Beckham (27 page)

‘I think we're going to win.'

The silence at the other end of the line told me there wasn't the same kind of confidence back at home. But I wouldn't have said it to Dave if I hadn't believed it. And I wanted to be part of what I thought was going to happen. I was worried that a groin injury I'd picked up playing for United against Aston Villa the week before wasn't going to heal in time. It had turned out not to be as bad a tear as I'd thought when it first happened, so I'd joined up for England training with the rest of the
lads although I wasn't fit enough to train with them. I had a week on my own, getting treatment, hoping for the best and hating every minute of it. Being captain made it even worse: I wanted to be involved in everything. Instead, the first time I was able to work with everybody else was at the stadium, late in the afternoon before that Friday night dinner.

I went out half an hour early with Gary Lewin and Alan Smith from the England medical team to check my fitness: running, turning, hitting dead balls. It's a strange feeling, even more so with a place in the team for such a big game at stake. You want to stretch yourself to make sure you're strong enough to play and won't let anybody down. At the same time, you can't help but hold back a little because you don't want to breakdown at the last minute and miss out on your chance. Anyway, Gary and Alan were happy and gave me the all-clear to join in with the main session. It felt great: the rest of the squad were in such good form. I found myself wishing we could have a go at the Germans there and then.

I was almost waiting for the nerves to start jangling but the lads were just as confident over breakfast as they had been over dinner the night before and, even an hour before kick-off in the dressing room, everyone seemed calm and relaxed. We went out to warm up and everything seemed right. Everything, that is, apart from my injury. I still wasn't sure. I knew I wanted to play but I knew I had to do what was best for the team. Those few minutes running and stretching, though, made all the difference and I came back in convinced I could make it. When the time came, in the minute or two before the bell rang to tell us to go out for the game, Sven sat everybody down. What he had to say was pretty simple but tapped into everybody's mood:

‘Go out, enjoy yourselves. Be confident: they're a good team but we're a better team. Play well. And three points.'

Sven always finishes with that: ‘And three points'. I stood up and led the team out into the tunnel. The doctors had talked me into putting
on a pair of lycra cycling shorts just to keep me warm and to give a bit of extra support. Even standing in the tunnel, I knew I'd made a mistake agreeing to wear them. I've always been the kind of player who needs to be comfortable with what I've got on: not just my boots but the rest of my uniform too. If I've got blisters, I can't wear an extra pair of socks or a plaster on a sore toe. Maybe it's all in the mind, but I know it makes a real difference to me. Waiting to go out for this huge game, I felt like I'd been strapped into these things. It wasn't really the right moment, though, to be changing my mind.

We kicked off and, in no time, we were a goal down. I'd not even had long enough to stop worrying about not feeling right. The injury wasn't bothering me but the cycling shorts were. Surely, if the groin was going to go, then it was going to go anyway. I jogged across to the touchline and peeled them off. One of the papers got a photo of me stripping off by the dugout and ran it the next day with a jokey headline about the England captain changing the game by changing his shorts. Getting rid of them did change things for me: I felt better straight away, freer and able to run more easily. I didn't give the injury another thought for the rest of the game.

Usually, going a goal behind would have been the worst possible thing that could happen. Give Germany a head start and you expect them to bunker in the defensive end and look to counterattack. That's exactly what had happened at Wembley, wasn't it? Here at the Olympic Stadium, it didn't bother us at all. Nobody panicked, nobody started having second thoughts. It felt like it had at the Stadio Delle Alpi with United, the night we were 2–0 down to Juventus but came back to win and reach the European Cup Final. Michael Owen was really pumped up. He had things under control but I'd seen the fire in his eyes before kick-off. Now we were behind, he was shouting at anybody in earshot:

‘Come on. We can win this. We can beat them.'

And we all knew he was right. Five minutes later, Michael got the equalizer—the first goal of his hat-trick—and we never looked back.

We were that sure of ourselves. I think the Germans picked up on it and their nerve started to go. Oliver Kahn, their world-class goalkeeper, had one of his worst-ever nights. It turned into one of those rare games in which everything you could possibly want to happen does. Steven Gerrard's goal, right at the end of the first half, was a great strike. It flew in from twenty-odd yards: his first goal for England. Even better, it went in at the perfect time for us. If a game's tight, taking the lead just before half-time gives the team that scores a real edge psychologically. He'd missed qualifying games through injury but Stevie made up for it that night in Munich. We're so much better balanced with him in the side. He's still young but he's like a Roy Keane or a Patrick Vieira: he tackles and will run all day; he can pass and he'll score goals. He's got the complete midfield game: it's no coincidence that England rarely lose with Steven Gerrard in the eleven.

