Rio Ferdinand--Five Star--The Biography (16 page)

The hype before the game against Brazil was virtually non-stop. And the world’s press were hailing the performances of the English defence starring Rio and Sol
Campbell as the linchpin of the success they anticipated for England.

Many noted that against Denmark, Campbell marked close to his Danish attacker Ebbe Sand while Rio stood back and observed the game. Rio moved the other England defenders around him and whenever an extra Dane popped up in attack, he seldom showed much interest. He would watch while Campbell and Mills dived in. Rio was definitely a supervisor, not a cleaner. Like David Beckham, he had blossomed into a leader during Sven-Goran Eriksson’s early days in charge of the England team. Rio had been encouraged to marshal the defence and he relished that role.

In London, Chelsea’s Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank – appearing as a TV pundit because Holland hadn’t qualified – reckoned the two best centre-halves in England were Rio and Arsenal’s Martin Keown. He explained: ‘With Keown you end a match covered in bruises but with Ferdinand you almost don’t notice.’

Rio was hailed as the thinking man’s centre-back, more interested in the direction of the attack than whoever happened to be in his vicinity. Many compared Rio to Italy’s Alessandro Nesta – tall, fast, comfortable on the ball. In the air, it was noted that both Rio and Sol Campbell had completely nullified the Argentinian attack. The two defenders had also scored two out of England’s five goals so far.

As England’s World Cup campaign progressed, England’s loyal fans warmed to Rio and regularly chanted his name, a rare honour for a defender. ‘Re-Oh! Re-Oh!’ reminded him of his mum back on the Friary Estate when she wanted him home. Meanwhile Rio’s England teammate and close friend Kieron Dyer proclaimed: ‘I honestly believe that on present
form we have the best player in the world in Rio Ferdinand. Not just the best defender, but the best player.’

Many of the England players had seen ex-England international Viv Anderson state on television just before the World Cup Finals began that Rio was ‘not world-class’. Halfway through the Nigeria game, Anderson was on the small screen once again and announced: ‘I was wrong. He is world-class.’

Journalists labelled Rio as one of the two or three best defenders at the tournament. One German reporter even claimed Rio was acquiring the same mythical status as goalkeeping superstar Oliver Kahn, who discouraged strikers even before he dispossessed them.

But Rio still had his faults. It was pointed out that he was not a great tackler. Said
Observer
journalist Simon Kuper: ‘He almost always remains upright. This contributes to his elegance, but sometimes a centre-half needs to get his shorts dirty. Just before half-time against Denmark he allowed one of their attackers to nip dangerously past him to the byline, and when Sand or Jesper Gronkjaer brought the ball into the box, Ferdinand tended not to confront them but to stand off, trying to guide them away from goal. At moments like that you wish he was more of an old-fashioned English centre-half.’

A couple of days before England were due to play Brazil, Rio sauntered in for another routine press conference brimming with confidence at England’s World Cup headquarters on Awaji Island, an hour’s drive from Osaka, in western Japan. He was as relaxed as ever in front of the cameras and the assembled pack of journalists: ‘It’s absolutely great being here, but what I really wish is that, for just an hour or so, I could be back in England enjoying
all of this as much as the fans are. We’re hearing about how fantastic it is but, here, we’re a bit cut off. I’d really like to be there, you know.’

Then Rio told the press he was bewildered by all the back-page talk of an injury crisis in the England camp. ‘I keep hearing there’s all this despair going on but it doesn’t feel like that in our hotel.’

In fact, Rio spent much of his time thrashing teammates Joe and Ashley Cole at pool. As he explained: ‘They are getting absolutely stuffed and, if my form on the pitch is as good as it is on the pool table, I will be happy. The whole mood generally is very upbeat.’

The next morning’s training session in the town of Higashiura was held in swelteringly hot weather and featured an England squad training game called The Greens v The Yellows v The Whites. Two teams were playing, and one goal usually won it within a minute or two. The winners would then stay on to play the next side. Twenty minutes after the first game had started and they were still hard at it. Rio had magnificently repulsed attack after attack and hardly even built up a sweat in the process.

