Page 83 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

two European Cups with different clubs. Could he reshape Real Madrid in his own image, to his own
thinking? From the beginning, there seemed little prospect of him abandoning his most sacred ideas in
favour of all-out attack and celebrity exuberance. He knew that wasn’t the way to succeed in modern
football. Barcelona would attack beautifully, but they would also hound the ball when possession was

lost. They were a hard-working unit, a collective. In that spell when Real reached three Champions
League finals in five years, they had the best players: Zidane, Figo, Roberto Carlos. Fernando Hierro,
Iker Casillas in goal, Claude Makélélé sitting in the middle of the park to break everything up.
They stayed with the galáctico system after that, importing Dutch players en masse, and David
Beckham, Van Nistelrooy, Robinho, but the European Cup eluded them after the Glasgow final of
2002. Mourinho proved he could make big teams win, but the question I wanted answering was
whether he would be allowed to do it his way in Madrid.

José was a pragmatist, no question. The starting point in his philosophy is to make sure his team
don’t lose. Against Barcelona in the previous season’s Champions League semi-final, he knew his
Inter side were going to cede 65 per cent of possession. All teams knew that. Barcelona’s policy was
to ensure they were always overloaded in the midfield area. If you played four there, they would field
five, if you played six, they would up the ante to seven. By doing so they could rotate the ball, in and
out to the back four. You would end up on their carousel, going round and round, and wind up dizzy.

Occasionally you might fall on the ball. Watch a carousel and you will see what I mean. The eyes go
woozy.
So José knew Inter would not see much of the ball against Barcelona, but he had weapons of his
own, mainly concentration and positioning. Esteban Cambiasso, his central midfielder, was a vital
component in that Inter team. If Messi appeared over here, so would Cambiasso. Should Messi pop
up in another area, Cambiasso would be there as well. It sounds easy, but as part of a general team
plan in which all the defensive duties would connect, it was marvellously effective. Later, I watched

a Real Madrid game in which José made three substitutions in the last 15 minutes. They were all
defensive in nature, to make sure he won the game.
But all this came much later than our battles in the middle of the decade, when Chelsea won their
first League title for 50 years and retained it 12 months later, in the summer of 2006. If 2004–05 was
a horrible season, with no trophies, the following year brought only the League Cup. A new team was
growing, but I was not to know we could win three Premier League trophies in a row.

Our strategy was to rebuild for the eventual departures of Keane, Giggs, Scholes and Neville.
Three of them stayed beyond that plan, while Keane had to go. The intention was to assemble a group
of young players who could develop over a number of years, with the experience of Giggs and
Scholes and Neville to assist that process. Now I can look back on that policy as an unqualified
success.
Yes, we had a barren season in 2004–05, losing the FA Cup final to Arsenal in a penalty shoot-out,
but I could see the promise, in that showpiece game, of Rooney and Ronaldo. They toasted Arsenal

that day. We had 21 shots at goal. In the Champions League round of 16, we lost 1–0 home and away
to Milan, with Hernán Crespo scoring both goals. Rebuilding held no terrors for me. It was second
nature. A football club is like family. Sometimes people leave. In football, sometimes they have to,
sometimes you want them to, sometimes there is no choice for either side, when age or injury
intervene.
I did feel sentimental about great players leaving us. At the same time, my eye would always be on

a player who was coming to an end. An internal voice would always ask, ‘When’s he going to leave,
how long will he last?’ Experience taught me to stockpile young players in important positions.