The Question: How did a nutmeg change football tactics in the noughties?
For the first time in over 30 years, an English side became a world leader in tactical innovation this decade – thanks to Henning Berg being nutmegged
Raimond van der Gouw expresses his frustration at the prostrate Roy Keane after the Irishman's own goal set Real Madrid on the way to a 3-2 victory at Old Trafford that would lead to United transforming their tactics. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty
A little over a hundred days into the new millennium Manchester Unitedsuffered a defeat so striking that it defined the tactical direction of English football for the decade to come. It is rare that you can pinpoint the precise moment at which the world changed, but for Sir Alex Ferguson it did on 19 April 2000 with a 3-2 defeat at home to Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final.
This was his equivalent of Liverpool's defeat to Red Star Belgrade in 1973, the game that persuaded him to tear up the old blueprints and start again. Then Bill Shankly, despite having won the Uefa Cup the season before, decided that if Liverpool were to dominate Europe, they had to alter their approach. "We realised it was no use winning the ball if you finished up on your backside," said Bob Paisley. "The top Europeans showed us how to break out of defence effectively. The pace of their movement was dictated by their first pass. We had to learn how to be patient like that and think about the next two or three moves when we had the ball." And so Liverpool changed and, under Paisley, came to dominate Europe in a way no other English side has managed, winning four European Cups between 1977 and 1984.
For Ferguson, too, the decision to change was a tremendous risk. That season his side won the second of three successive Premier League titles, finishing a record 18 points clear of Arsenal in second, while scoring 97 goals in 38 games. The year before they had won the Champions League. There would be many in the difficult seasons of transition who would tell him he should never have changed his approach. His willingness to do so, though, his ruthlessness and clear-sightedness (at least in seeing what was wrong, if not necessarily what the solution was), is precisely what makes him a genius. It is one thing to build a great side; quite another to be brave enough to dismantle it and start again, shaping football's evolution even as you adapt to its changing shape.
The misperception of inadequacy
Yet the strange thing now, looking back at the game, is that United were by no means outplayed. In the Guardian, Jim White spoke of "trademark United huff and puff" being overwhelmed by Real's class, and perhaps that is how it seemed eight minutes into the second half as Fernando Redondo backheeled the ball through Henning Berg's legs, ran on, and crossed for Raúl to tap in his second of the night to make it 3-0.
When a British side loses to a continental team, especially when they are helped to their victory by such a memorable moment of skill, it is natural to reach for the old explanations about the greater subtlety of foreign technique. The fact that Chelsea had been demolished 5-1 in Barcelona the night before probably encouraged the sense of English inferiority in the face of Spanish football. The truth, though, is that United could easily have won the game, perhaps even should have won the game; that their passing and movement, the angles they worked around the box were at least the equal of Real. Besides, the stereotypical lament of English clumsiness hardly tallied with Steve McManaman being arguably the most influential player on the pitch.
This wasn't a case of, say, England against Brazil in 2002, exhaustedly chasing a ball they never quite won back; or of England against Croatia in 2007, doggedly following the Corporal Jones in their heads and launching yet another long ball in the belief that foreigners didn't like it up 'em. This was a very good team playing very good football, and being thwarted again and again by an inspired Iker Casillas and, in one case, by the hand of Aitor Karanka, who seven minutes before half-time, with the score at 1-0, got away with tipping an Andy Cole header over the bar from three yards.
That's not to say United were unlucky – or even that their defeat was predominantly down to ill luck – for Real had dominated the first leg in the Bernabéu, which had finished 0-0, and they benefited at Old Trafford from an unexpected tactical switch by Vicente del Bosque, who had replaced John Toshack earlier in the season. Pulling Iván Helguera deep, almost as a third centre-back, to guard against Dwight Yorke, he both liberated McManaman, who regularly initiated breaks, surging from deep, and the two full-backs, Míchel Salgado and Roberto Carlos, who both got behind United's full-backs again and again. Ferguson eventually matched Real's shape, but by then United were three down, and he admitted he wished he had made the move sooner. "They've never played that formation before," said Ferguson. "I suppose it was a compliment to us, but we were too slow to adjust."
Why United lost
It was a cross from Salgado that led to Real's first, Sávio breaking, exchanging passes with Raúl and moving left, then laying the ball inside for McManaman, who was fouled by Berg. Pierluigi Collina allowed play to carry on as the ball broke for Fernando Morientes, who slipped it into the path of the overlapping Salgado. His cross was low, and Raimond van der Gouw would almost certainly have dealt with it, but either he failed to call or Roy Keane failed to react to the call, and United's captain, lunging to cut the ball out at the near post, diverted it into his own net.
