Always Managing: My Autobiography (42 page)

That was a huge game for us, to win at their place, and everyone at the club recognised it. It set us up for Champions League football in a way, because being able to get a result in a one-off match stood us in great stead the following season. We knew that, in Gareth Bale, we had a world-class player who was only going to improve. He was finally scoring the same goals in matches that we saw from him in training; he was stronger and had developed a fantastic physique. He had pace, he could dribble, shoot and was great in the air. Finally, the full package. I predicted he would be our Cristiano Ronaldo that next season, and that’s just what he was.

I had always felt there was more to Gareth Bale than left-back, or even left-wing. Don’t get me wrong, if he wanted to be a left-back, he could be the best in the world, another Roberto Carlos. Even if he had stayed in that role his whole career, he would still be an extraordinary player. He can rip a team to pieces from deep or further forward on the left, but there is so much more to his game. Gareth is a player capable of going free through the centre of the
pitch, either as a forward or just floating and arriving anywhere he fancies. I had talked with our coaches for a number of months about using Gareth this way because teams were crowding him out on the left flank, putting so much traffic in his way that it was just getting harder and harder. At least through the middle he would have three options: left, right or dead straight. On the flank he was beginning to run out of pitch.

The match I remember the new plan coming together was against Norwich City on 27 December 2011. He was magnificent that day and scored twice as we won 2–0. Unfortunately, Gareth’s switch then coincided with a few dicky results for us and a few people, looking for easy answers, put two and two together and ran out of fingers. They would chant, ‘Gareth Bale – he plays on the left’ as if this little innovation through the middle was the cause of all our problems. Of course, a year later when he was scoring for fun in that position in André Villas-Boas’s team, it was hailed as a genius move. The bottom line is that Gareth can play anywhere.

I think Carlo Ancelotti, his coach at Real Madrid, will view him the same way as me – a free spirit, not tied to any one position. His biggest test will be to step out of the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo with confidence. That won’t be easy. Ronaldo is a huge star at Madrid and will probably want to take nine out of ten free-kicks – at least. Gareth will have to assert himself and that will require a strong mind. He has to think, ‘I’m an £86 million player’ and act like it, taking responsibility, claiming the ball when he fancies his chances. And yet at the same time he cannot dwell on his fee and what it means too much, because that would put him under immense pressure. It is a tricky balancing act. He will have to be ready for the matches when he goes it alone, has a shot, misses and
Ronaldo starts throwing his arms up in the air. He cannot, at that point, go into his shell and become this timid little creature. But it is not natural for Gareth to behave in an assertive way.

Don’t get me wrong, he knows he is good. The fee is crazy, amazing money, but he wouldn’t have fought so hard to get the deal done if he didn’t fancy his chances of living up to expectations in Madrid. Yet, equally, Gareth is a quiet lad, who spends time with his girlfriend and family, and I’m not sure being in the same bracket as Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will suit him. I saw the photographs of him on his first day in Madrid, surrounded by relatives, and wondered how that young man will fare with a paparazzi camera being pushed into his face wherever he goes. His relationship with Ronaldo is the key to it all, because if the football is going well, then all the added stresses are a minor irritation, and nothing more. If the football is a struggle, the other aggravations appear ten times worse. Not many major British players go abroad and those that do are as likely to fail as succeed. If Ronaldo feels threatened by Gareth’s arrival, Madrid could be a lonely place to be, so he will need to lean a lot on Ancelotti, his coach, who speaks good English, and Paul Clement, Carlo’s assistant, who is English. Luka Modrić is another old friend who could help him settle in.

