Rio Ferdinand attributes Manchester United's 2008 Champions League victory to a fiery rebuke from Sir Alex Ferguson of a young Cristiano Ronaldo in 2005. Ferdinand recalls Ronaldo's tears in the dressing room after being criticized for trying too hard to impress, which ultimately motivated him to become a stronger player.
The first takes place in the suffocating glare of the global spotlight - in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium in 2008.
Years earlier, in the dry heat of a Portuguese late evening, it was a young Cristiano Ronaldo who was left in floods of tears by the famed Sir Alex Ferguson hairdryer.Having won the league in 2002-03 they were unable to repeat the feat in any of the next three seasons.Fergie, unhappy about his monopoly being broken, snapped.
An unwavering belief that he could, and would, rebuild the Reds - even in the face of the self-titled Special One. "He said, 'just trust me. I don't get things wrong often when it's football. Stay with me and we'll get this right'.Also on board in June of that summer were two men who were to have a huge impact on that 2008 Champions League triumph.A once-in-a-generation English talent hot off the back of a breakthrough Euro 2004.
Rooney was a precocious English talent from Croxteth in Liverpool who did his talking on the pitch. His impact, once he'd recovered from his broken foot at the Euros, was immediate.Queiroz was the Portuguese assistant manager who spoke a handful of languages and, in time, would prove to be a crucial bridge between Ferguson's east-end Glasgow roots and an increasingly cosmopolitan squad.
Prioritising speed - especially in attack - was key for Ferguson as, step-by-step, the rebuild on the road to Moscow started to take shape. "Sir Alex said to me "I'm looking for someone who can bring me more information about European football," Queiroz said. "In England it was 'I do my best, you do your best, and we'll see'. But when you play Italians, when you play Spanish teams, it was not the same approach.
"I think what Sir Alex did is he went through different phases of different teams and at Manchester United he was able to rebuild a squad and go in a different direction," Rooney says.Unlike Ronaldo, who has spoken movingly of his difficult relationship with his dad, a former soldier who became an alcoholic and died when Ronaldo was 20, Rooney wasn't looking for a father figure in Ferguson - but that doesn't mean his man-management didn't resonate.
"We got to the Champions League semi-finals against Milan and we beat them 3-2 in the first leg," Rooney says. "They had such a unbelievable team, you know - Kaka, Shevchenko, Pirlo, Seedorf, Maldini, Cafu. As the documentary 'Sir Alex' explores, Ferguson was the son of a shipbuilder in Glasgow and had spent time before his managerial career as a pub landlord in the city.And it was a time and place he took his players back to as the hours ticked down to his, and their, career-defining moment in the Luzhniki Stadium."Sir Alex did his team talk in the hotel before we left and, and it was, really intriguing.
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