Roberto Mancini is Manchester City's very own Sir Alex Ferguson

[sabaii sabaii]

Roberto Mancini is Manchester City's very own Sir Alex Ferguson
The City manager has so much in common with his United counterpart whom he faces in the FA Cup on Sunday






Manchester City's Roberto Mancini has made ruthlessness an art form and the similarities with his United counterpart are striking.

The strange thing is that when it comes to the business of identifying and appointing someone with the hard-nosed judgment and firm beliefs to become the next England manager the name of Roberto Mancini rarely, if ever, crops up. Perhaps it is the perception that he is out of reach. Or maybe it is because of the campaign for Harry Redknapp and the perceived preference for an Englishman.

Either way, it is surprising that a man with three scudetti on his CV does not feature more prominently, particularly when there is a good chance he may just have won Manchester City their first league title since 1968 by the time the vacancy becomes open.

Mancini is intrigued about the idea of following Fabio Capello, even if a couple of appointments down the line is more realistic, and even though it has taken a little time there is definitely the sense now that English football is beginning to cherish his presence and recognise a genuine leader of men.

Part of the revulsion that was felt when Mancini brandished an imaginary card during the 3-0 defeat of Liverpool on Tuesday was that the watching public were not fully prepared for these kind of histrionics from a man whose own website introduces him as campione di classe. Mancini, in truth, has done this before; it was just this was the first occasion the television cameras had picked it up. Every time, there is the same sense of feeling let down – like getting to the bottom of a nice, cold beer and finding an old fag butt.

The truth, however, is that this edge has always been there with Mancini and this is a man so driven, so repulsed by failure and desperate for the fix of winning, there will probably always be moments when the lines between what is acceptable and not become blurred. "Obsessed" is the word Vincent Kompany chose recently but behind the scenes at City, where Mancini can often be seen as standoffish to the point of being unapproachable, they use other descriptions, too. "The hardest bastard you'll ever meet," is one phrase that sticks in mind.

It is said with respect rather than any form of malice or begrudging because, in football, being cold, detached and ruthless is not necessarily a bad thing for a manager. Sir Alex Ferguson, for one, appears to have a rare level of respect for the man 23 years his junior. Mancini, he says, is a manager of "absolute authority". His handling of the Carlos Tevez affair "distinguished him in managerial terms". Ferguson has struggled sometimes to praise managers who represent a genuine threat but has found it easy with Mancini and it was the same again at his press conference ahead of Sunday's FA Cup tie and the latest instalment of Manchester's own classico.

On the face of it, the two men can seem poles apart. Mancini is all Don Johnson and George Clooney. Expensive watch, tailored suit, handkerchief showing in the top pocket, just at the right angle. The perfect man, you could say, for fronting a club where Harvey Nichols sends a mobile shop to the training ground and the menus are put together by Marco Pierre White and John Benson-Smith.

Ferguson is not interested in that kind of stuff. He is not on first-name terms with the maître d' at San Carlo Cicchetti, the Italian restaurant where City's manager recently clinked wine glasses with the Manchester press pack Ferguson dislikes so intensely. He wears a sensible coat, nothing too flash, and has his hair cut for a tenner. Mancini is into tennis, cycling and sunbathing. Ferguson's interests start with jazz, wine and horseracing. Take football away and they are two men of vastly different lifestyles, backgrounds and interests.

Except it is football that makes sense of their lives and the similarities are striking: the passion, the control-freakery, the refusal to suffer fools and, if necessary, the old-fashioned willingness to roll up their sleeves and ask whoever it may be, whatever shape or size, to step outside.

Mancini has fallen out with City's now-deposed chief executive, Garry Cook. He has isolated and moved on multimillion-pound players without as much as a backward glance. He has gone toe to toe with Tevez. The more we see of him, the more we learn of his need for the control and power that have served Ferguson so well down the years.

And, like Ferguson, he does not give an inch. At one point last summer Mancini went into a meeting to talk about the signings City needed to become genuine title challengers. Two months earlier, he had submitted his list. Now he found the club wanted him to look at Junior Hoilett of Blackburn Rovers and Ashley Young of Aston Villa. Mancini knew little of Hoilett and did not rate Young highly enough. His relationship with Cook was never the same again.