The one thing the club cannot provide for Gareth and Cristiano is a ball each – so they will need to work hard on that partnership because they are such similar players. They are freaks, really. They can both shoot, both are good headers of the ball, they can both make 50-yard runs and stand over six feet tall. Madrid must guard against Gareth falling into the role of support act. He had a little trouble adjusting to the bigger environment of Tottenham after leaving Southampton, and this is ten times as great as that move.
If I have a worry it is that I remember the days when Gareth’s confidence was draining fast at Spurs, and there were genuine fears he might not make it. He wasn’t the strongest of characters back then and he cannot be allowed to fall into that same negative state of mind. If it doesn’t start like fireworks for him, he will need Carlo and the backroom staff to make sure he does not become isolated, left alone with his thoughts. He won’t like the attention a difficult start brings either. Gareth is a very private person and he won’t enjoy having every move scrutinised.

The positive is that Gareth has grown a lot since his earliest days as White Hart Lane. His performances improved, but so did his attitude. He wasn’t flash, or cocky – never the sort to be up the West End with a bottle of champagne – but he was more assured. He has to take that maturity to Madrid, though, or it will be hard.

Managing in the Champions League was one of the greatest experiences of my professional life. Winning against AC Milan in the San Siro stadium, battering Inter Milan at White Hart Lane – so many great nights, so much drama. Yet our adventure against the elite of Europe was almost over before it had begun. At 3–0 down in the first leg of our qualifying game, understandably, I feared the worst.

The fourth-placed Premier League team has to pre-qualify for the Champions League group stage, and we had sent Clive Allen over to scout our opponents, a Swiss team called Young Boys, from Berne. ‘Bang average,’ he reported back. His write-up made it sound as if we would have no problem at all. Yet the minute we arrived at their ground, I had a bad feeling. It was an artificial pitch. The players kept coming off to change their boots, trying other ones on – didn’t like them, back to change again. Nobody looked comfortable. There was a little group that were planning to go to a sports shop the next morning because, they said, nothing felt right. I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I had
played on AstroTurf in America all those years ago, and I knew the problems. The ball runs differently, bounces differently – it takes a while to get used to it, and we had one light session, the night before the game. I knew there would be issues – we were all over the show, and I can remember going to sleep that night with a real sense of foreboding. Sure enough, within 28 minutes we were three behind.

Everything I was afraid of happened. We couldn’t get into our game at all. Already leading 3–0, Young Boys got a free-kick on the edge of our box and hit the post. I’m not sure we would have come back from that had it gone in, but three minutes before half-time our luck changed. Sébastien Bassong got a goal back for us. Frankly, if we could have shaken hands there and then, I would have taken it. On that pitch, 3–1 didn’t seem the worst score to me, and I fancied our chances on grass at our place. As it was, with seven minutes to go, Roman Pavlyuchenko made it 3–2. We nearly lost another goal before the whistle went, but I was delighted to get away with a narrow defeat. I knew the return leg would be different and, in many ways, those matches set the tone for our campaign in Europe.

The return leg, we annihilated them. We were a goal up after five minutes, two clear before half-time, and ended up winning 4–0. Peter Crouch scored a hat-trick, because they simply couldn’t handle him. It was like that in the group games, too. We drew 2–2 away at Werder Bremen, but beat them 3–0 at home; we drew 3–3 with FC Twente, having beaten them 4–1 at our place. In our two qualifiers and six Champions League group games we scored twenty-five goals, more than three per game. We played fantastic, open football, and took the game to our opponents wherever we
went. Manchester City struggled in the Champions League in their first two seasons, and people said it was a lack of experience, but that was our first season, too, and we played with absolutely no fear. We ran teams ragged most nights, and showed fantastic spirit if the match was going against us. Of course, the two games everyone remembers were against Inter Milan.

Those were the nights that Gareth Bale truly arrived on the world stage. We all knew how good he was, obviously, but I don’t think the major European clubs had yet taken notice. They soon did. I don’t think I have ever seen one player terrify a team so completely as Bale did Inter Milan. They did not know what had hit them. Not that we made it easy for ourselves.

