AUG 6 — Manchester United v Manchester City: Alex Ferguson v Roberto Mancini. The men in charge of this weekend's Community Shield protagonists could hardly be more different.
Ferguson: the tough, intimidating, Socialist, in-your-face Scot. Mancini: the dapper, sophisticated, charming, silk-scarf-wearing Italian, young enough to be Ferguson's son.
As players, they were both forwards… but that's where the similarities end. During an unremarkable career in Scotland in the Sixties, most notable for two moderately successful seasons with Glasgow Rangers, Ferguson was an old-fashioned bruiser, happiest when the ball was in the air with two defenders and the goalkeeper standing in the way, ready to be knocked over.
Mancini, who won two Serie A trophies and no less than 11 cup winners' medals with Sampdoria and Lazio, was almost the opposite in his role as the textbook "second striker", linking play with the midfield and acting as a foil to a more prolific central striker — most successfully alongside Gianluca Vialli.
Their managerial careers have followed very different lines of progression, as well. A relatively undistinguished playing career meant that Ferguson had to start at the bottom, serving his apprenticeship with East Stirling and St Mirren before being given his chance with a bigger club, Aberdeen.
He then stayed with the Dons for eight years before joining Manchester United, where he has stayed put for a quarter of a century. Thirty-three years, two clubs.
Mancini, by contrast, started at the top with Fiorentina, and has since changed clubs with a rapidity that would appear alien to Ferguson — in a little over 10 years in management, the Italian is already with his fourth club, and has never stayed anywhere for more than four years.
It doesn't end there. Ferguson and Mancini also seem to possess completely different mentalities about how the game should be played.
Whereas Ferguson's Aberdeen and United teams have always been attack-minded, positive, almost reckless in their desire to score goals and put their opponents under relentless pressure, Mancini is a far more cautious, defensively oriented beast, primarily concerned with not losing games before he's prepared to start considering how they might be won.
So there we have it. Two strikingly different backgrounds, personalities and footballing instincts, both playing a central role in the ongoing territorial dispute in England's second biggest city.
Who has the edge? Surely Ferguson, due to his greater experience and proven ability to claim major honours in England. But Mancini is catching up. He has youth and ambition, and United are in his sights.
It's far easier to do the shooting than it is to be shot at, and City are the club in the ascendancy, on the rise. United are simply trying to stay where they are, and we all know that every empire must eventually fall.
Until recently, there wasn't even a question of which club could claim to be the bigger. City fans were forced to restrict themselves to tenuous claims that the majority of Manchester inhabitants supported their club, with the bulk of United fans coming from other parts of the world. They even found a small degree of comfort in the claim that their old Maine Road ground possessed the tallest floodlights in the country. "Big wow", as we used to say in the Eighties – but that was all City fans had to play with. In footballing terms, they were miles behind.
Now, of course, things are different, and for the first time in many, many years, the question of which club will enjoy the most successful season is a legitimate one.
It's not all about the managers, of course — Wayne Rooney, Nemanja Vidic, Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure will have something to say about the settling of the dispute, as well. But the men responsible for buying and selling players, picking the teams, motivating their squads, making tactical preparations, creating a winning environment, and much more besides, are Ferguson and Mancini. On their shoulders lies the ultimate responsibility for success and failure.
Any comparison between the two managers of Manchester wouldn't be complete without pointing out one more distinct difference: job security.
Ferguson, having turned his club's fortunes around and delivered trophy after trophy for 25 years, is about as un-sackable as any manager could possibly be. The prospect of Ferguson being dismissed is so remote as to be almost unimaginable.
Mancini, on the other hand, has to be fully aware that winning the FA Cup and qualifying for the Champions' League at the end of last season has granted him little more than a temporary reprieve. His club's inordinately wealthy and equally ambitious Abu Dhabi-based owners want trophies, and they want them now. If Mancini doesn't provide them, they'll find someone who will.
And don't you just know that Ferguson is fully aware of that fact? From his lofty perch as the untouchable guru of football management, he will surely throw a handful of provocative, goading taunts, in the supercilious manner that only Ferguson can pull off, in the general direction of his younger Italian rival as the season unfolds.
"I've won the Premier League; I've won the Champions' League. Let's see what you can do, wee laddee." You can almost hear him saying it. After all, his "noisy neighbours" theme is sounding a little worn out, so he needs a new angle.
Let the mind games begin.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
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The Malaysian Insider :: Sports