As striker Teddy Sheringham remarked dryly: ‘He’s having a great World Cup, isn’t he, even in bloody training. Look at him, not a bead of sweat on his forehead, as cool as you like – can’t even get past him in the seven-a-side.’ Not many had managed it in the 11-a-side, either.

Rio had become a popular figure among the vast travelling press pack because he seemed so at ease with the media. He then made a point of telling them that he expected the England side to go all the way and win the tournament.

He told the journalists: ‘Let’s make it clear, we would not be happy with just a quarter-final place. There is absolutely
no way we would settle for a brave defeat on Friday. There have been too many times in our history when things haven’t gone that well, have been like failures, and now we have a great opportunity to put that right. We certainly don’t want to be sitting in our homes in a few weeks’ time thinking about what might have been. We don’t want to be looking back with any regrets. We won’t settle for just anything because we definitely have the talent within the squad to go all the way to the final. This is not us being arrogant but we are very confident and we have a great belief within us. We are all young lads together and we want to do well. For us, losing on Friday would be a disaster. We really want to continue as long as we can in this tournament.’

Rio insisted that the best was still to come from the England side. ‘The team is developing well and the longer we are together, the better we play. If you look at the age of the side, a lot of players are not at their peak level yet. But we have also got people like David Beckham, Sol Campbell, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt who have been playing at the top level for years. It means we have got a really good mixture, a really good blend, and there is a lot more to come from this team. But rest assured that on Friday we will have one thought – to get into the semi-finals – and we will be really gutted if we don’t make it.’

The difference between the characters of Rio and Sol Campbell was perfectly summed up by the way the two players publicly responded to their next challenge – Brazil. Asked how he planned to defend against the ultimate attacking force, Campbell said: ‘You just defend, you know, you just do your job.’

Rio’s take was a lot more eloquent: ‘Well, playing against
Ronaldo is so special because he is one of my heroes. He’s in the same category as Batistuta, they are exceptional. You are testing yourself against the absolute best in the world and it needs 100 per cent concentration the entire match. Let that slip for a second, and you are in big trouble. Ronaldo and Rivaldo play as a pair, but they are also brilliant individually, you never know what’s coming next. It’s going to be a challenge, but we are getting much better match by match …’

Rio and his England teammates’ hopes of going all the way to the final were crushed by a brilliant footballing display by the Brazilians, who came out 2–1 winners. England scored first through Michael Owen, but then Rivaldo got one back just before half-time and England were soon up against the ropes.

In the second half, Ronaldinho’s clever free kick completely fooled David Seaman, and England never even looked like getting back into the game. They even failed to cash in when Brazil were down to 10 men after Ronaldinho was sent off in the fifty-sixth minute for a foul on Rio’s Leeds teammate Danny Mills.

With just over 10 minutes to go, Eriksson sent on Darius Vassell and Teddy Sheringham in place of Owen and Ashley Cole. Rio was dispatched into attack as another striker in a desperate attempt to claw back a goal. But it was all to no avail …

The first 44 minutes had gone according to plan and then, as so often happened, England were breached at just the wrong time. However, those watching made a point of saying that none of the English defenders failed in their duties.

At least Rio walked away with two mementoes from that
final England game: the shirts of Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos, which he gave to his brother Anton after the match. As Rio later explained: ‘I got Rivaldo’s shirt myself and then Roberto Carlos asked for mine, so I swapped another one with him. It’s really something when a player of his stature comes looking for my shirt.’

Afterwards Rio was one of the players randomly chosen to have a drug test, and there he encountered free-kick scorer Ronaldinho. Rio asked him if his goal was a shot and he just laughed and said, ‘Yes’. Rio responded by saying, ‘No way.’

So England were out of the tournament. Down but certainly not disgraced. And Rio emerged with an even bigger, worldwide reputation. Many continued to talk about him being in the same class as Fabio Cannavaro and Alessandro Nesta.

Was there no limit to Rio’s talent and ambitions?

