Man U players call Alex Ferguson the hairdryer because when he gets angry and shouts you can feel the heat coming out of his mouth. I am a big fan of Sir Alex, he is probably one of the top coaches in football history and a committed Labour supporter. But sometimes the old man loses his temper and any perspective on reality.
Cristiano Ronaldo, the new United star, has been flirting with Real Madrid lately. His mother, who lives in Portugal, told AS, the Spanish sport daily, that she would like to see her son playing for Madrid and the player has continuously mentioned that he would like to play in the Spanish league one day. That was enough for Real Madrid’s President Ramon Calderon to announce that the club will try to sign the player this summer. Unofficial figures talk of a 90 million euro transfer, the biggest in history (the highest transfer currently in history was also payed by Madrid for Zidane, 75 million euros).
On those circumstances Sir Alex was asked about the situation with Ronaldo and he just exploded. He accused Real Madrid of lacking morality and of supporting the Francoist regime in Spain. May I just say this, Sir Alex should have some respect for Real Madrid fans, of which the great majority don’t support Franco, my family being a perfect example. It is extremely offensive that because a transfer offer and a bit of healthy club competition banter is being displayed by Real Madrid’s President he should insult the entire Real Madrid fan base. Real Madrid was an extremely succesful club during the dictatorship years and Franco, as any other dictator has ever done, associated his image to that of the club to gain popularity with the Spanish population. It wasn’t the fault of Real Madrid that Franco wanted to associate his image with them. Maybe Sir Alex should have tried to tell Franco in the 1960s that he wasn’t welcome in the Bernabeu, let’s see how long it would have taken for the secret police to make him dissapear. It was a dictatorship Sir Alex, people or institutions for that matter didn’t get to complain much back then.
You know what I really think, if Sir Alex is so upset about this entire story it might be because he knows there is a chance that he’s beloved Ronaldo might give him the boot and move to Real Madrid. But Sir Alex losing like a gentleman is something we all have to learn how to do. Especially if you are competing with Real Madrid, because we tend to win most of the time 😉
[…] I did already made my case against Sir Alex’s comment before here. But I would like to add a couple of more points to that earlier […]
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🙂