Jamie Redknapp pays tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson, the don of football bossess, on his 25th anniversary.
Fergie's passion, will-to-win and ability to spot a player set him apart
Sir Alex Ferguson is simply The Godfather of football management.
It's impossible to say that he is the best manager ever, or better than a manager from another era, but for our generation, for the Premier League, he is the don.
There is really only him and my dad still going from their day. And how they both do it, amazes me. Sir Alex obviously has many qualities, but one of his finest is the way in which he has managed to move with the times, roll with the punches and adapt to the changes he has seen.
And the 25 years he has been in charge of Manchester United have seen the biggest changes to the game.
We have had the arrival of the foreign players in the Premier League, the emergence of the footballer as a celebrity and of course, most players he has to deal with now are millionaires. I bet when he started out at Aberdeen, he would never have dreamed he would end up working with players that are getting as much in a week as most people would love to earn in a year.
Sometimes he must just sit their scratching his head in disbelief. And other times, he must want to throttle them because the modern-day footballer is not as straightforward as they were back in his day.
We all know Fergie is no shrinking violet and even when I played you could have a proper stand-up row with your boss, a real tear-up and even say some horrific things.
But you would come in, say 'Gaffer, sorry about yesterday, I was out of order' and it would be forgotten. By both player and manager, whoever was in the wrong.
Respect
You just can't do that these days, players have too much power. But somehow Sir Alex still commands the respect - and I am sure the fear - of every single player that has worked with him in his time at Old Trafford.
I am sure he has adapted his style and over the past few years, he might not necessarily have mellowed, but he seems less inclined to pick a fight. You might say it is his age catching up with him, but I am sure he can still turn the hairdryer on when he needs.
You have to know how to deal with top, top international players and his experience and his skill at reading the situation mean he now knows when it is time to be a little more tactful, perhaps.
And even having to take all that on board, he has never lost that will to win. Of course you have to have a passion for football to be involved with it as long as he has, but it is a rare breed that can maintain that desire, keep that fire burning for so long.
I bet you the minute that final whistle went in the Champions League final last season, he was already thinking how he could make Manchester United better, or at least move them closer to, Barcelona.
I know that is something that is engrained in you. I know my dad has it and it is particularly poignant at this moment in time, because you do wonder if that passion will ever diminish.
Excitement
Maybe it is being around young players that keeps Sir Alex going as well. There has been no-one better at bringing kids through and giving them their chance and I can imagine he gets so much pride, so much excitement from working every day with the Gary Nevilles, David Beckhams, the Paul Scholes, the Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooneys as they were growing up - and turning into top, top footballers.
It does help when you can spot a player like he can. But let's be honest, no-one really has - or has had - an eye for a player like him. It's not just all those kids that have come through the system at Manchester United, but the players he has bought as well.
Yes he pays big money for some of them, but that's not as easy as it sounds. And it certainly isn't easy playing for Manchester United, no matter how good you are. What Sir Alex has a real gift for is spotting the right temperament, the right attitude in a player. Wayne Rooney and one of his newest signings, Phil Jones, show you that after all these years he still has that incredible knack.
I came across Sir Alex plenty of times when I was a player but I will always remember when I played at Old Trafford with Spurs in 2004. We'd got beat 3-0 and I'd come on as a sub. Afterwards I was stood in the tunnel with him and turned round to him and said 'that number seven can play a bit', and he just said 'he'll be the best in the world in a few years'.
This lad had everything going for him, yet at the time everyone had him down as a showpony and in fact, people were slagging him off rotten. That player was of course Cristiano Ronaldo. Even back then Sir Alex just knew he had bought a special player with a big future.
The highest compliment I can pay Sir Alex Ferguson though, is that if I could change one thing in my career, it was that he had managed Liverpool.
Before people start going mad, I meant instead of joining United when he left Aberdeen, because of course, once he had been at Old Trafford that could never have happened!
It is no disrespect to any of the managers I played for either but I always felt we had the talent to win the Premier League. He would have got that out of us because he is a winner, simple as that.
