IT'S A SUNNY Monday morning at Carrington and despite the early hour Sir Alex Ferguson's countenance is as warm and welcoming as Rome in the springtime.
He's beaming from ear to ear, cracking jokes with the staff, exuding cheeriness. We all bathe in his bonhomie. But then his riotously good mood is hardly surprising: this is a famously exacting man who finally looks set to meet his own stellar standa
rds for success. He has, he says, "the pantheon of greatness" within sight.
But first there was the minor matter of a Premier League title to wrap up. Not that it was going too badly: the day before we met to discuss his Govan childhood for a project on Great Glaswegians, United had navigated a potential obstacle with almost contemptuous ease, imperiously dispatching City on their own patch in a Manchester derby that had been expected to be a stern test of United's resolve.
All he needed for the Old Trafford club to equal Liverpool's historic record of 18 league titles was one more point from two matches, and given the way in which United humbled Arsenal at the Emirates in the Champions League semi-final, he had reasonable cause for confidence. That faith was justified when yesterday's scoreless draw at the Theatre of Dreams confirmed that Ferguson's men had retained the title.
They did it at a canter, too. Liverpool put up a sustained challenge, but United's grinding excellence has meant that the destination of the title has not been in serious doubt for months. They may have struggled to dominate the head-to-head meetings with their main rivals, with United winning just one of their five matches before yesterday, but their consistency against the rump of the Premiership has been awe-inspiring.
Yet for Ferguson that is no longer enough. His insatiable will to win may be fed and sustained by what he calls the "tribal" nature of the English top flight, but it is no longer what makes his soul fly. Instead it is the Champions League which keeps him awake at night. Victory over Barcelona in Rome's Stadio Olimpico a week on Wednesday would make him the first manager to win Champions League titles in successive seasons, and he makes no secret of just how much that would mean to him.
"Winning back-to-back Champions League titles would be the best achievement in my career," he says. "No question. It has to be. When I won my first European Cup against Barcelona I said 'thank God that's out of the road' because that was always a criticism of me (that we hadn't emulated the Busby Babes].
"Then we went through a dry zone and we had to wait another nine years to do it. Now we're in a situation where we're in another final already, which is phenomenal. I think it's because we've got a really good team here just now, probably the best team I've ever had. If not the best team, certainly the best squad."
The distinction is an important one. The demands of fighting on six fronts – United beat Portsmouth to win the Community Shield in August, Spurs to win the Carling Cup, LDU Quito of Ecuador to win the Club World Cup in December and went out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage – means that Ferguson has had to be particularly adept in his management of the resources at his disposal this season. By the end of the season the Red Devils will have played 66 games in 290 days, more than at any stage in Ferguson's 23 years at the club; indeed, more than at any stage in the club's history. Only Liverpool, who played 67 games in 1983-4, including 13 cup ties, have ever played more in one season.
He hasn't named the same side in successive matches since last May and has used 34 players this season, with only five of them – Ronaldo, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic – playing over 40 games, largely because Ferguson's mileometer tells him that defenders don't run as far during games. Having veterans like Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes and teenagers such as Italian striker Federico Macheda and Brazilian defender Rafael da Silva to inject urgency or experience as required has turned key matches, but it is the partnership between Ferdinand and Vidic, allied to the durability of Evra and Gary Neville, which has been key, with only Chelsea conceding fewer than the 24 league goals United have leaked.
Up front, Ferguson has considerably more than £100 million of firepower at his disposal in Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov, who between them had scored 78 goals this season before yesterday. That is a rate of return no other side comes close to matching, with both Liverpool and Chelsea dependent on goals from midfield. It is why Ferguson rates this side so highly, perhaps even more highly than the 1994 double-winning side which he believes had the capacity to be as prolific in Europe as the current crop.
"The team of '94 was a fabulous team, there were a lot of different ingredients in it, and it had a combustible nature about it," he says. "They'd fight anyone. They were physically strong and could deal with anything. If you wanted to play football we'd play football, if you wanted to fight us we'd fight you. It was a really powerful team but unfortunately the rules of European football at the time were different. You could only play three foreign players, including Scots and Irish players, so we were leaving out top players. I think that team probably would have come close to winning a European Cup if it had had present-day conditions.
"But this team has got talent, it's got youth, they're getting better, and it's a big squad with 35 players and that allows you to freshen up and change whenever I want to. They've got a good chance in this final (against Barcelona] because they're playing a footballing team and we'll have a good football match, and that's when we're at our best. So it'd be a great achievement, the best ever in terms of back-to-backs because if you look back to the great teams you'll see how few have managed it."
Ferguson makes no apology for the fact that success in Europe now means more to him than domestic honours. Mark Robins' goal against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup back in 1990 may have saved his job and acted as a springboard for United's first silverware, but former Nou Camp striker Mark Hughes' two goals in the 2-1 Cup-Winners' Cup final victory over Barcelona in Rotterdam the following year, the first season back for English clubs after Heysel, is a favoured destination when Ferguson takes a stroll down memory lane.
If the Premier League's intensity and its potential for feuds with a Keegan, Wenger or Benitez provides the day-to-day adrenaline, it's Europe which sustains Ferguson's need for new horizons and fresh fields to conquer. It is a combination which keeps the 67-year-old young and ensures that he comes back for more at the beginning of each season.
