Ander Herrera in his own words “If opposition fans hate me, I’m clearly doing something right”

Ander Herrera may not be Mr Popular with supporters of other clubs, but to Manchester United fans, his tenacity, loyalty and straight talking have made him a cult hero. Evil? That’s not how we see it...

Some things in life are just meant to be. Ander Herrera was always destined to join Manchester United, and he wants to tell Fourfourtwo exactly why. We’re sat across a table from the Spaniard at United’s Carrington training ground, and he has just interrupted his own answer, paused for thought, and then decided to volunteer an anecdote. This is something he likes to do quite a lot. Herrera doesn’t do interviews – he does conversations. This isn’t a man who wants to straight-bat our questions and get out of here. He’s ready to talk. On this particular occasion, the 29-year-old wants to tell the story of a moment that happened seven years ago this month – a moment that changed his life, not that he was aware of it at the time. It happened in Manchester, though not at Old Trafford. It took place in a mundane hotel room, early in the morning.

“I don’t know if it was God, but someone helped me that day,” Herrera explains to FFT. His Athletic Bilbao team were about to face Manchester United in the last 16 of the Europa League, but the midfielder was on the verge of pulling out of the game.

“A day before the match, I couldn’t even walk. I had... pubalgia, is that how you say it in English?” he asks, pausing to check the translator app on his phone, keen to tell the story correctly. “No, it says groin – it wasn’t my groin,” he says, dissatisfied with the answer the app has given him. “It was here,” he adds, pointing to his pelvic area.

“I was going through difficult moments with that injury, and the night before the game, I said to myself that I’m not able to play. I can’t play – I can’t even walk. But the next morning, I woke up much better.”

Six months later, Herrera would face a spell on the sidelines after going to Munich for an operation on that same injury. But in his hotel room in Manchester, to his surprise, he got out of bed that morning and realised that he could play at Old Trafford after all. “I played, we won and I had an amazing game,” he continues. “Some special things happen in life, and that was one of them.”

Athletic won 3-2 that night (below right), and Herrera shone so much that United quickly added him to their list of transfer targets. Everything could have been different had he risen from his bed and been crippled by pain that morning in March 2012. Instead, he has spent the past five years as a Red Devil, and a fans’ favourite.

The weather isn’t always perfect in Manchester, and today at Carrington the wind is howling and rain falling intermittently. Herrera hasn’t had the best night’s sleep before this interview. “I was trying to sleep and could hear the storm outside,” he chuckles.

Anthony Martial looks half-frozen as he wanders to the dressing room from the training pitches, with a hoodie covering almost the entirety of his face, but Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and others seem much happier. We are visiting United on the back of nine wins in 10 games – games in which Herrera has excelled.

The Basque’s battling qualities in the heart of the Red Devils’ midfield have endeared him to United supporters ever since the schemer arrived at Old Trafford, although constantly being in the thick of the action can occasionally bring unwanted consequences.

“Don’t ask me to smile too much,” he politely asks our photographer as he poses for pictures, citing an injury around his lip he sustained from an unintentional elbow during a Europa League match with United. “It was about three years ago, against Midtjylland,” he explains.

Soon, Herrera is covering his mouth altogether, as FFT asks him to do a three-part ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ series of poses, also covering both eyes and ears as he replicates the images that accompany the famous proverb.

Herrera is a perfectly pleasant guy off the field – in fact, he’s one of the friendliest interviewees we’ve met for some time – but during matches a competitive, sometimes mischievous streak emerges. Possessing an insatiable desire to win, he’s the United player most willing to mix it and add needle to key games, antagonising opponents. He’s become a man opposition supporters love to hate – much to his delight.

“I love it!” he says, laughing. “To be honest, I would be very worried if opposition fans loved me. If they hate me, I think I’m doing things well. In terms of football, it means I don’t make it easy for them.

“As long as my fans are backing me, I love it. You try to win – always within the rules, but you try to win. When the game is over, it’s finished. During the game, you try to win.”

The ire that is directed at Herrera by opposition fans has just made the Manchester United supporters love him even more.

“I could never have imagined I was going to receive so much love from the United fans,” he admits. “I’ll never be able to give back everything they do for me, and the only way I can come close is to give everything every time I represent the club. When I signed for United, I realised very quickly that as long as you do that – as long as you die on the pitch for the club and the badge – the fans will forgive you if you make mistakes. That is something really different, as this is a club that has won a lot of trophies and some of the best players in history have played here. But the supporters still forgive you if you make a mistake, as long as you give everything. That’s amazing.”

Herrera has always understood the importance of a good attitude. It is something he learned from his dad, Pedro Maria, who was once a pro himself with Real Zaragoza and Celta Vigo before being advised to retire through injury, just seven days before Ander was born.

