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Ten years ago this weekend Manchester United found the noisy neighbors on their heels in every way imaginable.
Manchester City’s first ever charity Santa Run occurred at precisely the same time as United’s most established event. United could boast of a lone sky blue Santa Claus among the hundreds who wore red in their career. City could boast of the participation of the first team coach, Roberto Mancini, in theirs.
Sir Alex Ferguson ridiculed a fan who had “Manchester City – Champions League Champions 2011” tattooed on his shoulder, another example of how the club gets carried away, he said, correctly, how things turned out.
But his feigned nonchalance was unconvincing, given that City’s ‘Welcome to Manchester’ sign for Carlos Tevez clearly still irritated him. It reflected a ‘small club with a small mentality’, he declared. “The only thing they can talk about is Manchester United.”
In essence, the rivalry that sparked Abu Dhabi’s arrival in the city had peaked that winter, though what Ferguson failed to appreciate was that City viewed its own seething response to Tevez’s stunt as the greatest gift of all.
“It was a marketing thing and we didn’t think anything about it,” says an executive from the Mark Hughes and Mancini days. Then he reacted. That was a great result. It proved that we had gotten him under his skin.
It also ushered in the shift of power from red to blue that has been going on for the past decade, with clubs set to meet again tomorrow in a Manchester derby with United actually one point ahead, but in even more turbulence afterward. of his Champions of midweek. Leaving the league.
Tevez’s move through Manchester in 2009 was the first demonstration of City’s ability to attract United players through its new financial muscle, although it was Wayne Rooney’s flirtation with them that still resonated at Old Trafford in the winter 2010.
City had been waiting in the background when Rooney issued a press release, hours before a Champions League home game with Bursaspor in October, stating that United lacked ambition. Ferguson delivered perhaps his most memorable post-game press conference speech that very night – a baffling, incoherent and captivating appeal to the player, delivered through the writers.
“Sometimes you look in a field and you see a cow and you think it is a better cow than the one you have in your own field,” he said. ‘And it never really works that way. It’s probably the same cow, or not even as good as yours …
He seemed to be telling Rooney that the grass isn’t always greener, although it was an improved financial offer that convinced the captain to sign for another five years, as well as the gang of 30 hooded fans who came to his Prestbury home, warning of the consequences if he joined the City.
It was the knowledge of Yaya Toure’s £ 220,000 weekly salary that apparently mesmerized Rooney at the time. “United sold for its history, being number one and the place any player would want to go,” says the executive. But money certainly spoke.
City were also confident at the time that they could outflank United in recruiting youngsters. “There was a vibe of ‘come to us, we are Manchester United,'” says another source from that time. But we felt that his academy had lost a bit of its magic and had become a bit long. Parents were receptive to us. ‘
It was not an easy journey for either team. Although one of the soccer staff who worked with Mancini vividly remembers the intensity of Tevez’s workouts – ‘he didn’t say much, but he showed up and was relentless on the training ground’ – the Argentine was in the middle of the first of his disputes. with Mancini for Christmas 2010.
The City Council was also trying to integrate the newcomer Mario Balotelli. “I wouldn’t call them an established organization,” Ferguson said of City a few years later. “ There was always a problem, with someone lighting fireworks or fighting with the manager. ”
Some feel it was Hughes, a coach brutally ousted by the new owners, who set the tone for a shaky process at United. “He had served his time there,” says the executive who worked with him. ‘He knew the adage about,’ How do you get to be number one? Prepare as if you were number 2. ‘ If you are the loser, there may be something relentless about you. Staying at the top, where United was at the time, is the hardest part. “
Money was the main attraction, but City were also obsessively good at selling the club, Manchester and the message. David Silva and Yaya Touré, both recruits from 2010, and Sergio Agüero, from 2011, would reflect years later that, as City had promised, they did make history.
Mentioning Rooney’s name at a Ferguson press conference carried a risk back then. Someone tentatively asked if he felt City had really been interested in signing the then 25-year-old. That is for them. Do not ask me. Christ!’ answered.
But then, in April 2011, the dynamics of the derby changed irrevocably. City beat United 1-0 in an FA Cup semi-final, sending them to a final against Stoke City which they won. The Stretford End banner indicating the old enemy’s 35 trophyless years finally fell.
Progress toward the City’s current state of superiority was not linear. They won a first Premier League title in 2012 and Ferguson recounted in his autobiography that even his wife, Lady Cathy, declared from the sanctuary of her home in Wilmslow that it had been the worst day of her life. I will not leave. There are too many City fans out there. ‘
But United, who had sacrificed a substantial lead that season, regained the title the following year, spurred to glory by Robin van Persie, who chose United over City. Of course, what no one expected was that Ferguson and its CEO David Gill would leave that same summer.
Much of the football knowledge was gone and Gill’s successor Ed Woodward was searching for the secrets of success, similar to hunting down an airplane’s black box flight recorder, he reflected.
City, frustrated by the way their wealth and recent lack of glory led clubs to demand an exorbitant ‘Manchester City price’ for players, had meanwhile put in place a scientific model of player acquisition, adopted later by Liverpool, who signed two of the best from City. exploration managers to run it.
The signatures were generally planned months in advance. A consistent style of play was introduced and Pep Guardiola brought stability and determination, while United are at their fourth manager in six years. Although United are one point ahead of their rivals ahead of tomorrow’s game at Old Trafford, the table flatters them.
When United regained the title from City in 2013, Ferguson felt the rowdy neighbors had simply lacked the backbone to stay on top and instead “settled into a sense of relief.” But he seemed to know that the 2010-11 campaign, and that decisive Wembley semi-final, was significant.
‘We all hit points in life and say,’ This is a different life now, ‘whether it’s in a job or winning the lottery,’ was his enigmatic assessment of City’s progress. “There was a couple who won the lottery: 110 million euros. Don’t you think it was a turning point in his life? We all have points in our lives when it happens. ‘
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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