Old masters pumped up by same pursuit

Despite the intense rivalry between Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, they are driven by the same work ethic and desire for success

ONE CELEBRATED with his low-slung arms pumping as he danced from his dug-out seat to the touchline all self-consciousness abandoned even though he was still in his day-suit and is 59 years old. It was as if he’d just heard the opening bars of The Hucklebuck six pints into his daughter’s wedding.

The other did that familiar yet rarely-seen nippy little jig in which the fists are punched into the air and then brought back into an elbows-in clapping motion that seems to say that this is absolutely enthralling but don’t bet on it lasting, I’m old-school Prod, we’re off back to work in a minute. He is 67.

Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson are masters. They have reached a position of control in that little universe of football that whether we like or not – and generally we like it – we are all vacuum-packed into. The authority Wenger and Ferguson possess inside this world is total or, at least on nights like Wednesday against Villarreal and Porto, so it seems.

The two men will say otherwise, they will confirm that such glowing public Wednesdays are the culmination of so many other unseen prosaic Mondays, Tuesdays and the rest.

Each would be able to reel off a series of names of young boys and men in whom they had placed the utmost faith only to see them fail to deliver. They will be able to recall, very quickly, older players and assistants deemed to have let them down along the way. Each would be swift to name perseverance as one of the core qualities of a football manager.

But if we accept, as we should, that a huge factor in both men’s success as managers – and we moved into all-time top-20 territory in British football a while ago – is hard work, then we have to ask, at their age, what keeps Ferguson and Wenger doing what they do at the intense rate at which they do it? A guess is that part of the answer lies in the question: the intensity of both the pleasure and the pain is addictive.

Hard work. Ferguson is legendary for his early starts at Carrington, and before that at the The Cliff, where he would begin his day upstairs in a squat, humdrum office once occupied by Matt Busby while the streets of Salford remained night-time quiet.

Wenger has the same status surrounding his TV at home, where the satellite brings in games from Vladivostock to Caracas, which Wenger is said to watch with notebook ready. There may be a mythical cloak to these activities but the guts of them are true.

Both men oversee a scouting network that feels unbeaten if not unrivalled in its scope. Beginning with a sometime taxi driver called Baldy, whom he employed on and off at St Mirren in the mid-’70s, Ferguson has had a fascination with the process and benefits of uncovering teenage talent. He once joked he knew “more scouts than Baden Powell” and you can imagine his delight when that former Liverpool player told him nothing would be won with kids.

So when a 17-year-old like Federico Macheda intervenes at a crucial stage in a title run-in, Ferguson’s delight must include a dose of self-justification. A pertinent question to ask is how many other managers in a comparable situation would have done what Ferguson did with Macheda against Aston Villa and Sunderland.

Not many.

But Wenger would be one. Considering Manchester United’s post-war relationship with youth stretching back to Duncan Edwards, Charlton, Best and Kidd, Wenger gets a disproportionate share of credit for investing in young talent.

(There is a reason in that Theo Walcott is at the forefront of several teenaged Englishmen with roots in old Highbury who may yet shape the country’s future). But from Nicolas Anelka through Cesc Fabregas to the coming Jack Wilshere, Wenger has shown faith in youth that only Ferguson can match or outstrip.

They say proximity to youth keeps one young and maybe that is another part of these men’s longevity. Essentially both are 20th century characters, whose parents’ memories will have taken them back before the first World War.

Facebook did not exist when Ferguson was a boy in Glasgow, he knew about Red Clydeside. What does Macheda know of that? What does Wilshere know of Wenger’s Alsace birthplace and its troubled Franco-German history? It might not matter to Macheda or Wilshere, but Ferguson’s and Wenger’s origins matter to them. “No one ever took holidays then,” was a simple but resonant comment from one of Wenger’s compatriots in the little town where he grew up.

Yet they are both millionaires now. Many times over. Wenger is even said to have an asteroid named after him.

Having sensed he was ripped off as a player and as United manager in the early days, money acts a measurement to Ferguson, as it does to so many in football. (And in the world of work generally).

Personal power, money, shaping the lives of others, these are potent explanations of why Ferguson and Wenger were as they were on Wednesday night, why they keep going.

Then there is the success, the adulation that comes with success and the ego that evolves from that. They love the game and it loves them back. They excel.

The climax of this season, when Arsenal and United meet twice in the European Cup semi-final, once in the Premier League at Old Trafford and then possibly in the FA Cup final, also brings back into focus a personal rivalry that at times has been unpleasant. It might just be that another factor motivating both is the knowledge that the other is still over there in the same ballpark, arms pumping.

Charlton sorely miss Curbishley

SO VAN Gaal won't be pitching up at Charlton Athletic – unless they declare independence within the next 24 hours.

By then they are most likely to be an English third division club just two years after being a Premier League club and five years after finishing seventh in the Premier League. Alan Curbishley is not everyone's preferred idea of a manager but he left a hole at Charlton when he departed in 2006 after 15 years in charge. Curbishley was the master of Charlton's universe. Charlton kept on digging to find someone able to replace him and have gone so far down they will be having derbies with Brentford next season.

Van Gaal works his old magic

ANOTHER MASTER of the universe, though one whose star has faded over recent years, is Louis van Gaal (right). After Barcelona and Holland, the brilliant Dutchman has rediscovered something of himself at supposedly lowly AZ Alkmaar.

Tonight Alkmaar should clinch the Dutch title for the first time since 1981 (the only other time Alkmaar have won it) and the 57-year-old Van Gaal can celebrate a return that will yield at least a dozen connections to other jobs.

He himself has said that a national posting would take his fancy.

We shall see.