To manage a team in the Champions League at the magnificent San Siro stadium was obviously a highlight for me. José Mourinho may be blasé about it, but my career has not been spent in and around the great clubs of the European game. I still get a buzz from playing at Old Trafford. The feeling as we came out and saw those famous blue and black colours flying everywhere, with our fans corralled in a little pocket on the top tier, was just incredible. Not that I had much chance to enjoy it. Javier Zanetti scored for them after two minutes. Then, six minutes later, our goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes got sent off. I had no option but to replace a forward player with a substitute goalkeeper – so off came Luka Modrić, and on went Carlo Cudicini. This was now about damage limitation. It wasn’t going to be Luka’s night. Three minutes after that, Samuel Eto’o scored. Another three minutes, a third goal from Dejan Stanković. By 35 minutes, we were 4–0 down and playing with ten tired men. It was humiliating – and, frankly, it could have been worse. Carlo had pulled off some decent saves, too.

At half-time I went into a little side room to gather my thoughts before speaking to the players. We were in big trouble, and I didn’t know where we were going in this game. Down to ten men, what could we do? How could we get out of it? Tim Sherwood came in to speak to me. He didn’t have any grand ideas, either. So, backs to the wall, I decided there was only one thing for it – shoot our way out, Western-style. ‘You know, Tim,’ I said, ‘this isn’t the knock-out stage. It’s a group game. We’ve got three other matches after this – win those and we’ll go through. It doesn’t make any difference to us what happens here. Fuck it – we’ll have a go at them. See what they’re made of.’ That was the message I relayed to the players – and that’s what we did. And, do you know, I think if that second-half had gone on for five minutes longer we wouldn’t even have got beat. We came back from 4–0 to 4–3, and Bale scored a hat-trick. They were hanging on the ropes like a punch-drunk boxer by the end. They were gone. I think in Italy when a team goes 4–0 down, it is game over. It took them a while to realise that we didn’t think we were beaten, and by then the impetus was with us. They couldn’t handle Gareth at all. From a point where I genuinely feared we could have lost by eight or nine, we came off feeling almost as if we had won. It was shaping up like a manager’s worst nightmare, yet we left for home celebrating. We knew we could have Inter Milan at our place – and that is exactly what happened.

‘Tactically naïve.’ I have heard that plenty of times in my career. It washes over me now. I know I wouldn’t have lasted as long as this in the game if I didn’t know how to set up and organise a team, and improve players. People make out it is all down to motivation, as if all I’ve got by on throughout my life is the gift
of the gab. If that is what they want to believe, fair enough, but players soon see through a smooth talker. I have principles, I have my own style. I like teams with width, I like my defenders to play out, and I believe in putting the best players in the position where they can do most damage, a favourite position, where they feel at home. Bale is a lightning-quick, left-footed player, so I used him on the left throughout that season. The fashion was for left-footed players on the right at the time, like Ashley Young, so they could cut inside and get to goal – but I saw in Gareth a player that needed to build confidence. He was best playing in his natural position, at first. As I mentioned, once he felt at home, and defenders began doubling up on him, that was when we looked at switching flanks, or using him down the middle. I only mention this again because Inter Milan’s manager at that time was Rafael Benítez, who is widely acclaimed as one of the game’s great tactical thinkers. And if I had done what he did in the second leg at White Hart Lane I’d have been absolutely slaughtered. Naïve wouldn’t have been the half of it.

Despite his thirty-eight-minute hat-trick in the first match, Rafa made absolutely no extra provision for Bale at all in the return. I find that so strange. When the game began, we couldn’t believe our luck. We had been working all week on how to counteract what Inter would do to Gareth and, when it came to it, Rafa left him, one on one, with Maicon. I felt sorry for the lad. It was embarrassing. By the end of it the fans were singing, ‘Taxi for Maicon’, and I don’t think his career has ever recovered. He left Inter and went to Manchester City, but he didn’t break into the team with any regularity there, either, and left the following summer. He started that night at White Hart Lane as the best right-back in the world,
and ended it the punchline of a joke. I know what would have been said about the tactics had he been one of my players.