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Sir Alex Ferguson


Al Jolson

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The idea that Guardiola just took over a brilliant Barcelona team and took up where his predecessor left of is nonsense. He took over a side who were stagnating terribly, got rid of the former best player in the world, gave his "world class" players a boot up the arse (and in the case of Eto'o and Toure, got rid of them eventually), turned Xavi from the perennial quiet, underrated hard worker to a player considered by many to be the greatest midfielder in the world and one of the greatest ever and two of the youngsters he introduced in place of the proven winners went on to become world cup winners within two seasons.

Even if all that were true, which its not, he still inherited his squad.

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You mentioned a sugar daddy behind him, which he did not have at Porto.

Porto winning the strongest European competition in today's era is just as a great achievement as Ferguson winning a third teir European tournament in an era when Aberdeen were much stronger, IMO.

SPL was not just a 2 team league, the likes of DU/Aberdeen/Hibs/Hearts were challenging and many of the Scottish clubs performed decently in Europe.

Aberdeen were 1 game away from the title the season before Ferguson took over and the scum finished fourth that year, Aberdeen won their first title under Ferguson and we finished 5th, was not nearly as a dominance from the two OF teams back as already mentioned.

The likes Mechelen, Tbilisi, Magdeburg won the cup winners cup back and were smaller teams than Aberdeen in the early 80s. It's certainly a fantastic achievement from Ferguson but let's not forget that he took over a team that nearly won the league the season before and it was not like he was managing a club like Dunfermline in today's terms. Football was not dominated by finances back then and the gap was not nearly as massive as it is today.

Great achievement and he deserves lots of praise but some people are miss guided by key facts during that era and how football was completely different compared to today's terms.

Some also have a tendency on this site to overrate many things connected with United and English football, you would think there was only two managers about in Alex and Jose going by some on here. Making the claim it's clear Ferguson is the GOAT is way OTT.

Fair enough (tu)

For the record, I argued against Ferguson as GOAT. I just think he has better claim than Mourinho.

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Has there ever been a better football manager in the world than this man?

Rinus Michels: Named Dutch manager of the century: 1999

If - a big if - Ferguson ever manages to create a team, style and ideal capable of playing as Ajax/Holland were in the early 1970’s he might have a shout.

The DNA of Michels ideals and style are very much alive and kicking in this era, of course. Michels managed Cruyff, who went on to manage a certain pep Gaurdiola.

Guardiola’s Barcelona are as close to the Ajax team of the early 70’s as I’ve seen in this era.

As once famously said of Guardiola:

Guardiola was Barcelona ballboy, Barcelona captain and Barcelona youth team coach before taking over. One collaborator says he "suckled at the teat of Johan Cruyff" – Barcelona's ideological founder, a kind of guru.
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Every time I challenge Ferguson's worth this is the argument I get. And fair enough, it's a valid one and it was a great achievement but at the end of the day he's managing one of the elite clubs of world football and has a pretty shite 11 representing it.

If the team is successful, why does it matter who's lining up for them ?

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Guardiola still had to sort out the mess Barcelona had ended up in under Rijkaard so fair play, but no doubt it was still a very good job to walk into as your first.

Ferguson and Mourinho built themselves up from jobs at smaller clubs to the top.

wasnt really a mess at barca though, yeah they were disjointed but they still had the core team that guardiola based his initial success on

messi, xavi, iniesta, eto, puyol, valdes

quite possibly the best spine to a team in the world, especially at that time

whatever made guardiola pay money and eto for ibrahimovich i'll never know, and probably that decision cost him the champions league that season

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wasnt really a mess at barca though, yeah they were disjointed but they still had the core team that guardiola based his initial success on

messi, xavi, iniesta, eto, puyol, valdes

quite possibly the best spine to a team in the world, especially at that time

whatever made guardiola pay money and eto for ibrahimovich i'll never know, and probably that decision cost him the champions league that season

Very strange deal, he obviously realised the mistake himself with Ibrahimovich punted to Milan a year later and David Villa bought.

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Barcelona were certainly in a bit of a mess when Pep took over. Finished third in the league(18 points behind Real and 10 behind Villarreal) whilst only finishing 3 points clear of both Sevilla and At. Madrid. That Barcelona team only won half of the league games that season.

Seems to be a recurring myth on Rangers Media that Guardiola took over a fantastic Barcelona team. He is main reason why this team is so successful and his important signings such as Alves, Pique, Keita and promotion of Busquets and Pedro have been major to Barcelona.

To claim he had it on a plate shows a real lack of knowledge!

Agreed. He's a fantastic manager. Only real flaw is some of his signings like Chygrinskiy, Hleb, Henrique but every manager makes poor signings.

