Rivals's truce set for severe test

THE HANDSHAKE gave it away. It was a charity dinner, an Evening with Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, and the two old rivals had done their best to make it look as though, deep down, they did like each other after all. Then they got up to leave and their body language betrayed them. An awkward handshake, little eye contact, no more than the briefest of touches. They looked like two strangers who had fallen into conversation on a bus and were saying their stilted goodbyes.

If you believe what they would like us to believe, the feuding has stopped now. No more spats, bust-ups, feuds or wars-of-words. It has been described as a truce, a coming together of two of the sharpest football minds in the business. Or could it be, as Rafael Benitez and a good few other people suspect, Ferguson has suddenly found time for Wenger because, over the last few years, Arsenal have not been able to challenge United in the way they once did? We will find out over the coming weeks now that United and Arsenal could, in theory, meet four times before the end of the season, twice in the Champions League semi-final, once in the Premier League at Old Trafford and potentially the FA Cup final.

Have they genuinely made their peace? Or will Ferguson lift that mask, Darth Vader-style, and go back to the old days of goading the man he once described (in his most sarcastic voice) as “the great Arsene Wenger”? A cynical viewpoint, perhaps, but let it not be forgotten that, at the height of the feuding, the rivalry was so bitter, so deep-rooted and acrimonious, there were complaints from the Metropolitan Police and Government ministers. The FA wrote to both clubs demanding an official ceasefire. The League Managers’ Association offered to mediate but gave up on the idea, believing it would be impossible to bring them together.

The change started when Jose Mourinho took over at Chelsea and formed his own rivalry with both men but Ferguson would still find time to criticise Wenger for lacking grace in defeat. It got under his skin that Wenger would never accept his invitation for a post-match drink at Old Trafford. Ferguson has his love of cinema, jazz, horses and wine and he resented the way Wenger was routinely described as “urbane” and “cosmopolitan” when the Frenchman would spend his free evenings watching tapes of old German matches and once freely admitted having no knowledge of central London, despite living in the capital since 1996.

Wenger speaks five languages and has a master’s degree in economics and sociology from Strasbourg University. Ferguson was never impressed. “Intelligence! They say he’s an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I’ve got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages.”

Wenger was so wound up at one point Ferguson claimed the Frenchman had confronted him in the tunnel at Old Trafford and taken the kind of spill-my-pint stance that can usually be seen on those Bravo documentaries about Friday-night punch-ups.

Another time Wenger announced “diplomatic relations were off” and he would never answer another question about “that man” (a promise he kept for about three weeks). “In England you have a good phrase,” he said. “It is to bring the game into disrepute. The managers have a responsibility. Yet Ferguson does what he wants. He lays explosives.”

Guardian Service