"Last year my wife thought she wouldn't have to worry this year, but she does," he laughed. "You achieve one year and you think 'that's good, I can go and enjoy myself now' and then you get the fixture list and you say 'flipping hell, we've got Hull the last match of the season' and you're off again.
"That's because England is tribalism. You've got these different countries in a big country. You've got Geordies, Yorkshiremen – a game between Manchester United and Leeds is vicious – us and the Scousers. The atmosphere, the intensity, the rivalry! It all takes your breath away. You've got the Midlands and the London teams, all of them little pockets in their own right.
"That tribalism forces you to do well in the Premier League, but the real excitement comes in European games. The Wednesday night atmosphere when you maybe go to Madrid and Barcelona and you can smell the cigars and there's perfume wafting down from the stands – it's wonderful, it's different, I love it. You go to Milan and everyone's so stylish; every woman who passes you by is Miss World. The whole atmosphere at these places is unreal."
Ferguson's success was ultimately forged in Govan. He charts his philosophy from his days as an apprentice toolmaker in the Clyde shipyards. Already maniacally competitive, it imbued him with a work ethic which has never relented and which he has passed on to the players who have brought United to the brink of making history.
"It's great to get up early," he says. "I'm up early every morning and I've got a whole day to enjoy. I try to get it across to my players that working hard is a quality. People think that it's an easy thing to be able to say 'he works hard right enough, he's enthusiastic right enough' but it's not. It's bloody hard to be that way all the time.
"I love to see guys who are as hard-working now as they were when I first met them. Giggs? I love him. Scholes and Neville? Exactly the same. These are guys that have never changed. You can see it in them, that these are guys I could trust with my life. That I could turn my back and they'd run the place for me if I had a day off."
Ferguson has an acute sense of his place in the grand scheme of things, and always has one eye on his legacy. Perhaps that's why Europe is so important to him. After all, Ferguson may have won more domestic silverware than any other man in the English game, but he knows that he will be remembered for what happened in Gothenburg, Barcelona, Moscow and, just maybe, Rome.
Ferguson also knows that the legendary trio of Scottish managers – Jock Stein, Sir Matt Busby and Bill Shankly – are legends not because of what they achieved domestically but because they triumphed in Europe. His pride in joining that Caledonian quartet is palpable, as is his appreciation of the West of Scotland industrial background they share.
"It's the communities," he says when asked whether there is a common thread between the four of them. "If you look at the mining communities where Big Jock and Shanks and Busby came from they really depended on each other. It's like that great movie How Green Was My Valley about the mining disaster in Wales, and that's what it must have been like in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.
"You see these places and all the houses in the miners' rows all look the same. The communities they came from gave them that determination to do well in life, to remember that their loyalty is to each other, and that's something that all four of us have always had. Shanks was loyal to his club, Stein was loyal to Celtic, Busby was loyal to United. That wasn't by accident: that's the sort of human beings they were. They came from a community that depended on loyalty to each other. There was a trust and belief in each other."
Being as competitive as he is, you suspect that Ferguson isn't content just to be part of that august pack, but wants to lead it. Even if you accord the Champions League the same status as the old knockout European Cup, he's already eclipsed Stein and Busby's achievements in Europe. Yet victory in Rome will only see him equal Bob Paisley, who won back-to-back titles in 1977 and 1978 and with the 1981 victory remains the only manager to win the European Cup three times.
Given Ferguson's combative approach to Liverpool, it is a record he is sure to have in his sights. Indeed, he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of European football and as he muses on the great teams it's easy to see that the Merseysiders aren't the only ones in his crosshairs. Real Madrid's five-in-a-row is unmatchable, yet he can console himself that it came at a time when there wasn't a level playing field. As for the great managers – Del Bosque, Kovacs, Cramer, Guttman, Herrera, Sacchi, Clough – they all 'only' won two European Cups, as did Real's Villalonga, Carnilia and Monoz. Of the other great teams, only Ajax and Bayern ever won three in a row.
"Real Madrid won it five times in a row," he says. "They did it in a different era because they stole a march on everyone by being the first to put foreigners into their team and give them Spanish nationality. Puskas was Hungarian and played for Spain; Di Stefano was Argentinian and played for Spain; Santamaria was Uruguayan and played for Spain; and Koppa was French.
"The (Franco] regime allowed them to do that, but then in the early Seventies you had Ajax's three in a row, then in the middle Seventies Bayern's three in a row. It would be brilliant to do three in a row – it would put you in the pantheon of great teams."
And, he should have added, of great managers. By any objective criteria Ferguson is already great, but in his own mind you sense that there's a competitive need to strive to be the best of all time. Incredible as it sounds, Ferguson would like to one day look back and see the forthcoming final in Rome as part of the journey, not the destination.
Not that he sees it that way just now. Ferguson's Elysian fields aren't found on these shores but across the Channel, but this week will be all about one field in Rome and the focus on preparing for Barcelona will be total, the way Ferguson likes it.
"European football's fantastic. That's what really does it for me, absolutely," he says. "Your preparation for a European match is totally different (from that for a Premier League match]. You know they've prepared tactically, that's the European thing, and there's the different type of refereeing culture. If I can just win it one more time then I'd be happier. All I want is to win it this year and get two in a row. Then we'll worry about next year and the three in a row…."
