There were measured words behind the extravagant deeds that killed off Arsenal in the FA Cup. In the two days between the drawn semi-final at Villa Park last Sunday and the unforgettable replay on Wednesday night, Alex Ferguson punctuated Manchester United's training sessions with some of the most concentrated talking he has done this season. In keeping with his belief that motivation is best aimed with a sniper's precision at individuals, rather than delivered in random shotgun blasts, he backed up his general address to the first-team squad by having one-to-one conversations with two players. They happened to be Ryan Giggs and David Beckham, the men who scored the goals that sent United through to another Wembley final.
Ferguson would be brusquely dismissive of any attempt to use that fact to enlarge his share of the credit for the stirring performance in midweek. At such times, his pride in his players is almost that of a fan. He marvels at how wonderful they can be. The boyish joy that shone from his 57-year-old face as he jinked across the pitch to the dressing rooms at the end of Wednesday evening's drama did not suggest somebody calculating personal kudos.
When we spoke afterwards about the miraculously sustained run that left four of Arsenal's international players in abject pursuit and set Giggs up for the thunderous finish which settled the tie, Ferguson said without reservation that the historic moment was created by abilities the Welshman had brought to Old Trafford as a schoolboy, not anything he had learned there. "The part of Ryan Giggs that made that goal is something I could never have put into him," he said. "It is uncoachable. What we saw was the ultimate expression of the incredible natural gifts he has always had since the day he came to us as a 13-year-old."
All that is obviously true but it leaves out much of the background to Giggs's glorious destruction of the Cup-holders. For a while the winger's commendable efforts to improve his all-round game - to work on his passing, on variation of movement and on integrating himself into team-play - have seemed to blur his focus on his greatest value, which is the terror he can induce in defenders by running directly at them. When he fails to grant proper respect to the fierce pace, beautiful balance and intricate, two-footed control at speed that lift him beyond the standards of any wide attacker in the country other than David Ginola, Giggs risks obscuring his innate brilliance, clouding it with hints of ordinariness. There was evidence of that last Sunday, when he tried too frequently to gain penetration by chipping the ball forward instead of bringing it down and seeking to hit that surging stride which can unnerve the stoutest opposition. If the skills that produced a wonder goal cannot be coached, the urge to apply them can certainly be encouraged, and that is where man-management came in.
Ferguson has a high regard for Giggs, not only as a footballer but as someone who has always been strong-minded and shows an impressively mature sense of himself at 25. So the care the manager invariably takes in tailoring his approach to suit the specifics of a player's character and circumstances was particularly marked when they met in private at the Cliff training ground on Monday. The intimate exchange was one of several arranged around last weekend. "Sometimes the most vital element of management is just talking to the players and finding out how they are feeling," Ferguson told me. "Often they don't want to admit that they are playing badly or that there is anything bothering them. But I have been so long with these lads that they have a degree of trust in me and they will open up and let me get things out of them. They know that if I call them into my office it is important. I don't waste their time or mine on mundane matters. There is no tittle-tattle. Nor do I believe in bombarding them with the motivational stuff all the time. If you don't ration your interventions, what you say evaporates, has no effect. They must realise that when you talk to them man-to-man there is a purpose to it.
"Just before the first of the two semi-final matches, I had chats with Gary Neville and Paul Scholes. They, like the others who had gone off to join England for the Poland international, had come back a bit flat. They were flying when they left us but there was a difference when they returned. I asked Paul if the publicity surrounding his hat-trick for England had affected him but he said that was not the case.
"He was more concerned about having missed a few chances for us. He loves to score and he is such an honest boy that he felt guilty about not producing the goal-scoring form for me that had made him a hero with England. I emphasised how much he was still giving Manchester United with the positives in his game - his passing and tackling and excellent positional play. I thought, by the way, that he did a marvellous job for us when I put him on as a substitute in the replay. You could see his mental attitude was that we could win the game, even with 10 men. When I discussed with Gary the aftermath of being with England, a recognisable problem emerged. The lads didn't like being cooped up in a hotel room for four or five days. But that's unavoidable when a team have to be prepared for important internationals.
"There's no easy solution. I'm sure Kevin Keegan will be interested in the issue if he takes the national manager's job on a long-term basis. As a highly experienced international player himself, he knows exactly what is involved. Maybe more could be done to keep their minds active. That is something I have been addressing here at the club as the demands of all the life-or-death fixtures crowded into the last phase of the season take their toll. I have been telling our players they must combine resting their bodies with keeping their minds stimulated. In an age when so much is done for them, and their wages afford them so much leisure time, there is a danger that they will just vegetate between the bursts of intense action. They have proved recently that their legs are capable of standing the strain all right. But if they allow mental staleness to creep in, that will communicate itself to the legs and they will feel wearier than they really are."
He was dealing with less general, more individual concerns when he had his meetings with Beckham and Giggs. "That David has coped so well with the pressures piled on him since last summer's World Cup is down to his own courage," said Ferguson. "But he still needs to have someone to talk to, especially someone who can stress the priorities of his football career. Just as magnificent stamina is a huge asset for him on the field, so his determination to practise and improve his technique has always underpinned the quality of his play. He wants to be the best at what he does and we all love to see that in a player. But it is possible for people who are driven to excel to mistake over-elaboration for an increase in their contribution. David, in his eagerness to have a crucial impact on a game, can occasionally over-elaborate. He has abilities that set him apart from every other player in Britain. Nobody else strikes the ball as well. The range and accuracy of his delivery, whether he is shooting, passing or putting over crosses, provide us with a weapon that is liable to win any match. In essence, my message to him was that he is at his deadliest when concentrating on the simple application of these tremendous skills.
"With Ryan, in contrast, my advice was that he should always be trying to do the difficult things. If he does not make frequent attempts to do something apparently undoable, he is not being true to himself. There will be plenty of times when the effort fails but when it succeeds the best opposition the game can offer will be helpless. He took the breath away from Bobby Charlton and me when we first saw him a dozen years ago and he is capable of doing it every time he is at full surge. Of course, I am glad he has worked on acquiring a more rounded game but he must never forget how exceptional he is.
"Talking to him on Monday, I told him he was the forward that defenders in the Premiership least wanted to face because of what happened when he ran at them. I urged him to do that whenever he had a glimpse of an opportunity. How could anybody foresee what he did in the second half of extra-time? When he set off on that gallop, we were hanging on for dear life and hoping it would come down to penalties. It would be madness to say I ever dreamt he could give us that ecstatic climax. All I did before the match was try to plant in Ryan's head the belief that he is entitled to be far more ambitious than 999 footballers out of a thousand. With his talent, he has an absolute right to attempt feats of extravagant brilliance on the field."
As Giggs hobbled out of Villa Park on crutches, it appeared that United's triumph had been achieved at severe cost. But, rather than a dreaded Achilles tendon injury, he had sustained fairly minor damage to a bone at the back of his ankle. He has decent propects of playing against Juventus in Turin on Wednesday night. Another miracle there would not come amiss. At least he and we are entitled to entertain the possibility.
