10 Reasons why Ferguson is the greatest manager ever.

10 Reasons why Ferguson is the greatest manager ever.

1. “Show us your medals” Simply put, no one has won more. 37 major honours at Utd alone. (Giovanni Trapattoni comes closest but includes less meaningful titles in places such as Austria)
2. Getting to the top is easy, staying there is another thing. No one has stayed at the top longer. (Clough exploded with a blazed, beautiful but albeit brief start & eventually got Forest relegated – Dalglish won 1 title with Blackburn using Jack Walker’s bottomless pit of money but didn’t attempt to retain it for whatever reason) Shankley failed to stay at the top for a long period.
3. Building the foundations/Empire. Utd had no money, a drinking culture & no modern youth system in 1986 but Ferguson changed all that and reaped the rewards. Bobby Charlton kept him in a job after 3 years of not winning anything for he could see the special things that were being built behind the scenes by Ferguson. (Bob Paisley had amazing success but on the back of foundations built by the great Bill Shankley, while Ferguson took over from Ron Atkinson. Jose Mourinho has a phenomenal record but never built an empire, only hanging around clubs for 2-3 years before moving on)
4. Sustained Success at one club. As Arsene Wenger found out, building 1 or 2 great teams is tough. But to build 4 or 5 is something else. Ferguson has, over the 25 years, built new team after new team. From his double winners in 1994, to the treble winners of 1999 to the flamboyant 2003 team to the 2007 team which overcame Abrahmovic & Mourinho’s billions to the current team which held off Man City last term. Which one is his best, is up for strong debate.
5. Aberdeen. The last time a team outside of Celtic & Rangers won the Scottish league, was amazingly over 25 years ago, when Alex Ferguson was Aberdeen manager. He also won the European Cup Winners cup with the little Scottlish side, beating the likes of Bayern Munich & Real Madrid along the way. Some actually argue that this remarkable success at Aberdeen is more impressive than the success with Utd.
6. Beating clubs with money. No other manager has ever had the competition that Ferguson has had. 3 times he has come up against clubs with bottomless pits of money. Blackburn in 1995, Chelsea in 2003 & Man City in 2009. He seen off Rovers & Chelsea & currently has City’s Oil money to beat. Shankley never had such ferocious, wealthy enemies to overcome.
7. Beating foreign managers. Again, no other manager before him has had such competition from rival managers. Since the mid '90s he's been competing not on a domestic level but on a world level with managers like Wenger, Houllier, Benitez, Ranieri, Mourinho, Scolari, Hiddink, Ancelotti. There are a lot of the world's top managers in that list, people who have won leagues, Champions Leagues. In the 70’s & 80’s only domestic managers were in England. Can you imagine if Ferguson only had to compete with the likes of Allardyce, Redknapp, Curbishley, O'Neill, O'Leary, Keegan & Dalglish during his 25 years?
8. The raising standard of English Football. The Premier League is harder than ever to win & of a much higher quality than the old First division. This is down to the amount of money now involved. Instead of the league being made up mainly of English, Scottish, Irish & Welsh players, now we have Brzilians, Italians, French, Spanish & every other superstar player. Instead of Alan Smith, Arsenal had Thierry Henry. Instead of Brian McClair, Utd had Cristiano Ronaldo. Instead of Gavin Peacock, Chelsea had Didier Drogba & so on and so on, for every position from Goalkeeper to the subs. The quality of players now is a world apart from the 80’s. The higher the standard of competition, the harder it is to win. Think of it like playing FIFA or Pro Evo on easy mode. And then after a while you play Expert mode. Even though you’re better & your team is better, the opposition is also a lot better & tougher to beat.
9. Winning the right way, with style. All the success Ferguson has had, he’s achieved through attractive, attacking football & faith in young players. He believes in potential more than anyone who’s come before him. Trapattoni, Helenio Herrera, Rafa Benitez & Jose Mourinho all hold a pragmatic, defensive manifesto & view a game first & foremost as how to stop the opposition & then exploit them. Ferguson’s primary belief is in attacking football, taking risks & giving young people a chance to shine.
10. The Champions League & the Great Barcelona team. 3 finals in 4 years is quite an achievement. Coming up against possibly the best club side of all time in 2 of those finals however, is pretty unfortunate. Only 2 Champions Leagues in his time sounds poor, and it is undoubtedly Ferguson’s biggest critic. A closer look does ease the blotch on his record, all be it only slightly! After English clubs were allowed re-entry into the competition, it took a while to adapt (from 1994-1998) & Utd were also hindered by the foreign rule where only 3 non English players were aloud in the team. Even the likes of Giggs & Irwin were regarded as foreign. After the success of 1999 came Utd’s golden period when they really should have added more titles (2000-2003). But by now the competition was letting in 4^th placed entrants from England, Germany, Italy and Spain meaning a huge increase in the quality of competition. Now, instead of coming up against 3 good teams from those countries, there was 9-12. Some of Liverpool’s victories in Europe featured bye’s into the next round (1978) & easy opponents such as Irish teams & finals against Belgian team Bruges. No team has ever won back to back Champions Leagues. The globalization of football now means better managers are spread across more countries, sharing modern tactics, resulting in the weaker teams being more organized.  The old European cup was harder to qualify for (as only champions got in) but Ferguson wasn’t around to have a go at that. If he was around in the 70’s/80’s and won the 12 English league titles he has, he’d have had 12 stabs at the old European cup which is easier to win once you’re in there. So the amount of European titles he could have won, is frightening.