R
io was carefully packing his clothes in the hotel bedroom that had been his home for a month in Japan. The sea outside was lapping against the shores of Awaji Island and for the first time there was no longer a World Cup Final on the horizon. The adventure was over.

He threw his England T-shirts into a bag and then carefully packed his treasured CD collection. He’d tried his hardest to take each game as it came, but the final had always been lingering there in the back of his mind. He’d dreamed every night of lifting the World Cup and now the reality had dawned and it hurt him immensely.

This had been England’s greatest chance to win the trophy since 1966. The memory that would probably stay with him the longest was the victory over Argentina. After all that had happened between the two countries it was the sweetest, defining moment.

But Rio was haunted by England’s lacklustre second-half performance against Brazil. As a complete pro, he knew they could have done better and he couldn’t understand why they didn’t get the ball back from the Brazilians, who were down to 10 men for most of that half.

When Rio and the rest of England’s World Cup squad flew back to London, team boss Sven-Goran Eriksson singled out Man United’s Nicky Butt as his star man, but most of the talk in Korea and Japan had been about Rio. Michael Owen had been a bit of a disappointment and he claimed he was not fully fit for the match against Brazil. ‘I could run but I couldn’t go flat out. My biggest regret is that I couldn’t go into this game in peak condition,’ said Owen, who’d scored against Brazil despite not fully recovering from a groin injury.

Many newspapers, magazines and websites ran their own assessment of how the England players performed in the 2002 World Cup. Rio got nine out of 10 from nearly all of them. The England News Pages website wrote: ‘Ferdinand showed that he is one of the best central defenders in the tournament and was England’s best player (along with Nicky Butt). He was tremendous in the games against Argentina and Nigeria and was unlucky not to make it into the international World Cup 2002 squad.’ But although many rated Rio the best defender of the tournament, FIFA did not choose him as part of their final-16 All Star Team.

Rio had a lot of thinking to do on his return from the World Cup. The previous season at Leeds had definitely not gone according to plan. They’d won nothing, failed to qualify for the Champions League and were still haunted by the Bowyer and Woodgate court case. Then they’d sacked their manager. Rio reckoned the club had made a complete hash of handling the media. The low point came with the
publication of David O’Leary’s book
Leeds on Trial,
which opened the club up to the media spotlight when it least needed it.

But would it be any better at another Premiership club? Rio asked himself. While many clubs were stockmarket-listed companies, the inescapable fact was that their share prices went up and down depending on the success of the team on the field.

So what tactics would Rio adopt as the speculation about his future reached fever pitch? Should he go on the attack and make his feelings about Leeds known? That would mean taking over the story, which was a risky business if any future transfer collapsed. Rio was in a dilemma, but his heart was telling him it was time to move on.

In order to escape the intense media attention, he set off with England pal Wes Brown, of Manchester United, for a sunshine break in the gambling capital of the world, Las Vegas. Brown’s presence ensured that Rio would be kept carefully informed of Man United’s quest to sign him from Leeds.

On Monday, 24 June Man United’s chief executive, Peter Kenyon, claimed he’d held talks with Leeds about signing Rio. Kenyon told the club’s official website he’d spoken to his Leeds counterpart, Peter Ridsdale. Leeds knew Rio’s value had rocketed because he’d performed so superbly on the world stage. Kenyon said: ‘Over the next few weeks things will start to develop but there is nothing at the minute. At this stage Ferdinand is not for sale.’

Ridsdale then put pressure on Rio for a decision by saying that he would have to request a transfer before the club would consider selling him. Leeds were rumoured to be £30 million in debt and desperate to sell some players in order to balance their books.

There was also that additional clause in Rio’s contract between West Ham and Leeds which meant that lump sums would be paid to the Hammers after each year Rio spent with Leeds. This would eventually increase the entire package to a figure approaching £33 million, effectively doubling Rio’s salary to £66,000 a week. Clearly Leeds could not afford to stick to this contractual obligation.