Herrera Snr began work as general manager at Celta before taking up a similar role at Zaragoza, moving his family with him. Ander became an ardent Zaragoza supporter and joined the club’s youth system, listening carefully to his father’s advice – as he still does today.

“He’s been a massive influence on me, in the difficult moments of my career and also the good ones,” says Herrera. “When I was 14 or 15 and in the Zaragoza academy, a lot of my team-mates began to get agents, speaking about brands or sponsors – Adidas, Nike or whatever. My dad told me, ‘You don’t need an agent right now – you just need to study, play football and enjoy what you’re doing.’

“He always kept my feet on the floor, so I didn’t go crazy with all the temptations that football gives you. Agents come when you’re 14 or 15 and try to put it in your head that you’re already the new Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. My dad was right, because I didn’t have an agent, but at the end of my time in the academy, when I was 18 or 19, I was on the best contract of my generation.”

Not that he received any special treatment because his dad worked for the club – in fact, so keen was his father to avoid talk of nepotism, Ander had to prove himself even more than his academy team-mates did.

“I GOT A FEW PUNCHES In LA LIGA. BUT THEY HELPED ME TO LEARN A LOT FOR MY FUTURE”

“That’s true, for sure, although I took it in the right way,” Herrera tells FFT. “I knew I had to show more than others.

“I’m going to tell you something,” he adds. “When I made my debut in the first team, I had been playing in the second team and was the 16th player to go and train with the first team. There were 15 players before me who went to train with the first team, and I know why. My dad was stopping me, because there was more pressure for him, because he was working for the club.

“To be honest, it has been more difficult for me, but I think it’s helped me to become stronger and more responsible. I’ve always been able to put into perspective what people say about me, and I’ve always taken criticism in a very relaxed way – like it’s funny, on some occasions. It was more difficult for me, but now I feel the love of all the fans in Zaragoza. So I think I did things right.”

Ander helped Zaragoza to seal promotion to La Liga in his first season, but he faced a steep learning curve as soon as he reached the top tier, with Los Malos losing 6-1 at Barcelona and 6-0 at Real Madrid.

“Both games were in the first half of the season, and they were tough,” he admits. “Xavi and Andres Iniesta were probably in the best moments of their careers, so facing them wasn’t easy. Those two losses made me learn a lot. They make you stronger than going into the top flight for the first time and beating Barça and Madrid – maybe then you’d be wrong about what you think you’re going to face.”

“I think I got a few punches – punches, you say?” he asks, pretending to hit himself in the face, to check he has used the right word in English. “But they helped me a lot for my future.”

Four years later, Ander was ready to defeat Xavi and Iniesta, as Athletic beat Barcelona 1-0 in December 2013. A significant part of his personal improvement was down to Marcelo Bielsa (below), who coached Herrera for two seasons at San Mames and who has long provoked fascination in the football world, such is his unorthodox style. “They would be even more fascinated if they met him,” reveals the midfielder. “He’s the most original person I’ve ever met in football.”

With Bielsa now in charge of Leeds, the pair met up earlier this season to catch up on old times. Herrera still avidly watches his former coach’s press conferences online – particularly the one that followed the Derby spy scandal. On that occasion, Bielsa gave an hour-long presentation on his exhaustive match analysis methods, insisting he had no need to spy to gain an advantage, despite admitting he did send someone to watch a Rams training session.

“I laughed a lot, with all those stories about the spying,” says Herrera. “I watched his press conference, and he was right with what he said. He doesn’t need to spy on teams, because I could say that he and his team overwork, even. Of all the people I’ve worked with, he’s the person who has worked the most. I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s obsessed. He believes the more he works, the closer to the victory he’ll get.

“The football he wants his teams to play is amazing – always attacking football. He used to tell us that the best way to defend a result is just to score more goals – and also to never use the referee in a bad way. The referee is a weapon that you have to use in the correct way. You should never try to take advantage of the referee, or cheat. Bielsa should be in football always. He’s good for the sport.”

Is Bielsa’s nickname accurate? “El Loco? I think it should be stronger, but there’s not the right word to name him!” laughs Herrera.

“The analysis he used to do after games is the thing that really stands out for me. All the players used to go into a meeting room to watch the 90 minutes again. Imagine how tough that is, as you’ve already played the game, and after the game all the players think about it a lot, so you are already killing your mind – then the following day, you all watch the game together in a room with him.

“He’d have a laser that he would point at a player when he wanted to say something to him, though never in an aggressive way because he’s a good man and doesn’t ever want to hurt you. One time, he said to me, ‘You didn’t show yourself to receive the ball, because you’d lost the ball five minutes before that and you were scared to lose it again.’ You’d be thinking, ‘F**king hell, I was thinking exactly that’. Bielsa can go into the brain of the player to know what they were thinking.

