The Devil In Me

With Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo tipped to make huge splashes at this year’s summer jamboree, two Manchester United alumni are set to take centre stage at the World Cup for possibly the first time. I thought this would be a nice opportunity to look back through the archive and see which United players had made the biggest impact on World Cups gone by. Here is the (by no means definitive) list:

Norman Whiteside Northern Ireland Caps: 38 Goals: 9

Big Norm is distinguished by being one of the few people to scrub Pele’s name out of the record books. In Spain ’82 he became the youngest ever player to go to a finals at 17 years and 41 days breaking the Brazilian’s long-held record. He made his mark on the tournament too, by scoring the winning goal in Northern Ireland’s stupendous victory over the hosts.
Four years later he was back in Mexico and scored again against Algeria. Looking back at what he had achieved by the age of 21 makes you remember what a truly special talent Norman Whiteside was.

Jesper Olsen Denmark Caps: 43 Goals: 5

Jesper was a nippy, tricky little winger United snapped up from Ajax during the eighties. An Old Trafford favourite who, along with wee Gordie Strachan, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that United fielded the best gingers of the decade.
The Danish team of the mid-eighties was a little bit special. Michael Laudrup pulled the strings of some beautiful passing football and they are etched on the psyche of that nation’s footballing consciousness forever. I have a friend called Tue, an enormous blonde tree trunk of a man, who has waxed lyrical about this side to me on many an occasion.
The Danes produced the result of the tournament in ’86 walloping two-time winners Uruguay 6-2 and inflicting their heaviest defeat for more than 50 years. Alas, in the last 16 they were crushed 5-1 by Spain. Leading early in the game Olsen misplaced a pass and Emilio Butragueno slid in to make the scores level before going on to net four in total.
There is now a phrase in Danish ‘a rigtig Jesper Olsen’ (a real Jesper Olsen) for people who make mistakes.
Ouch.

Bobby Charlton England Caps: 106 Goals: 49

You could write a book about Bobby’s footballing achievements, in fact I am pretty sure several people have.
But Bobby’s impact on the national side’s fortunes is immense. He scored 3 goals on the run to the final in ’66 where he and the legendary Beckenbauer effectively marked each other out of the game.
Four years later England were 2-0 up against the Germans and cruising in the quarter final. Charlton was substituted and West Germany duly turned the game around before going on to win the entire tournament. It would prove to be England’s last performance at the finals for 12 years.
In 1958, at 20 years of age, Charlton was deemed too young by the England management to go to the greatest show on earth. This despite the fact he was one of the outstanding players in United’s great Busby Babes side. Brazil did take their 17 year old, Pele, and won. I am sure Bobby doesn’t sit around thinking ‘what might have been’ but it does highlight that England managers have been largely muppets for a long time now.

Nobby Stiles England Cap: 28 Goals: 1

Tackling was invented for Nobby Stiles. Along with the Great Barrier Reef and the Northern Lights to see him crunch into an opponent was one of the world’s most beautiful sights.
Nobby famously played every minute of England’s victorious 1966 campaign and his chaotic dancing on the final whistle is still a special sight. The fact that his only international goal came in a victory against Germany should alone make him a national hero.
In the semi-final, against Portugal, Stiles was given the job of marking Eusebio, one of the world’s best players. Eusebio didn’t get a look in all match and the United midfielder’s commitment was there for all to see.
Apparently, before the game, Alf Ramsay had said to Nobby, “I want you to take Eusebio out of the game.”
To which Nobby replied, “What? Permanently?”
Legend.
He is also the only England player to have slammed his front door in this correspondent’s face. But that is an entirely different story.

AND! Courtesy of the Crinkleys, here is the United-England 11, can you think of any more?

Goal: Stepney (one cap).

Back four: Gary (or Foulkes – one cap), Rio (or Mark Jones), Stiles, Byrne.

Midfield: Beckham, Edwards, Robson, Charlton.

Strikers; Rooney, Tommy Taylor or, somewhere, David Pegg or Dennis Violett (check) or John Connelly (who played one game in the 1966 World Cup).

