Onside - Tales of a Football Lover #6

"You're in my spot."

With a groan of frustration, I saw Alexis Sanchez motion to the bench. He’s done his hamstring again, and after a mediocre performance with one momentary glimpse of his past brilliance – it was too much to take on a day United was winning but with storms always on the horizon. Brought about by as inept a performance as you would have expected from the late days of the previous reign.

Hobbling off, he sat down and got comfortable only to then see the ‘Boss’, not Alex Ferguson, not Jose Mourinho, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaear the baby -faced former assassin turned manager motioned him to get out of his chair.

I smiled.

There is a romance of seeing a former successful player come back to a stadium nicknamed ‘The Theatre of Dreams’ and becoming successful. And OGS is caught between two. Across the city, the nosy neighbours have found voice through a man fashioned in the fires of Barcelona – first as a player and then as a resourceful manager. Pep Guardiola at Manchester City is coming onto a half century of existence on this planet having won every domestic trophy possible whether on the pitch or off it. His name will be etched in the foundation of the 21^st century football legacy. And he is still getting started.

On the other side is Zinedine Zidane, the ‘popular’ inheritor of the seat OGS sits in. A much more famous player than manager, he mastered the ability to make a Real Madrid team reeling from a Jose Mourinho hangover into a cerebral masterpiece. They were never going to be a consistent work force, but the moments of clarity required to better the crunch moments – Zidane learnt that beautifully as a player and transferred it to the ones under his charge. Winning the premier continental cup in Europe is no mean feat, and that too three times in a row is almost unheard of with the challenges of modern day football.

And now we shall come to Ole Gunnar Solskjear.

Alex Ferguson found a key role for him in the team after a lost chase for Shearer left them scrambling to get Molde’s top striker for an amount that astonished everyone. Being offered around for much lesser, Molde might have thought they got a good deal in. 

Half a decade later the striker would prove to become one of the greatest bargains in transfer history – and a legend in a club growing from strength to strength.

True to OGS, he understood his role as an impact substitute wonderfully. Playing a full game from the start was for workhorses like Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, but keeping the nerve in those thundering moments of closure - that was when the smiling assassin would be revealed.  

The crescendo was obviously the Treble season, where he scored one of his 29 goals off the bench in the dying seconds of a match in Barcelona against a Bayern Munich side still understanding how United had drawn level after being second best for almost the entire match. It would have been an amazing turnaround from 1-0 down to 2-1 up in any match. But this wasn’t any match.

This was the Champions League Final.

Around 8 years later, fittingly scoring against Blackburn after coming on in his final game, he took up the mantle of reserves manager mentoring the men who would go on to become pillars of a new United team. And soon, he found his first full time managerial job with Molde, the club which provided him the platform to get to United in the first place. But unlike the fairytales of Zidane and Guardiola, Molde and post that Cardiff have proven to be a bit duller for a man who lit up nights in Barcelona and Manchester.

A mixed run in Norway and a disastrous season in UK are hardly credentials on which to build a resume for assuming the job of one of the most prestigious clubs in the world. Everyone saw him as the sub for Mourinho in the middle of a panic spell for United – just there to fill the time and rally the troops till the ‘proper’ man, the starter came. Even after 5 wins at the start, matching Sir Matt Busby’s record, the argument is still out amid concerns of player power running the show.

Is he the man to lead United into a fairytale? Cause Old Trafford has seen it’s share of nightmares over the last few seasons since the man who brought him to United at the tender age of 23 left the scene.

There will be doubts, and a few of them may be answered if United get the better of Tottenham next weekend. But the steel, the need to impose yourself in a world of dabbing megastars and social media gloryhounds – I saw a bit of that when he took Alexis off the seat.

It was his.

And the super sub wanted to start this time.