“Bielsa is a genius. I will always be thankful to him, and to football for putting me in the same place as him.”

The midfielder’s fondness for Bielsa does present a dilemma, however: Manchester United and Leeds United aren’t the best of friends, so does he want to see Leeds back in the Premier League or not?

“To be honest, I don’t want to name Leeds but I want him to coach in the Premier League,” says Herrera. “I don’t care which team. I want to see Marcelo Bielsa in the Premier League.” He states Bielsa’s name very slowly with elaborate Spanish pronunciation on this occasion, to help emphasise his point.

Herrera can identify with Bielsa’s infatuation with the game. He, too, has long been obsessed, if not quite on the same extraordinary scale. He’d regularly watch matches from as far afield as Brazil and Argentina, and hc laos cskpwoisk en fr of mat doe psi re to play for Boca Juniors .“I have a lot of affection fpolernthtyeomf ,s”phaecerelveeftals. “My dad often went to Argentina to watch players, afonrdt haet aclhwaamys pi boo nusght me the new Boca kit .”

Herrera is keen to prevent his obsession with the game from becoming dw eat sri kmey en tot acl,htih leo aungh. While determined to work relentlessly for success, hg leorkynaotwts heh elans et etwdso to enjoy things more .“In the last couple of years I’ve rceolpaaxes da male it r tic leab to it, because it was getting mad ,” he admits.

be“ciod mo en’ at en najtoioynt ah le victories much, and I should do. Togo on the run of w he inros;tbhu at th weew’ va es nd’ ot ne recently–I should enjoy it much more than I do. Banutair chaent’yt,pbael cpaepuse I’m already thinking about the next game.

pla“iy’ ellrp;“ro so bawbhlyoskei ck myself for that in the future, but I’m always thinking arobuonudt itshiet nextt?”game, and the next, and the next – the responsibility to win a game, the responsibility to represent this football club, and what the fans always expect from us.

“I read an interview with Javier Mascherano, and he used to think the same: that he didn’t enjoy football. I can’t say that I don’t enjoy football, because I’m the luckiest man in the world to be at Manchester United. But if you had told me when I was six or seven years old, ‘You’re going to go on a run of nine or 10 victories with Manchester United’, I would have imagined having a huge party, enjoying it a lot and having an amazing moment. But I’m not. I’m happy with my performance, but not 100 per cent happy because I’m already thinking about the next game, and the next game, and the next game.”

Herrera quickly adapted his game after moving to England from Spain in 2014. “I was a No.10, but when you play for one of the best 10 clubs in the world, you have to score 10 or 15 goals if you play there,” he says. “That’s not one of my greatest qualities. I couldn’t have been a No.10 for five years at United if I didn’t score 10 or 15 goals. So, I added the other side to my game: fighting, ball recovery, moving the ball and being ready to win it back if we lose possession.

“I think it’s worked amazingly for me.”

“I WANT TO SEE BIELSA In THE PREMIER LEAGUE, and I DON’T CARE WHICH TEAM”

Never was that illustrated better than when United hosted Chelsea in April 2017. Eden Hazard had led the Londoners to the verge of the title, so Jose Mourinho asked Herrera to man-mark the Belgian. Not only did he stop Hazard, but he set up Marcus Rashford’s early opener and then scored the second himself in a 2-0 win.

Herrera learned the lessons from a 1-0 FA Cup quarter-final defeat at Stamford Bridge a month earlier, when he was sent off for two tackles on Hazard, and he would be asked to fulfil the role again in last season’s FA Cup final. Having taken to the position with a tigerish determination, did he actually quite enjoy it?

“No, you can never enjoy it,” he insists. “Of course, if you win then you enjoy it after the game, but during the game you have no time to enjoy it, because you’re marking one of the best players in the world. Hazard is the best player I’ve played against in this country.

“It was difficult, but we won at Old Trafford and also deserved to win the FA Cup final, but didn’t. Apart from the penalty, Hazard didn’t touch the ball too many times. But we didn’t win. That’s football.”

Hazard could have been forgiven for developing a distaste for Herrera, increasing every time the pair met, but the Spaniard says that’s not the case. “No, he’s a very nice guy and he just accepts it,” he reveals. “When you’re one of the best footballers in the world, you have to accept that sometimes you’re going to have a friend next to you!”

The Old Trafford thwarting of Hazard came in the campaign for which Herrera was named Manchester United fans’ player of the year, breaking up David de Gea’s four wins in five seasons, and it culminated in Europa League glory in Sweden. He doesn’t have to think too hard when asked to pick the highlight of his Red Devils career so far.

“The trophies – always the trophies are special,” he says. “Stockholm is probably the most special moment because I had a very good season, winning player of the year, and I was the man of the match in the final, which was really nice.”