Mancini was willing to take on the man directly above him because he knew his own position had been strengthened by winning the FA Cup. Plus he had already established a strong relationship with the chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, and the owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, and established a direct line into the Abu Dhabi royal family. Mancini, as Cook found out, made a formidable opponent.

In Italy, none of that will be a surprise when they remember his political edge at Internazionale and the earlier parts of his career, as a player at Sampdoria, when he wielded a level of power that was uncommon in the extreme. At 27 Mancini sat on the interview panel that selected Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager. When it was time to choose the new kit, Mancini ticked it off. He often delivered the team-talk. He attended board meetings and had a say in transfer business.

Take this story from David Platt's 1995 autobiography, Achieving the Goal, about the day he played at Sampdoria for Bari and, lining up in the tunnel, became aware that Mancini was looking his way. "I thought nothing of it until he asked me, very matter-of-factly, if I was staying at Bari. Outright he asked if I wanted to join Sampdoria. Mancini had been at the club years and was almost a son to the president, Paolo Mantovani." Mancini kept in touch when he moved to Juventus and eventually helped bring him to Sampdoria.

At that stage Mancini had established himself as the most powerful voice in the Blucerchiati dressing room but, even as a teenager, he was not someone who liked his authority being questioned. Trevor Francis signed from Manchester City in 1982 and, aggrieved that his place was under threat, Mancini ended up picking a fight with him on the training ground. He was 18 at the time, taking on a man 10 years older.

Nor was this a one-off. A similar thing happened with Liam Brady, this time giving away eight years. Juan Sebastián Verón tells the story of swearing in Mancini's direction during an argument about a badly taken corner. After the match Mancini had stripped off to the waist and was waiting to fight him. "He is not an easy person, you know," Verón says. "He has this complicated personality."

Mancini tends to grin a little sheepishly when he is reminded of this past. He was banned for six matches after one X-rated tackle on Internazionale's Paul Ince when, in the same incident, he had to be dragged away from the referee and ran to the touchline to tell Eriksson he would never play football again. Eriksson remembers a striker who combined beautiful subtlety on the ball with a temper that went from 0-70mph in milliseconds. "As a person everybody loved Mancini. But with referees? Oof. He was awful. He couldn't control himself." Plus Mancini knew every trick. The thespianism, for example, in 1991 when Sampdoria played Legia Warsaw, Mancini tried to get the ball off the opposition goalkeeper, Maciej Szczesny, and then threw himself to the floor, clutching his face.

A lot of this is difficult to reconcile with the man we see now. Mancini's players are under instructions not to dive. He does not harangue referees. He has learned, after upsetting Arsène Wenger over the Samir Nasri transfer, that managers in England do not like their players being discussed as potential targets. He is polite, respectful and has taken great care never to say anything even mildly derogatory of United. Mancini even began his last press conference of 2011 by wishing Ferguson a happy 70th birthday.

But his is a tough regime. At City they talk of someone who treats out-of-favour players with callous indifference. Mancini is not the kind of manager a footballer would approach if he was having marital problems (his advice would be: get a marriage counsellor) and, whereas Ferguson rarely criticises players in public, the Italian can be unflinching about hurting people's feelings.

He is hard to please, just as his father, Aldo, was when the young striker was setting out on his own career. When Micah Richards limped out of the 3-0 defeat of Stoke City last month, Mancini was asked about the defender's injury and tapped his glass. "Cristalli," he said. "He's fragile, every game." There was mild impatience in his voice, a reminder that absentees get no sympathy. "He hates injured players," the ostracised Wayne Bridge said recently. "He will be like: 'No, they should be out training, it's not as bad.'"

Then there was the time Sergio Agüero scored a hat-trick against Wigan and his team-mates took turns to sign the match-ball. Standard stuff: "Magnifique!" from Nasri, "Don't need to speak English to score goals," from Gaël Clichy, and a wide range of congratulatory messages. Mancini's contribution was left at "not bad".

