyped up as the rest of us.

  Juventus had their chances in the second half, but when Coley stuck in the winner I sprinted down the flank to join the celebrations. To have played the greatest game ever the week before and then come back like this was unbelievable. To have overcome such great opponents as Arsenal and then Juventus with all their experience, their world champions like Zidane and Deschamps, and their streetwise Italians, not to mention the scary pitbull, Edgar Davids.

  One of my favourite photographs is from the end of that game – me and Becks holding our shirts out to show the United badge, screaming our heads off. We had reached the European Cup final after all those agonising near misses. That was a mindblowing thought – even without the FA Cup final and the six games to tie up the championship.

  There was one significant downer: the bookings for Keano and Scholesy, which meant they would be absent from the final in the Nou Camp. The way it was reported, Roy had been even more heroic following his booking – in contrast to Gazza crying at the 1990 World Cup in the same stadium – but I didn’t see it that way. He’d done his job, outstandingly. Emotion hadn’t come into it.

  It was bound to put a dampener on celebrations. These were two of our best players. It was a massive disappointment for them personally and for us as a team. I told them I was gutted for them, but what more could you say? You learn pretty quickly playing professional sport that stuff happens – injuries, bad breaks, suspensions. You have to get on with it.

  Missing our central midfield was going to be a massive problem for the manager to get his head round, but before then we were still on our Premiership countdown with six games left to clinch the league. Just to test us further, the championship race was proving a nail-biter.

  We drew 1–1 at Leeds United at the end of April – not a bad result in the light of all the tough matches we’d been through, but not enough to keep us on top. Arsenal were ahead. It was a sprint to the finish. Into the final week we went and it was advantage United when Arsenal lost at Leeds on the Tuesday night – Nelson Vivas made a bad mistake to let in Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink. Watching at home on the telly, I was thrilled. ‘Win at Blackburn tomorrow and we’re there,’ I thought.

  But at Ewood Park we drew 0–0. More drama. Now we had to beat Tottenham at home in our final game to be sure of being champions. All this graft, all these massive games, and we still hadn’t got our hands on a trophy.

  When Les Ferdinand scored to put Spurs 1–0 up, Old Trafford filled with nerves, and that transmitted to us. We might have been on the brink of a Treble but we could still lose the lot. We were anxious and in need of inspiration when Becks produced an unbelievable goal, whipping the ball into the top corner. Anyone who needs reminding of what a great footballer he was at United should replay that goal – a top-class piece of skill produced under massive pressure when doubts were creeping in.

  We still needed another goal, and the manager brought on Coley at half-time in search of it. Five minutes into the half I pulled the ball back on my left foot and floated a pass over Sol Campbell’s head. Coley brought it down and dinked it over the goalkeeper. We were 2–1 up and on course to be champions, although only after another nervous forty minutes. I kept looking over at Graham Poll screaming, ‘Blow the fucking whistle!’ I’ve never known time drag so slowly.

  The manager had always said that to win the league at Old Trafford on the last day cannot be bettered. And the celebrations were huge. Relief that we’d not blown it was mixed with total joy that we’d won back our title from Arsenal. We had our hands on the first of the three trophies.

  The FA Cup final six days after that Spurs match was the easiest game of the entire run-in, and just as well. I was knackered. Becks and I had played the most games, and I was heading into my fifty-third for United plus my games for England. The manager kept asking us if we needed a rest but he probably knew the answer, even though I was struggling with my groin.

  Fortunately, everything fell into place at Wembley against Newcastle United. Even when Roy had to go off very early with an ankle injury, his replacement, Teddy, scored almost as soon as he had arrived.

  I had such a good feeling that day, like I could do no wrong. Alan Shearer bore down on me at one point and I turned inside to throw him a dummy. He bought it, and the fans gave a big ‘Olé!’ That wasn’t a familiar sound to a Neville. I was in a place where everything seemed so simple and natural. I guess it was what golfers call ‘the zone’, where they’re not thinking about their swing, just letting it flow. If only it could have lasted a lifetime.

  After securing the title we’d celebrated with a big night in Manchester, at the Marriott hotel, into the early hours with all our families. The evening after the FA Cup final we didn’t drink – except for Keano and Scholesy, who probably had a skinful. We had the European Cup final to think about, and we flew out to Barcelona the next day on Concorde. Supersonic wasn’t exactly necessary for the short hop to Spain but we didn’t get to play a game of this stature every week.

  We were laden with bags and it seemed like we were in Barcelona for ages. We had time to sit, chat and think about what we were involved in. On the Monday night, on the balcony of our hotel, me, Phil, Butty, Becks, Giggsy and Scholesy talked about the chances of being in this position again – not just in a European Cup final, the first one for an English team since 1985, but in the Nou Camp, and going for a Treble.

  The atmosphere over the next couple of days was one of nervous excitement. I had known the mood before big England matches to be horribly tense – that feeling that the world will end if you lose. In Barcelona the stakes could not have been higher but the mood was focused. We didn’t want to lose, we loathed the very idea, but we weren’t afraid of the consequences.

  The manager must have had concerns, though. He’d lost Roy, our most influential player, and our playmaker Paul Scholes, though the replacements probably picked themselves. Nicky would come into the middle and Becks was needed there too. That just left the wingers to decide on, but it
was obvious it would be Ryan on one side and Blomqvist on the other. The only other option was to play Ole Gunnar wide right, but he hadn’t been used there all season.

  It is fair to say that the team shape didn’t work great, but I don’t think the manager could have done much different. It was just a tired performance by us against Bayern. My groin had been deteriorating and now it started playing up. As a team we had been sprinting so hard for so long. We were trying to summon one last performance without two of our main men.

  In the Nou Camp, I looked up at all the United fans with twenty minutes to go, and the scoreboard showing 0–1, and thought, ‘We can’t go home without giving them something to shout about’. Our supporters weren’t even singing. Bayern were cruising. They’d hit the post, the crossbar. It looked like it was game over.

  The manager had made a speech at half-time about walking past the cup if we lost and not being able to touch it. They were inspiring words which many remember as game-changing, but, if I am being honest, they hadn’t produced much of an instant lift. That only came when the boss made his substitutions.

  We needed a spark, and it came when Teddy replaced Jesper, allowing Giggsy to move back to his best position on the left and Becks to the right. Yorkie dropped into the hole, and suddenly we started flowing like a team. We shifted up a gear.

  We could never have started with that line-up; it would have been brave going on suicidal. A final twenty minutes of desperation was another matter. Suddenly we started overlapping for the first time. Bayern were under pressure. On came Ole for Coley, so more fresh legs to get at them.