I don't know about the other lads but I was more nervous at half-time than I had been before the game. I remember going into the dressing room, 2–1 up, and not being sure how we should approach the second 45 minutes. After a first half, Sven always lets everybody come in and settle for five minutes: sit down, unlace your boots, get a drink, whatever it is you need to do. There were conversations going on between players straight away, with everyone buzzing:

‘Do we go out and try to defend 2–1? Do we attack and hope to get another goal that'll win it?'

I think we all knew we didn't need to change anything. That's what Sven told us too. There were more goals there for us to score and we could trust our defense to protect our lead. The second half was like playing in a dream. Michael got his second goal just a few minutes after the kick-off. And then his third. And then Scholesy rolled one through for Emile Heskey to score too. I remember when Emile's shot went in, I turned round to look at the bench to see how people were reacting: it was the same as what was going on in the stands and, I'd guess, in front of the television back at home. The subs and the coaching staff were
just falling about, hugging each other. You could read people's lips:

‘Five-one. Against Germany. In Germany. This is unbelievable.'

There were still twenty minutes left. Twenty minutes in soccer heaven. It was strange: I was involved in the build-up to the fifth goal and I had my work to do during the game; but I wasn't as much in the thick of the decisive incidents as I sometimes am playing for England. I was playing but it felt like I had the luxury of watching at the same time. I was part of it but I was admiring what these lads alongside me were doing as well. All we needed was to keep the ball. Which was what we did, getting the Germans more and more frustrated. We're not a team to showboat: our players aren't the kind to rub anybody's nose in it with little flicks and tricks. But we kept passing to each other and, as long as we were doing that, they couldn't get a touch. And it wasn't just playing out time, either. We felt like we wanted to beat Germany 10–1, never mind five.

Right after he blew the final whistle, the referee, Pierluigi Collina, came up and asked for my shirt. He must have known he'd just been part of some history being made. I think he's the best referee around, so I was happy enough. There weren't many Germans in the mood for swapping shirts, after all. I think Collina was quite pleased when I asked for his in return. All I wanted to do then was get across to the England supporters. Thousands of them had come out to Munich and the second half had sounded like we were playing at home. The noise was fantastic. I've always said that England fans are the best in the world. Put the tiny percentage of idiots to one side: our fans travel everywhere with us and give us amazing support. I'm sure every England supporter inside the Olympic Stadium could have told you stories about horrible trips to the middle of nowhere in the past and the disappointment of poor England performances. Every one of them knew how it felt to lose to rivals like Germany and Argentina. Those supporters deserved 5–1 at the Olympic Stadium as much as we did. I'm sure, as it was for the players, that night was one of the best of their lives.

Back inside I discovered I could hardly speak. My throat felt like I'd been forced to smoke twenty cigars, one after the other, over the past couple of hours. I knew I'd talked and shouted a lot during the game. Had I joined in with some of the England singing in the second half too? There was a wonderful atmosphere in that dressing room: we were so proud and so happy but we'd done all our jumping around out on the field. Now there was calm. Some players were getting massages, others were steaming in the showers and the rest, like me, were sitting in their places, slowly taking off uniform, sucking on water bottles and just drinking the moment in.

Without Sven saying anything, I think every England player was already starting to think about the next game in four days' time against Albania. Anybody who wasn't was hearing all about it from the likes of Gary Neville. What had just happened was unbelievable but it wouldn't mean anything if we didn't win next Wednesday at St James' Park. You live a life in soccer, as a supporter or a player, for nights like Germany 1 England 5. From game to game, though, putting the history and the glory to one side, the opposition doesn't matter. Victory always means the same thing. As Mr Eriksson says: it's another three points.