The softer-focus Mancini can be a man of great charm and wit. At other times the people who know him best find him so infuriatingly stubborn they could drop a flowerpot on his head. But the regime is successful and, whatever Ferguson says about Tottenham Hotspur playing the most attractive football in the league, the popular vote would be City, 5-1 winners at White Hart Lane in August.

Ferguson, a man with previous when it comes to doubting the word of Italians, is now questioning whether City might be pulling a stunt pretending Yaya Touré will miss Sunday's match. Except a quick check under the sauce shows that it is genuinely pasta on Mancini's plate. The Touré brothers have already said their goodbyes, leaving for the Africa Cup of Nations, and the impression it leaves is of a manager who might, deep down, be a little rattled about what is happening under Mancini's watch.

The most revealing moment occurred at Ferguson's 25th anniversary celebration dinner in November, 11 days after what is known now in Manchester as simply "the 6-1". An interviewer asked Ferguson if he knew how many City managers there had been during his quarter of a century in the job. He shook his head. "Fourteen," came the answer. Ferguson didn't hesitate. "Well, I wish it was 15."

Mancini is the latest manager trying to get under Sir Alex Ferguson's skin

Kenny Dalglish Liverpool

Ferguson faced his fellow Glaswegian upon becoming United manager in 1986 and vowed to knock him and his club off their perch. The process only truly began, however, after Dalglish had left Anfield in 1991

Kevin Keegan Newcastle

With his team 12 points clear, Keegan appeared to have beaten Ferguson to the title in 1995-96. But a collapse in form saw Newcastle finish second to United and their manager reduced to ranting at his adversary on television

Arsène Wenger Arsenal

The Frenchman rocked the Scot by snatching the 1998 championship from his grasp. That was the precursor to a clash of personalities that has only recently ceased

José Mourinho Chelsea

Having danced down the Old Trafford touchline as Porto manager in 2004, Mourinho beat Ferguson to two consecutive titles with Chelsea. The pair generally got on, however

Rafael Benítez Liverpool

A slow-burning feud that reached boiling point with the Spaniard's 2009 'facts' attack. As ever, Ferguson eventually came out on top

Roberto Mancini is Manchester City's very own Sir Alex Ferguson | Daniel Taylor | Football | The Guardian

[nigelandjan]

IMHO Ferguson at 70 years of age should not even be in the equation , he is 5 years past his retirement date and should GTFOOI ! for a younger man .

Having said that the way his season is going I think its only a matter of time.

Manchini has worked wonders in his time at Maine road , I can remember delivering to to a dealer in Trafford Park 20 years ago and the poor guy in the compound had Man City pictures all over the place ,, good job he had broad shoulders to absorb all the flack delivered .

[harrybarracuda]

IMHO Ferguson at 70 years of age should not even be in the equation , he is 5 years past his retirement date and should GTFOOI ! for a younger man .

What complete tosh. He's five years past his retirement date and yet won four league championships, a Champions League and a League Cup in that time?

Have you been taking mind-altering drugs?

[Sailing into trouble]

IMHO Ferguson at 70 years of age should not even be in the equation , he is 5 years past his retirement date and should GTFOOI ! for a younger man .

What complete tosh. He's five years past his retirement date and yet won four league championships, a Champions League and a League Cup in that time?

Have you been taking mind-altering drugs?

Apparently for some time "...I can remember delivering to to a dealer in Trafford Park 20 years ago ."

Proof positive Moriarty!!!!

[Marmite the Dog]

The City manager has so much in common with his United counterpart whom he faces in the FA Cup on Sunday

He's a kunt as well?

[alwarner]

Fergie is alright in my book. I loved the way he got Keegan to melt down. Priceless. The Benitez wobble was better in a way because it was so unexpected. ha ha "facts"

[nigelandjan]

What complete tosh. He's five years past his retirement date and yet won four league championships, a Champions League and a League Cup in that time?

Not talking about what he's achieved since 65 Harold , I'm on about the principal of working past the age of retirement , incase you hadn't noticed there are Millions unemployed here who are being kept out of work ( in part ) by those who will not retire at 65 when they are drawing their pensions , mostly it has to be said because they have such sad lives with nothing else in them . I would imagine in Fergusons case the state pension wouldn't keep him in his favourite malt whisky.