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Barcelona were certainly in a bit of a mess when Pep took over. Finished third in the league(18 points behind Real and 10 behind Villarreal) whilst only finishing 3 points clear of both Sevilla and At. Madrid. That Barcelona team only won half of the league games that season.

Seems to be a recurring myth on Rangers Media that Guardiola took over a fantastic Barcelona team. He is main reason why this team is so successful and his important signings such as Alves, Pique, Keita and promotion of Busquets and Pedro have been major to Barcelona.

To claim he had it on a plate shows a real lack of knowledge!

he had it more on a plate than sir alex did in 86 though!

barcelona got knocked out the uefa cup by celtic not all that long ago, fair enough it was a different squad but man utd have never been that poor in the past 20 seasons!!

If pep is still in charge of barca 24 years down the line winning everything then hats off to him!! Too early to put him in the same bracket as fergie IMO

What mourinho did with porto and also with that inter milan side is nothing short of sensational - he deserves all the credit he gets and may wel go down as the best of all time!

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I believe the referee's decision to disallow Bojan's goal against Inter cost him that actually ;)

Maybe the goal should have stood but inter didnt deserve to be a man down after half an hour of that game !

The decisions that went barca's favour in the 09 and 11 champs league wins were criminal, fair enough they were the best team but they didnt half get helped by the refs

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Maybe the goal should have stood but inter didnt deserve to be a man down after half an hour of that game !

The decisions that went barca's favour in the 09 and 11 champs league wins were criminal, fair enough they were the best team but they didnt half get helped by the refs

I have neither the energy nor the inclination to tally up the decisions for and against but I am increasingly convinced that people are determined to ignore the decisions that go against Barcelona because it doesn't fit the narrative that "they get help from referees". They get as many bad decisions as any other team as far as I can see. Even in that Chelsea game. People seem to take the enormous number of red cards their opponents pick up as some kind of evidence of this and are utterly disinterested in why those red cards were issued (ie, inferior opponents getting frustrated/desperate/angry).

Take, for instance, the semi-finals against Madrid. The second one in particular. Several Real Madrid players should have been sent off. None were. All because of the pressure on the referee not to "do a barcelona". I mean, Emmanuel Adebayor was actually assaulting players. Stuff he'd have got jail time for if he'd done it outside a night club. Referee let him do it.

Barcelona aren't angels of course and they know how to take advantage of their opponents and their recklessness but for the likes of Mourinho to say he hopes one day Pep might win a CL without help from referees is hilarious. His Porto team were terrible divers. His Inter team went through because of a wrongly disallowed goal. Barcelona seem to incite an enormous increase in the global hypocrisy level.

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he had it more on a plate than sir alex did in 86 though!

barcelona got knocked out the uefa cup by celtic not all that long ago, fair enough it was a different squad but man utd have never been that poor in the past 20 seasons!!

If pep is still in charge of barca 24 years down the line winning everything then hats off to him!! Too early to put him in the same bracket as fergie IMO

What mourinho did with porto and also with that inter milan side is nothing short of sensational - he deserves all the credit he gets and may wel go down as the best of all time!

Certainly agree with this. (tu)

Pep is a fantastic manager, but I think it's far too early to be comparing him with SAF.

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Certainly agree with this. (tu)

Pep is a fantastic manager, but I think it's far too early to be comparing him with SAF.

To stay in a top job like that for so long shows the man is an all time great, fair enough wenger and mourinho got the better over him a couple times but they havent ever had a really bad year like chelsea did last year or liverpool or arsenal have had they are always there or there abouts, there hasnt been a time i remember when they went through a really bad phase, occasionally they lost silly games but overall they have been the team to beat and to continue this for as long as he has is pretty bloody impressive! Shame hes only won the champs league twice though!

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he had it more on a plate than sir alex did in 86 though!

barcelona got knocked out the uefa cup by celtic not all that long ago, fair enough it was a different squad but man utd have never been that poor in the past 20 seasons!!

If pep is still in charge of barca 24 years down the line winning everything then hats off to him!! Too early to put him in the same bracket as fergie IMO

What mourinho did with porto and also with that inter milan side is nothing short of sensational - he deserves all the credit he gets and may wel go down as the best of all time!

I believe it's the people who can do it repeatedly that have the edge ... look at Wenger he built one great team but he apparently can't repeat that.

I also have to say that anyone who can bring European silverwear to pittodrie must be something exceptional <cr>

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Will be interesting to see how Barcelona get on when the stars of their current team do start to get to retirment age, will their academy produce similar quality?

Although Messi's a long way off it!

They already are. Look at thiago

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