I sat in my place, leaning back against the wall. I thought back to Wembley on a wet Saturday afternoon less than a year before. And to Kevin Keegan, in the dressing room after we'd lost 1–0, telling us he'd taken England as far as he thought he could. I remembered the press and plenty of our supporters writing off the World Cup adventure before it had even begun. In my heart of hearts, I knew I'd have been hard pushed, back then, to disagree with the doom merchants. Losing to Germany was a blow. For me personally—and for England, I thought—losing Kevin had felt like the end of the world. Now, eleven months later, we were on the brink of beating our old rivals to top the group.

Who knows what might have happened if Kevin had decided to carry on? I believe in him as a manager. Just look at what he's achieved at Manchester City over the past couple of years. And I've got limitless
respect for him as a man. Sometimes, though, change happens not because anybody wants it to but because it has to. I loved playing for England under Kevin. A year later, I was captaining my country under Sven-Goran Eriksson. The new manager had brought through a new generation of England players and given us the chance to develop as a team. Sven and Alex Ferguson couldn't be more different in their approach to individual players. The way they went about trying to build successful teams, though, was exactly the same. As far as the England side was concerned, the performance and the scoreline in Munich were all anyone needed to see how successful the Swedish revolution had been.

We all knew it was going to happen, although not many of us had ever believed it would. Soon after the manager signed a new contract in 1999, he said it would be his last and that 2001/02 would be his final season with United. His reasons seemed obvious enough: he wanted to relax a little after twenty-odd years as a manager up in Scotland and then at Old Trafford. He wanted to travel. He wanted to see his family. He probably wanted to be able to spend more time at the racecourse. Even before Rock Of Gibraltar made him famous as an owner, we knew he loved horses with the same passion he loved soccer. On one of my last days out with the lads as a United player, the boss took us all over to Chester races. It was a great afternoon. Even though I felt by then, in late April 2003, that I was being pushed to the fringe of things at Old Trafford, the togetherness for those few hours was as good as it had ever been in my time at the club: it was a real United family outing. The gaffer himself was having such a good time, you couldn't help getting into the spirit of it yourself.

When he'd first told everybody about his plans for retirement, it had seemed something that was a long way in the future. But during 2001 it started being written about and talked about more and more. There were stories about the boss becoming an ambassador for the club, especially out in the Far East. There were reports about disagreements with the board, and the boss saying he was going to cut off all ties with the club. The players didn't know any more about the speculation than
what was in the papers. It wasn't until what was meant to be his last season had kicked off that it began to sink in, after he sat us down and told us he would be leaving the club the following May. Once we started work, it wasn't something the players thought about every day or talked about in the dressing room. We didn't have to. I don't think any of us could really imagine life at United without Alex Ferguson in charge. Players would have arguments with him: I definitely wasn't the only one. And, in whatever walk of life, when you're in the middle of a dispute with your boss, you wish he wasn't your boss. Most of the time, though, if you ask any United player they'll tell you that working for the manager means you're working for the best in the world.

The day I arrived at Manchester United, as a teenager away from home for the first time, the boss knew my name. He knew my mum and dad, and my sisters. He knew everything about me. And he made me feel welcome. It was as if I was leaving one family and joining another. That's a great strength in any manager: to make players feel like he knows and understands and cares about them. Look how the manager hung on for Ruud van Nistelrooy, stayed in touch with him all through his comeback from rupturing his cruciate ligaments. He kept reassuring him that he would come to Old Trafford eventually. Players recognize that kind of loyalty. No wonder Ruud paid him back with all those goals to help United win the Premiership in 2003.

The boss has always known how to make the new boy feel at home from day one. Even more important is that, once that relationship has been established, you never feel he'd turn his back on it. Like a father, the United manager was there to protect you, advise you and give you a piece of his mind for as long as you were part of the family; as long as you were part of the club. Young hopefuls and established stars: the boss makes them all feel special, and he makes sure they realize how special the club is. There have been players, like Dwight Yorke or Jaap Stam, who've done great things for United, but who suddenly found themselves on the outside without a way back. Something they said or
did had convinced the manager they weren't right for the club. In the end, maybe I turned out to be one of those players too even though, at the start of the 2001/02 season, I'd never have imagined that happening.

By reputation, the Manchester United manager is short-tempered and miserable. Well, the boss is both from time to time. But then, isn't everybody? What people outside the dressing room never see is how inspiring he can be when he's working with players. They don't see him, either, when he's having a laugh and a joke with the lads. When he thinks it's right, he does relax when he's around the team. If the dressing room's buzzing after a great win, he'll be wearing the biggest grin of the lot. I'd say the boss is right in keeping a professional distance from his players most of the time. He's careful not to be closer to one lad than to another, even if his relationships with one or two, like Eric Cantona or Roy Keane, were always different from the rest.