[nigelandjan]

Apparently for some time "...I can remember delivering to to a dealer in Trafford Park 20 years ago ."

Nice one Sailing ,,,,,suppose I sailed right into that one

[Sailing into trouble]

Nice one Sailing ,,,,,suppose I sailed right into that one

Your very welcome :-)

[sabaii sabaii]

Not talking about what he's achieved since 65 Harold , I'm on about the principal of working past the age of retirement , incase you hadn't noticed there are Millions unemployed here

I don't think you will see that Vacancy in Job centre Plus buddy

[Loy Toy]

I actually don't rate either of them.

Give some of the lesser known managers and coaches an open cheque book as these two have and I am sure they would be just as successful.

[harrybarracuda]

I actually don't rate either of them.

Give some of the lesser known managers and coaches an open cheque book as these two have and I am sure they would be just as successful.

Man City have won a domestic cup. I would hardly call that "successful" given the GBP900 million the Sheikh has spent so far.

[FarangRed]

[Loy Toy]

Man City have won a domestic cup. I would hardly call that "successful" given the GBP900 million the Sheikh has spent so far.

Couldn't agree more although I was responding to the OP's claim and in the spirit in which he posted it.

Do you really feel that Ferguson would of been as successful if he was given a Birmingham or a Bolton budget to play with?

[FarangRed]

I actually don't rate either of them.

Give some of the lesser known managers and coaches an open cheque book as these two have and I am sure they would be just as successful.

Man City have won a domestic cup. I would hardly call that "successful" given the GBP900 million the Sheikh has spent so far.

Give me that amount of money and I'll win the world cup for ya, and I'll have SAF as my No2

[FarangRed]

Man City have won a domestic cup. I would hardly call that "successful" given the GBP900 million the Sheikh has spent so far.

Couldn't agree more although I was responding to the OP's claim and in the spirit in which he posted it.

Do you really feel that Ferguson would of been as successful if he was given a Birmingham or a Bolton budget to play with?

You must admit MU were not top team when he took over

[Loy Toy]

You must admit MU were not top team when he took over

No but he had an amazing bunch of youngsters who had been nurtured by the previous Man U management youth scheme.

Yes he is a shrewd old goat but the point I am trying to get across is that you can only work with the tools that are supplied to you.

Ferguson asks and mostly he receives and that's why he has been so successful.

I wonder what a bloke like Harry Rednapp might have achieved if he had access to such seemingly unlimited resources.

[nigelandjan]

wonder what a bloke like Harry Rednapp might have achieved if he had access to such seemingly unlimited resources.

Potential England manager of the future for sure, come to think of it would be nice to actually have an English man in the job

[nigelandjan]

I don't think you will see that Vacancy in Job centre Plus buddy

True mate , but you don't start there do you ,, you begin in the boot room and all move up the ladder a peg ,, the principal is all I'm on about , we have a very wealthy and to his credit healthy 69 year old working with us , we also have unemployed young men with young families calling everyday to see if there is any vacancies

[harrybarracuda]

Man City have won a domestic cup. I would hardly call that "successful" given the GBP900 million the Sheikh has spent so far.

Couldn't agree more although I was responding to the OP's claim and in the spirit in which he posted it.

Do you really feel that Ferguson would of been as successful if he was given a Birmingham or a Bolton budget to play with?

Well of course I fucking do. He took St. Mirren from the bowels of Scottish Div 2. to the 1st division title. He won numerous Scottish titles and a European trophy with tiny little Aberdeen, beating Bayern Munich and Real Madrid on the way, and was only denied a second by that treacherous c*nt Bernard Tapie bribing the officials.

Why do you think he was offered the Arsenal, Tottenham and Rangers jobs before finally moving to Old Trafford?

I hate the fucking bloke, but to say he's only done it because of money is a complete joke.

Remember the likes of Scholes, the Nevilles and Butt came through the youth ranks, and despite their singular lack of individual skills combined superbly with another young player, one David Beckham, who had been at Tottenham's academy and wasn't considered good enough for a contract.

