'Little Franco'

Alex Ferguson is known to pursue many interests. Fine wines, race horses, the piano, gangster movies: he is a keen student of the lot. As yet a passion for fishing has not been recorded among his favoured pursuits.Which is odd, as he has long been a master of dangling bait.The latest prey to take a bite at Ferguson's lure is Real Madrid, an institution hitherto considered too grand to bother with such trifles. But on Thursday morning 'Marca', the club's favoured cheerleader in the Spanish press, went to town on the Manchester United manager, devoting their front page to comments made by Madrid's president, Ramon Calderon, about one of the most successful figures in the game. "Ferguson Chochear" was the headline: roughly translated as Ferguson has gone senile. Above it was a set of pictures showing the United manager transmogrifying across five frames into a less-than-wholesome figure from Spain's past. The sequence was captioned "Franquito del Manchester", or "Manchester's Little Franco".CommentsThe cause of the Spanish distemper was an interview with Ferguson in 'GQ' magazine. In it he made several ill-tempered comments about Real.He suggested that since the club were once the plaything of General Franco, the assumption that they would always get their own way was fused into their DNA. He added that the Spaniards had bought the defender, Gabriel Heinze, from United with the sole intention of using him as a stalking horse in their pursuit of his good friend Cristiano Ronaldo.For anyone reading the interview in Britain, it was pretty routine Ferguson.His remarks about Franco came in the middle of lengthy reminiscence about his socialist roots, including an anecdote about how, during the miners' strike, he and Jock Stein had berated strike-breaking lorry drivers as scab labour. He had extended his thesis about class war into an assault on Real's nationalist heritage.As for his remarks about Heinze, they conveniently sidestepped the truth about his transfer, which was that it was largely engineered by Ferguson in order to prevent the Argentine heading for Liverpool.Real were clearly not used to such wiles. Heinze called his former manager "mad" while Calderon diagnosed incipient dementia. Watching their anger mount, back in Manchester the master of the diversionary spat was doubtless whistling a Frank Sinatra tune. It was job done.These days Ferguson does not bother addressing the media unless he has a message he wishes to convey. Routine duties, the dull litany of injuries, responding to lengthy questions and projecting blame on to the referee, he leaves to his deputies. When he does condescend to grant an interview, what he says has purpose; unlike Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, on such occasions he has full control of his mouth. When he assaulted Spain's most august sporting institution there was a reason: it was method, not madness. And it was nothing to do with the threat Madrid offer. In truth the most serious menace to his European crown these days comes from his domestic rivals Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea.No, this was all to do with a certain Portuguese winger.Ferguson prides himself that in his 21 years in charge nobody has left Old Trafford unless he wished them to go. Jaap Stam, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Paul Ince, even David Beckham were let go because he felt their usefulness was declining. Ronaldo, however, was a very different matter. ValuedThis summer Ronaldo wanted out and Ferguson wanted him to stay. As he had done before with Eric Cantona, he used all the wiles in his repertoire to retain the player whose goals had won him the double last season. Once he had persuaded Ronaldo not to leave, he set about ensuring that the player felt valued. He did that by never once publicly criticising the player. The saga was everyone else's fault for putting ideas in the impressionable lad's head. It was Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, for calling him a slave, it was Heinze, it was Madrid. It was probably General Franco.As a man-manager there is no one better at analysing the hair-trigger temperaments of the dressing room. Ronaldo may have an ego the size of Madeira, but Ferguson recognises that sometimes it is the very people who you most wish to clip around the ear that crave reassurance.Thus has he reassured: he was there when the lad went to receive his World Player of the Year award, he has been there during the long sulk, never once undermining, always supporting. His latest assault on Madrid is merely to demonstrate once again that he holds no personal grudge against Ronaldo: someone else was to blame.That is Ferguson's genius. Far from suggesting the imminent arrival of the bath chair, his remarks about Real demonstrate he remains the shrewdest man-manager in the game. (© Daily Telegraph, London)- Jim White Download our iPhone App Now