A similar blend of United culpability and Real excellence led to the second and third goals. Perhaps United, aware that Real had the advantage of an away goal, were over-anxious, but they were guilty of overcommitting early in the second half. McManaman broke, and chipped the ball over Mikaël Silvestre, who had come on for Denis Irwin at half-time, for Raúl, who turned back inside the defender and curled the ball into the top corner. His second followed three minutes later with United's defence, seemingly mesmerised by Redondo's nutmeg, sucked to the near post.
David Beckham, negated until then by Roberto Carlos, scored an excellent goal, beating Sávio and Karanka before smacking his finish into the top corner and, even after Paul Scholes had converted an 88th-minute penalty, Yorke had a header saved on the line by Casillas, but three goals was too great a deficit to overhaul. It was those two strikes in three minutes that cost them.
The fatal flaw
So Real were good and United were good, but Real went into a three-goal lead because United had, as the Guardian's subhead said, "lost their heads", perhaps made over-eager by the knowledge they had an away goal to overcome. From Ferguson's point of view, the game followed a worrying pattern. In 1998, after drawing the away leg of their quarter-final against Monaco 0-0, they were eliminated by an away goal. The year before that, a 1-0 deficit from the away leg of their semi-final was rendered insurmountable by Lars Ricken's goal at Old Trafford.
Early goals conceded in the home leg, when played second, had become United's bane, and it's easy to understand why Ferguson should move to guard against the deficiency. It was, in a sense, specifically a European problem: in the Premier League, United could concede early (although obviously the higher quality in confederational competition made it more likely to happen then than in domestic games), and hit back in the reasonable assumption of overwhelming their opponents.
In that 1999-2000 season, for instance, United conceded the first goal and came back to win or draw against Arsenal (twice), Wimbledon (twice), Southampton, Marseille, Everton, Sunderland, Liverpool, West Ham, Fiorentina, Bordeaux, Middlesbrough and Watford. Ferguson would seemingly revel in the fact that "United always do it the hard way", and they were routinely praised for their resilience; perhaps the question, though, should have been why such a dominant team was so leaky.
In the later stages in Europe, not only were sides less easily submerged (yet Real could have been; in the 10 minutes following Real's opener, United had five very good chances), but the consequences were more severe. Over a league season United could afford the odd home draw; in Europe that same draw could mean defeat. And so began the slow, painful, transition towards a lone striker.
The agony of change
The next season the changes were limited to pulling Yorke or Sheringham deeper in Europe and restricting Ryan Giggs's forays. There was a greater sense of caution, which grew after the arrival of Juan Sebastián Verón, and the very obvious switch to 4-5-1, with Scholes or Giggs used as the advanced central midfielder off Ruud van Nistelrooy. The pairing of Scholes and Van Nistelrooy brought the title in 2002-03, but it was only after the arrival of Carlos Queiroz as assistant coach in 2004 that United began to explore more radical alternatives.
As coach of Portugal's youth side, Queiroz was a pioneer of strikerlessness, winning the World Youth Cup in 1989 and 1991 with João Pinto operating as a mobile lone forward, dropping off to create space for Toni, Gil and Rui Costa. For a time he bore the brunt of the anger of fans who had seen a team that had won seven titles in nine seasons with 4-4-2 transformed into a team that won one in five with 4-5-1. But revolution isn't supposed to be easy.
With Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez as a front pairing of constant movement, one or both dropping off to create space for Cristiano Ronaldo cutting in, United became part of the tactical avant garde (perhaps almost despite themselves, because had Louis Saha been fit, the swirling trident of unorthodoxy might never have been given its head. The shape could change by the week, with Park Ji-sung and Giggs adding their qualities to a protean mix – sometimes 4-3-3, sometimes 4-2-3-1, often 4-2-4-0 or 4-3-3-0.
It brought a hat-trick of league titles, and two European finals – one won – and Ferguson by the decade's end had his vindication. The idea of 4-4-2 as an absolute default to which English teams had to stick was over, and for the first time since Alf Ramsey's national team lifted the World Cup 1966, an English side was a world leader in tactical innovation.
And if United hadn't let in two goals just after half-time against Real Madrid, it might never have happened. The tactical course of the decade was set when Henning Berg was nutmegged on 19 April 2000.
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