“THE BE ALL AnD EnD ALL FOR ME WAS TO
WIn TROPHIES, AnD MAnCHESTER UnITED
WOULD GIVE ME A GREAT CHAnCE. I DIDn’T
WAnT TO EnD MY CAREER WITH nOTHInG”
pressure,” says Ferdinand. “He’d say, ‘Rio, go and do your thing –
play out from the back and run out a bit. It makes you look brilliant,
but don’t keep making the same mistake.’
“That’s a vital bit of information from a coach or manager for
any youngster – it gives you the confidence to go out there and
express yourself. Don’t be scared to make mistakes, but keep
learning while you’re doing it and don’t make the same errors time
and time again. I made a lot when I was a kid in the first team,
which led to goals or chances against us. But I knew that the
manager believed in me, so I carried on playing.”
Ferdinand developed into one of the world’s brightest talents
over 158 appearances for the Hammers under Redknapp. He’d only
just turned 22 when Leeds United paid £18 million for him in
November 2000, making him the most expensive defender of all
time. With the price tag came a certain amount of pressure.
“The most pressure I felt was when I went to have the fitness
test before you sign, and all the youth team were watching,” he
smiles now. “I had to pass the ball to the physio, and the physio
would just keep passing it back. I was probably never so nervous inmy whole career, because all the young kids were watching me
and thinking, ‘What does £18m buy you?’ That was pressure, man.
“But my mates never spoke to me about money – that wasn’t
my motivation. My motivation was playing football at the highest
level I could. A boy from my estate, signing for Leeds and getting to
play Champions League football.”
In his first season at Elland Road, Ferdinand reached a
Champions League semi-final, scoring his opening goal for the club
in a 3-0 win over Deportivo La Coruña in the last eight. “That
season was crazy,” he says. “Leeds were on a great run – when I
joined, they’d beaten Milan and knocked out Barcelona. I thought
we were going to win it that year, but we played a great Valencia
team in the semi-finals. They smashed us up 3-0 in Spain.”
Perhaps it was a sign of Ferdinand’s ambition that even a run to
the Champions League semi-finals didn’t give him the feeling that
he’d made it as a player at the top level. “Not really, because we’d
gone out,” he insists. “I still felt like I had lots to do. I thought, ‘Wow,
that Valencia team are a few strings ahead of us’ – and they didn’t
even win the final against Bayern Munich. Although I was playing
well, I wasn’t where I wanted to be yet.”
After another impressive season for Leeds, though, he was ready
to start for England at the 2002 World Cup. They were his first-ever
appearances at a major tournament – Ferdinand was part of Glenn
Hoddle’s France 98 squad without seeing any action, and narrowly
missed out on selection for Euro 2000 under Kevin Keegan.
After helping Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side beat Argentina 1-0 in
the group stage, he scored with a header against Denmark in the
last 16 – even if it needed an assist from goalkeeper Thomas
Sorensen, who inadvertently bundled the ball over the line. “I made
sure I got that goal because it could have been taken off me – it
wasn’t actually on target!” smiles the 41 year old.
“But that tournament was the time when I started thinking, ‘I’m
a top player and I’ll go on to be a top player.’ I played and just felt
comfortable in that setting, under that pressure. We were up against
a good Argentina team and there was a lot riding on it. I had to deal
with someone like Gabriel Batistuta. He was their main goal threat –
he was the man back then.” Ferdinand jokingly looks downwards to
inspect his pocket. “He could still be in there somewhere!”Ferdinand wasn’t the only one who thought he would become a top
player after the World Cup – Alex Ferguson did too, sealing a £29.3m
deal for the 23 year old within a month of Brazil lifting the trophy.
Leeds had missed out on Champions League qualification, so when
the defender learned of Manchester United’s interest, he refused to
leave chairman Peter Ridsdale’s office for six hours, insisting a move
be agreed to take him to Old Trafford.
“There was no way I wasn’t going,” he reveals. “I would have
done anything. The be all and end all for me as a kid was to win
trophies. I got to the point where I was seeing others with loads,
and I didn’t want to end my career without anything in my cabinet.
I knew that joining United would give me a great chance.”Left and below Making
his name at West Ham;
before returning as an
£18m man with Leeds
Above right “Oi, get out
of my pocket, Batigol...”FourFourTwo.com The Story of Man Utd 109