Immediately after the game, Herrera dedicated the triumph to those affected by the Manchester Arena bombing two days earlier. “Some of the victims were probably United supporters, so we did it for them,” he explains. “The best way to give something back to them was with that trophy, even though it was very, very small in comparison with the pain the families were feeling.”

Herrera has produced some of the best form of his United career since the December arrival of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (below). He’s been hugely impressed by the Norwegian boss, although he wants to set one thing straight before outlining the reasons why.

“First of all, I want to make it clear that I’m not making comparisons,” he insists, “because I’m very thankful to Jose Mourinho for what he did for me and for the club. Now I’m going to talk about Ole, but it doesn’t mean that I’m comparing him, OK?”

That point established, Herrera adds, “Ole has a quality that is really difficult to have in football, which is to have the affection of all the players – the players who play and the ones who don’t play as much. I don’t know how he did it, but he had that click with the players who can change games. He’s clicked with Anthony Martial, with Marcus Rashford, with Paul Pogba, with Jesse Lingard.

“He’s very close to the players, but he also knows that sometimes he needs to stay away and not give too much information to the players day by day. He leaves that to Michael Carrick and Kieran Mckenna. They do more day-to-day tactical preparation. But Ole has the ability that when he speaks, everybody listens, because he is saying something important – something that can help the team to win a match. He’s not interfering every single minute and that’s a quality as well. Every time he speaks before and during a game, you really listen to him because he doesn’t always give you information.”

In theory, would he be happy for Solskjaer to stay beyond the end of this season? “It’s not my business and I must respect the decisions of the people that work for the club,” he says, after pausing to ponder his response carefully. “All I can say is if I was sporting director of a club tomorrow, I would sign Ole. But I repeat, I respect the people that take decisions at the club and I’m not going to say what they should do.”

And what of Mourinho? No one doubts the respect he still holds for his former manager, but why did things go awry for United in the first half of this season? “To be honest, I don’t want to speak about it right now,” replies Herrera. “I understand why you’re asking me, but everything that is looking to the past doesn’t help. The only thing I can say is thank you to him because he improved me as a player.

“He did everything for the club to try to win. Actually, the first season was very successful. In the second season we lost the FA Cup final and finished 2nd, so maybe if we had won that final, we could have said that season was successful, too. But we didn’t win, even though we deserved to. And the third season, I prefer to not talk about. I prefer to look ahead and have the best memories from Mourinho. I’ve a lot to thank him for: I became player of the year under him. He did good things for me. I have a good relationship with him and, of course, I spoke to him when he left. He texted me a very nice message – something private between me and him. I have so much respect for him.”

Although there have been occasions during Herrera’s five seasons at Old Trafford when he hasn’t always been a regular starter, he has never considered going elsewhere.

“No, no,” he states with emphasis. “As soon as the club wanted me to stay, I was going to fight for my place. Only some players have a perfect career – you can’t bench Messi, Ronaldo or Eric Cantona. Some players you can’t put on the bench even if they’re not in their best moment, as they can win the match for you. The rest of the human players, like me, have good and bad periods and you have to accept them naturally. The only thing you can do to change things is work every day.”

Manchester United fans have often described Herrera as a future club captain, and it’s been easy to see why during this interview, such is the Spaniard’s focus, intelligence and assertiveness. Not content to just find an acceptable answer to the questions being asked, he has often been keen to make a point of his own as well. Not many players are like that. The ones who are usually make good captains, and good managers, too. When FFT makes that point to the 29-year-old, however, he responds in surprisingly definitive fashion.

“I will not be a coach,” he insists. “Things would have to change a lot in my mind. I think it’s the most unfair profession in the world. Even if you have a big salary, I don’t care! I think it’s very, very unfair that you work a lot, you give your best, you work on tactics, you spend time thinking about the opponents... and then your star striker heads the ball against the post, the ball doesn’t quite go in and maybe the club sack you afterwards. That’s why I don’t want to be a coach.

“It’s a tough profession, with so much pressure. When you win it’s because of the players, but when you lose it’s your fault. I don’t think it’s my place.”

If he sticks to that stance, it will be football’s loss. Few players are able to articulate their understanding of the game so well. Add the Spaniard to the list of deep-thinking disciples of Marcelo Bielsa.

Right now, Herrera is a player in the prime of his career, and fully focused on the task in hand under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. With youthful looks and a ruthless streak on the field, the midfielder has become the Baby-faced Assassin’s Baby-faced Assassin. Adored by the Stretford End, Herrera may never have played at Old Trafford in his entire life, had injury stopped him on that

morning in 2012. Sometimes, it really is fate.

“I DON’T ENJOY THE VICTORIES MUCH. I SHOULD DO. BUT I AM THINKING ABOUT NEXT WEEK”