Which famous scouse prick said "You'll never win anything with kids", which Ferguson rammed down his throat.

Yes he's bought some big players since, but he's also bought some Schmeichel's and some Cantona's for relative peanuts and got more out of them than other managers would have.

I'm an Arsenal fan and I look forward to him retiring and watching the Moaners crumble. Without a doubt, he's kept them from going bankrupt by actually winning things while the club has been mortgaged from under him.

Dislike him or not, but his record speaks for itself, and his particular talent is motivating players and making them work for each other, and not suffering big egos gladly.

[Loy Toy]

I hate the fucking bloke, but to say he's only done it because of money is a complete joke.

So your saying that Ferguson would be just as successful if he had a West Ham or Everton budget to work with are you?

Those two teams have been raped of players by the likes of Ferguson for years because of the fact they don't have his purchasing power.

And I am not saying he has not been a good manager moreover trying to impress you with the fact he has the clout not only in the transfer market but also it seems with the referees over the years.

I still consider him to be overrated compared to some of the other managers who did amazing things with a quarter of the players compared to Ferguson's usual squad.

[harrybarracuda]

So your saying that Ferguson would be just as successful if he had a West Ham or Everton budget to work with are you?

I still consider him to be overrated compared to some of the other managers who did amazing things with a quarter of the players compared to Ferguson's usual squad.

Are you blind or something?

He won a EUROPEAN TROPHY WITH ABERDEEN (and should have won two), as well as breaking the Old firm monopoly with both Aberdeen and St. Mirren (have you seen how small St. Mirren are?).

How do you think their budget is/was compared with West Ham or Everton's (or as you put it earlier, Birmingham or Bolton's)?

And yes, he would have built up a following winning trophies, expanded the stadium with the revenue from both attendance and league position (which is worth 500K per place up to 20 million for the winner) and you'd be talking about a different club right now.

I don't think you quite understand the fact that if he were to quit Man Ure right now and say he wanted another job, there are not many clubs in Europe (to start with) that wouldn't be chomping at the bit.

Your dismissal of his achievements is as petty as it is misguided.

And again - I hate the bloke.

And tell me about these managers that did amazing things with a quarter of the budget, because I can tell you about managers who've done fuck all with twice his net spend.

OK obviously Arsene Wenger is a bit of a fucking genius, but he doesn't have quite the trophy haul Ferguson does for want of buying a few more good players when he probably should have.

[nigelandjan]

Oh well fergies' got one over Manchini today 2-3 to United

[sabaii sabaii]

Do you really feel that Ferguson would of been as successful if he was given a Birmingham or a Bolton budget to play with?

I was just going to answer that, but Arry, unwillingly and in his own way, has answered the question impeccably

Alex Fergusson is a motivator of men. His half time team talks are legendary.
He has that much get up and go, that he would have been successful anywhere he went.
Go read any footballer's autobiography who played for him, and you will understand the level of hunger and desire, this Legend in our Lifetime had, sorry has

Long Live The King

[sabaii sabaii]

Let me think of Fergies mistakes

Veron, Pure Quality when he arrived, what a passer of a ball, until he got kicked or closed down.

Paid 28 million, sold to Chelsea for 18 million, he weren't there for long either

About 11 goalkeepers after Schmeichel, until Van Der Sar came, look in trouble in that department again now

Berbatov 30 million, looked class at Tottenham, different style of football though.

His Tactics, especially in Europe, when you think how long they've dominated English Football, and only 2 European Cups. Keep the ball you cnuts, that's not Stoke City

But he has been shrewd in the transfer market, I remember he paid, was it 5 million for 5 players, one was a certain Ole Gunnar ?

Eric Cantona for 1 million was the best bargain ever

Ronaldo, was it 11 mil sold on for 80 mill ?

He aint done too bad in the transfer market, Why am I thinkin Djemba Djemba? and I remember when he came to Man U , he kicked all the piss heads out like Bryan Robson, Paul Mc Grath, Norman Whiteside and instilled discipline, belief and extra fukkin trainin