The boss understands soccer like very few other people. That means whatever situation the team's in, either during a season or during a game, the players have the feeling he knows exactly what to do. He's aware that he's got the power to change things and he's never afraid of doing that, even when the best thing to do is nothing, whatever anybody else might be saying. I think everyone's heard enough about ‘The Hairdryer'. It's been talked about so often, you might imagine that's what life is like in the United dressing room all the time. It isn't. What people outside Old Trafford should understand is what everyone inside the club already knows: whatever the manager does is what he thinks is right for the team at a particular time.

I remember an amazing game, the week before England played Greece in 2001, down at White Hart Lane. I was so hyped up for the afternoon. I was captain of the United first team for the very first time. The way the manager let me know was typical: he just dropped the players' match tickets into my lap before dinner at the team hotel the night before. Handing those tickets round was the captain's job. I didn't
even have time to turn around and start getting emotional: the boss was already away down at the other end of the room. I was so proud, especially as I knew Grandad, who still followed Spurs, would be there with Mum and Dad.

Being captain would have been enough on its own to make the afternoon stick in my memory. And I still remember it for that. I bet nobody else does. Too much else happened besides. At half-time, we'd had it: Tottenham were winning 3–0, hammering us. You'd expect a manager, when his team's played that badly, to try and shake up his players. That afternoon, the boss came into the dressing room and was completely calm about the situation. There were no recriminations. There were no angry words. I sat on the floor, thinking the game was as good as over. I looked around and I could see the other lads, heads down, feeling the same way. The boss just walked in and perched himself on a bench. He didn't say much beyond:

‘Let's keep the score down now.'

But he knew his players well enough, and trusted us enough, to let us react for ourselves, in the way he expected we would. I'm sure I wasn't the only player who suddenly found himself thinking:
I'm not going to lose to Spurs like this
.

We went out for the second half, Andy Cole scored early on and we turned it around. We beat them 5–3. It was one of the most amazing 45 minutes of soccer in which I've ever been involved. And it had been really important that the boss had been so cool and reassuring at half-time, just when you'd have expected him, or any other manager, to be blowing his top. He's a very demanding man but, in all my time as a United player, the manager was the one person who always seemed to have even more faith in us than we had in ourselves.

As I've said, the boss made players feel special: when he told you he was pleased with something you did, in a match or in training, that counted for something. I'm not sure what the manager thought about me getting the England captain's job. He didn't say anything to me
about it at the time, although I remember reading quotes from him in the papers. He said he didn't really see me as a captain and wasn't sure that it was a very good idea. But during the qualifying campaign for the World Cup, after we'd beaten Germany, he actually made a point of saying to me:

‘You've surprised me. This has made you a better player. Maybe a better person. I'd never thought you could be a captain.'

To hear that from the manager meant a lot to me, like when I was a boy and Dad had told me he was pleased about something I'd done. It was always the manager's way of handling players, keeping them focused: to lift them up when that was what they needed and then knock them down if he thought they were getting above themselves. When I first got into United's first team as a regular, my squad number was 24. The following season I was given the number 10 shirt. That meant a great deal to me: Denis Law and Mark Hughes had both worn it before me. Maybe the history that went with the number was why I scored so many goals wearing it. I remember, though, the summer we signed Teddy Sheringham, the boss actually took the trouble to phone me when I was away on vacation in Malta to tell me he was taking that squad number off me. No explanation, no alternative and no argument. I remember saying to Gary Neville at the time:

‘What's he done that for? Why would he phone to tell me that? Did he just want to make sure he ruined my vacation?'

I was devastated, trying to workout what I'd done wrong. Then, a month later when we turned up for pre-season training, he had a new shirt ready: the number 7. The boss handed me Eric Cantona's squad number. The surprise of that honor stopped me in my tracks.

As well as preparing teams for games, the manager was always very careful to prepare each individual too. In the dressing room, whether it was before a Champions League match or before a pre-season friendly, he made sure I knew what he expected from me. And he gave me the information or advice I needed to make sure I was up to that.

