The legend of Sir Alex Ferguson has grown larger and larger since his retirement as stories about him from everyone around him get into the public domain.
They paint the picture of a man who was effectively charisma personified, able to drag an army with him to success through sheer force of personality.
That is the type of skillset needed to refresh the squad over 26 years and remain competitive, going out at the very top by winning the Premier League title.
The key to the success of the Man Utd legend lay in his dichotomy, his ability to be remarkably simple and straightforward when necessary combined with exuding the managerial aura needed to pull down players when needed.
A Man Utd icon has now given an example of that dichotomy with a single example that sums up Sir Alex Ferguson.
Nemanja Vidic recalls remarkable Sir Alex Ferguson moment
The January transfer window is approaching and any talk of potential January transfers at Old Trafford is incomplete without recalling a double swoop that happened 18 years ago.
Clubs regularly plead lack of opportunity and poverty in the winter market today but in 2006, United pulled off a remarkable double swoop in January that formed the spine of their next great squad.
Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic were precisely the kind of signings the current United board needs to go back to, highly rated but unheralded players who would bleed for the jersey.
Vidic, in a recent documentary with Sky Sports detailing his January transfer, revealed how big a role Sir Alex played in the move and how a small gesture from him won him over.
He said: “I was coming out from the airport building [after completing the transfer] and there was Sir Alex Ferguson waiting for us. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a surprise!’.
“My English was not that good so I said ‘hi’ and he said ‘hi’ and then he took the bag from me and put it in the back of his truck!
“‘Wow, this is definitely going to be a good story when I go back home,’ I thought.”
Vidic added that United’s wage structure was so strong at the time that he took a pay cut to join the club, despite doing so from Spartak Moscow, which would be impossible today.
He said it was never about the money for him once Sir Alex Ferguson entered the picture which speaks volumes about both, the player’s motivations and the manager’s personality.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s man-management was more important than tactical acumen
Vidic’s story about the great man just reinforces what everyone has thought about Sir Alex for a long time, that his people’s skills allowed him to remain on top as much as his tactical acumen.
In the current age, where so much focus is on breaking down tactical structures and patterns, managers burn out quicker and part of that is down to putting their energies towards tactics more than man management.
Sir Alex was a man manager at heart for whom the knowledge of the game was a huge added bonus. If he wanted, he could have succeeded in any field because people skills are transferable, but football tactical knowledge rarely is.
Vidic’s story is another in a long line of examples of how Sir Alex could invoke a cult-like following from a player on the very first day of his joining through small but meaningful gestures.
United might get a repeat of Vidic in a January transfer in the years ahead but another Sir Alex Ferguson will likely never appear.
Receive a digest of our best United content each week direct to your mailbox