Meanwhile newspapers suggested that Rio would stay at Leeds if the club could offload Robbie Keane to Sunderland and Lee Bowyer to Arsenal. Rio – back from Las Vegas – continued to play down the speculation and publicly insisted he was still happy at Elland Road. ‘I’ve heard all the speculation about me possibly leaving and as far as I’m concerned it’s up to Leeds,’ he said. ‘If they want to keep me I will be staying. If they decide to sell me that’s different.’

Then Man United executive Martin Edwards told BBC Radio Five Live it was ‘no secret that Ferdinand is a great player who would certainly improve our squad. Whether Leeds are prepared to sell him is another matter.’

The pressure was mounting.

Rio felt that Leeds were changing direction as a team. David O’Leary’s departure had disappointed Rio because O’Leary had been an important figure in his development as a player. Now Rio would have to start again when a new manager was appointed. He had watched all the antics from a distance and grown increasingly concerned that Leeds had, in the words of the departing O’Leary, ‘gone from being the second most favourite club of most neutral supporters to being the most hated club in the country’.

It was clear to Rio that life at Leeds had turned into a virtual soap opera, with almost weekly, dramatic events. There had been the acrimonious defeat at Second Division
Cardiff City, Ridsdale’s extraordinary post-match discussion with Leeds fans during another defeat, this time at Goodison Park, and defeat in the UEFA Cup. Leeds had been top of the Premiership at the start of 2002 and yet only just managed to scrape into the following season’s UEFA competition.

O’Leary had also alienated some of the Leeds fans. He’d lost the backing of some players in the dressing room, and they’d even told Ridsdale they no longer thought O’Leary was the right man for the job. Those players included Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Robbie Keane, Danny Mills and Erik Bakke.

But Rio wholeheartedly approved when he heard that former England manager Terry Venables looked certain to be appointed the new manager at Leeds. Rio felt he owed Venables for letting him join the Euro ’96 squad when he was no more than a kid. He respected Venables immensely and he was looking forward to hearing what the cockney coach had planned for Leeds.

So, with the appointment of Venables, Rio found himself in a terrible dilemma, unable to work out whether he should join Man United or stay at Leeds. The reasons to stay included:

1) To Become a Leeds Legend. Rio was a big fish in a small sea at Elland Road but at Man United he would just be one of a vast number of superstars.

2) To Pay Back the Club’s Loyalty to Him. Rio knew that Leeds paid over the odds when they bought him from West Ham and without their support his career might not have gone so well. He felt a definite obligation.

3) To Please the Fans. Rio had a fantastic rapport with the Leeds fans and it might not be the same at Old Trafford.
Former Leeds star Eric Cantona had a horrendous time whenever he returned to Elland Road.

4) To Be Part of Something New. With new boss Terry Venables in charge, Leeds looked as if they might go on to greater things.

On the other hand there were four good reasons to go to Man United:

1) To Win Trophies. If Rio went to Old Trafford he would be virtually assured of some medals.

2) To Play in the Champions League. Assuming Man United got through the two-leg qualifier in August, they were definitely expected to be challenging for the title.

3) To Earn More Money. Rio’s current Leeds salary of £30,000 a week would be more than doubled by a move to Man United.

4) To Play with Great Players. Rio had already got used to David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt during the World Cup, but Ryan Giggs, Ruud van Nistelrooy and skipper Roy Keane could be added to this illustrious roll-call.

On 13 July Rio took his agent, Pini Zahavi, to meet with Terry Venables at a London hotel just a couple of days after Venables’s appointment as the new Leeds boss was confirmed. Venables insisted Leeds was still the right place for Rio to continue his footballing education. But as Rio later explained: ‘Mr Venables never asked me to say whether I would be staying or not. But I couldn’t have given him an answer there and then because there was a lot to think about and I’m sure he understood that.’

Venables assured Rio he had big plans for the club. Rio added: ‘As a person and a coach he’s up there among the best of them. He said the sort of things I expected and you can see he wants to do well. This is his chance to stamp his
mark on a club and he wants to do everything to make it a big success.’