Subs; Phil, Wes, Duxbury, Fluster (ha!), Johnny Berry (one cap, I think), Sadler, Wilkins etc etc.

Clouds were gathering at the start of this season with the departures of Ronaldo and Carlos “cough” mercenary “cough” Tevez. The Guardian predicted United would finish sixth and this very correspondent said that four in a row would be too much to ask. Michael Owen’s signing had gone down like a turd sandwich and many of us entered the campaign with fears it may be a season of damage limitation.

It is of no surprise to me that so much of the fan experience this year took place away from the kicking of a ball. Perhaps the highlight of our season was David Beckham’s return and his iconic grabbing of the Green and Gold scarf at the end of the Milan tie. What a great man he is.

The club’s ownership is now in the hands of people more powerful than I and all I can do from here is hope that the right thing plays out. In the cold light of day we, the supporters, still need the club, that is the ultimate bargaining chip. At the moment it is a chip the Glazers still hold. Absurd as it is, we need to endanger the club in order to save it, that is some kind of crazy surgery, it makes me weep.

On the field, it is difficult to describe how much joy I derived from our fixtures against City this year. Gary Cook performed the impossible feat of making victory over the neighbours even more enjoyable and with two last-minute winners in the league games we could not ask for more. They were truly cracking matches as well, but being smug about it would be foolish. This is certainly the best City team for thirty odd years and they will probably achieve something soon.

Why oh why can I not like Michael Owen? There is no doubt he is a tremendous striker with liquid nitrogen for blood and better positioning than Stephen Hendry on a 147. He scored the winner against City, plopped in a hat-trick in the European Cup and scored in a victorious cup final. But nope, still not a major fan. I think he is valuable as a squad player for the coming season but I can’t imagine a situation where I’ll sing his name. Bizarre, probably more my problem than his I suppose.

There are differences between this year’s crop and the great teams of the past, a lack of regular right-back and solid back up striker being the most obvious. But it was the return to wing play this season that really puts a smile on my face. Valencia has been little short of tremendous and at 23 will only improve. Nani also upped his performance levels but too often seems to want to finish games deserving both the ballon d’or and a punch in the face. This was the last year when immaturity can be used as an excuse, I hope he knows that.

The stories I hear about Kiko Macheda are equally worrying. I have no idea how you explain to an 18 year old millionaire how to focus on their job and stop mucking around. No wonder Fergie adopts an air of fearsome anger, it is a miracle he can get them out of bed in the morning and eating their greens if you ask me.

At the back Rio and Vidic took turns on the treatment table while everybody else in the squad took turns and centre-back. Tremendous credit must go to Fletcher, Carrick and Johnny Evans for filling in. We still had the best defence in the league which is a sturdy achievement. Evra was superb all season long and despite what everybody says about Cashley Cole he is, for my money, the best left-back in the world. VDS swatted aside the young pretenders and showed true class between the sticks. Young Ben did not stand up to the challenge.

Rooney, quite simply, proved that he is a direct descendent of God. He has been awesome this season but we leant on him too heavily. When he went down in Munich so did the hearts of Reds around the world. Twas Berbatov we needed to step up and step up he did not. The Bulgar’s performances were often good but not good enough when it mattered. In this I see the lesson that splurging cash on a big name will not solve our problems.

You would have be some kind of embittered bog-lizard to look upon a league table at season’s end and find cheer in the troubles of your rivals. We are not champions, simple as that, the fact City and Liverpool are not either is merely a relief, not a cause for celebration.

Glory is not obtained by nice people, simply because they don’t really want it, yet in Carlo Ancellotti Chelsea have a manager who is not entirely repugnant. The same cannot be said for their team.

So now for the World Cup. I hope for two things, firstly that no United players pick up long-term injuries and secondly that we don’t end up foolishly buying someone on the strength of one good showing in an international tournament. The name Karel Poborsky still brings a tear to my eye. I wonder what Cristiano Ronaldo is thinking about the season gone by.

Player of the season: Wayne Rooney

Have a great summer and thanks for all your comments and support throughout the year. I shall be posting over the coming months about the tournament in South Africa and any other United stuff that tickles my fancy.