He takes whatever time he needs with each of his players. And that tells you he values what every single player can bring to the team. By the autumn of 2001, I'd already known the manager for a very long time: his experience, though, meant I was still learning from him almost every day. Look at his record, at United and, before then, at Aberdeen. The idea of him not being there was going to take some getting used to. Like everybody else inside and outside Old Trafford, I couldn't help wondering who could replace him.

There are great managers around and lots of them—like Martin O'Neill of Celtic and Giovanni Trapattoni of Italy and even Sven-Goran Eriksson—were talked about for the United job. At Old Trafford, though, the job would take more than the right CV. Any new manager would have to be like the boss is: a man with a mission. It's why so many people admire him so much. It's also why he gets under the skin of so many others. Whatever the manager says or does, it's never: I want this for Alex Ferguson. It's always: I want this for the club. He is Manchester United, through and through. Anyone who cares about United, anyone who really understands soccer, recognizes that. Even after we'd won the Treble, although he recognized what an achievement it was for us as a group of players, he was immediately thinking about the future. About the need to go on and match what we'd just done and then better it next time round.

The desire to bring success to Old Trafford was what had driven every single one of us on; for the best part of fifteen years, in the case of me and the Nevilles, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt. The boss, though, was always more intense than anyone: never sitting still, always concentrating on the next challenge. I'd say his drive was more important to our success than anything else. He didn't spend too much time saying it in public, but the players knew the boss valued what we'd achieved. In my case, I was sure he recognized—back then, anyway—that, whatever else was going on in the rest of my life, I would never let United down through lack of effort. Above everything, I was
a Manchester United player. Since I'd arrived at Old Trafford, of course, that had meant working for the boss.

Early on in 2001/02, our form was up and down. Lots of pundits jumped to the conclusion that uncertainty about the manager was the explanation. There were all sorts of rumors that we got to hear about, like that the boss regretted having had to tell us he was leaving because it meant we weren't frightened of him any more. I can honestly say that wasn't true. None of us wanted him to go but, once we were into the week-in, week-out business of training and playing games, the idea of May coming and the boss packing it in didn't really affect us. We definitely couldn't use it as an excuse for losing games. My only concern was about who'd be replacing him. I was sorting out a new contract at United and I was worried that my relationship with a new manager might not be as good as the one I'd always had with the boss. For all that I'd been a United supporter, Alex Ferguson was one of the main reasons I'd left London and signed for the club when I was a boy. Even so, any doubts about the future didn't get in the way of playing for United in the here and now.

If the team was unsettled, it probably had more to do with having lost Steve McClaren over the summer. I've already said how highly I rate Steve as a coach. In June 2001 he left United to become manager at Middlesbrough. With the boss expected to leave, I don't think it was a case of Steve wanting any kind of guarantee that he'd replace him. He just wanted to know he'd be considered. I think there were meetings behind the scenes and it became pretty clear that United didn't see him as the future number one. So, when Steve was offered the 'Boro job, nobody was surprised he took it. And all of us, including the manager, wished him well. During that season, the boss stepped in to take training from day to day: he's a decent coach as well as everything else. Never mind winding down for retirement, the boss was more involved than ever in 2001/02. Steve was a big loss, though: sessions with him were really enjoyable and, technically, right up to the minute.

He knows how to communicate information to players better than anybody I've ever worked with. In his couple of years with us, he'd made his mark at Old Trafford just like he had in the England set-up.

Of course, I still had the chance to work with Steve on international duty, as he stayed on with England, while he was managing 'Boro, until after the 2002 World Cup. We'd been together again for the game against Germany in Munich. And, four days after that, we were up at St James' Park for Albania. Steve talked about lifting ourselves for it. So did Sven. The Wednesday night after the Saturday afternoon was the time to make the 5–1 result count: another three points for the taking. But being ready for it didn't make any difference. Albania at home turned out to be a much harder game. The players were tired. There was expectation in the air again, especially after what had happened in Munich. People thought that, if we could beat Germany 5–1 away, we could beat anybody. Well, we beat Albania but it was close and it wasn't a performance to remember. They were already out of the World Cup and had nothing to lose. They got plenty of players back in defense and hoped for a breakaway. They looked like they were enjoying themselves. I can't say we did. The best that could be said was that we stuck at it. We won 2–0 and got our three points.