But Rio also knew that he would double his salary to more than £60,000 a week if he went to Old Trafford. It was particularly tempting since Leeds had already made it clear they could not improve on his current £30,000-a-week deal despite those clauses in his original contract that included an increased weekly wage after a set amount of time at Elland Road.

Rio still insisted that money was the least important issue. ‘Of course I think about it but it’s not the be-all and end-all and besides I’m already being paid good money by Leeds.’ Rio’s biggest priority was to win medals and he knew he would never feel properly fulfilled in footballing terms until that happened.

On 14 July Rio rolled up at his mum’s house in Mottingham in his brand-new £168,000 Aston Martin. He wanted the family to help him decide whether he should join Man United. Rio listened avidly to Janice as she explained the importance of loyalty. He heard Julian talk about the need to keep his feet firmly on the ground no matter how many millions of pounds were thrown at him. He even talked to his kid brother Anton about how it might all affect him. Anton was a very similar character to Rio. He’d even attended the same school as his elder brother, Bluecoat Comprehensive, and was now following in his footsteps at West Ham.

Rio explained at the time: ‘I honestly didn’t know what I would do. But my family would play the biggest part in helping me make up my mind.’ He also listened to his kid sisters. He realised this decision was important to a lot of people – the clubs, the fans, everyone – but in the end he
believed he had to do what was right for him and his family.

Meanwhile Sir Alex Ferguson openly admitted he was getting nervous waiting to see if Rio would join Man United. ‘We’re waiting to see how things develop at Leeds. If he’s available then we’re interested but it is not clear.’ Rio was well aware that the whole transaction was now ‘down to the wire’ and that everything had to be settled sooner rather than later.

In the middle of all the feverish speculation about his transfer, Rio was to be found at an anonymous, weed-strewn football pitch near the Friary Estate, in his beloved south-east London, lending moral support to his close boyhood friend Gavin Rose, now 25, who had just been appointed coach to the Dulwich Hamlet youth squad. Later Rio popped over to the Friary in his Aston Martin but there was no danger of the vehicle being vandalised because a bunch of kids volunteered to guard his car in the hope of being bunged a fiver by their favourite superstar. Dozens of children from the estate gathered round Rio asking hundreds of questions about football.

But it was clear to Gavin, who’d grown up with him on the estate, that Rio wasn’t after accolades from the kids. ‘At the same time, people took the mickey out of him because they knew him as a person, not a big star, and they knew he’d never completely leave his roots. He spent the whole morning here and we didn’t even discuss Manchester United, to be honest,’ said Gavin. ‘Rio knew a couple of the lads who were training and I think he was more interested in watching their progress.’

Rio had even phoned Gavin every other day while he was in Japan for the World Cup. ‘We discussed the matches, of course, but he was just as interested in finding out what was
happening in Peckham,’ explained Gavin. ‘You see it’s very important to him to keep in touch with his real mates. He still comes back whenever he can, and I’m sure he always will.’ Over the previous year Rio had turned up regularly at the youth adventure project in Peckham also run by Gavin.

Later that afternoon Rio attended a five-a-side tournament on Hackney Marshes because a few of his oldest friends were playing. Then he headed back to his mum’s house in Mottingham for some of her tasty home cooking.

On 18 July newspapers claimed that bidding for Rio had opened at £28 million. But Peter Ridsdale still insisted he’d rejected his captain’s written transfer request. The Leeds chairman was said to be determined to hold out for £35 million for Rio. ‘We are a public company and I have a duty to shareholders to maximise the value of our assets. If we receive any reasonable bid for any of our players, including Rio, they will be considered.’

Yet, behind the scenes, the deal was virtually complete. Pini Zahavi was confident that Rio would be playing for United when the Premiership opened in early August. ‘He would be happy to join Manchester United,’ he said. ‘He wants to play in a bigger and better club and he wants to play in the Champions League.’

However, Rio – who’d been deeply concerned about the reception he’d get upon his return to Upton Park after the move to Leeds – was now worried that the Elland Road crowd would be much more resentful. He admitted: ‘The last three days have torn me apart. I love Leeds United. They took a huge gamble in signing me and I will never forget that.’