Solskjaer, Giggs and Stam – United’s class of ’99 is struggling
At the end of May, a group of retired players from the most successful team of Manchester United’s history got together at Old Trafford to replay, for charity, the most famous night of their fabled Treble.
It was exactly 20 years on from the European Cup final they won 2-1, with late goals, against Bayern Munich, who sportingly dispatched their own veterans to take part.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the first goal in a comfortable 5-0 canter against Bayern’s assorted retirees, having accepted congratulations from old teammates as United manager, freshly promoted from caretaker.
After the game, Solskjaer remarked how authoritative Jaap Stam – still trim and imposing at 46 – looked in central defence for the United XI. Stam was accepting congratulations, too.
He was about to start work as manager of Feyenoord, the most prestigious job of his managerial career.
The reunion had a good turnout, although a few key figures from the 1999 squad were unavailable. Ryan Giggs sent his apologies.
He was busy managing his country, Wales, ahead of qualifiers for the 2020 European championship. Phil Neville was away readying the England women’s team for the imminent World Cup.
Neville and Giggs felt very much included, though, in the praise that Alex Ferguson, United’s 1999 manager, showered on his old boys. “It’s great,” he said, “to see how the lads have progressed in life.”
To see four members of that famous Ferguson squad graduate to major management jobs reflects well on the mentor. The Bayern of 1999 has not, by comparison, produced the same concentration of high-profile coaches.
Mind you, had United arranged a reunion of those involved in the dramatic semi-final of 1999, it would be a different story: the Juventus which United rallied to beat had Zinedine Zidane (three European Cups as coach), Didier Deschamps (a World Cup) and Antonio Conte (three Serie A titles and a Premier League) in their ranks.
Detecting a great-managerto-be in a player is a hazardous business. Among United’s 1999 heros, Gary Neville had only a brief, dispiriting spell at Valencia.
Roy Keane, bristling leader on the pitch, has not held a head coach’s job for almost a decade. Sustaining a promising start can be even harder as Solskjaer, Stam, Giggs and Phil Neville would testify.
This has been a testing autumn for all of them.
Feyenoord, who headhunted Stam from PEC Zwolle, sit ninth in the Dutch Eredivisie, a painful fall for the club who were champions two years ago. They lost 4-2 to Fortuna Sittard, who are in the relegation zone, in their last game.
United, who recruited Solskjaer from Molde in Norway, are 12th in Premier League, a steep drop even by the declining standards of the post-Ferguson period since 2013. They lost to Newcastle United, who had been in relegation zone, in their last match.
In the last week, Giggs’s Wales have taken a point each from two Euro 2020 qualifiers, insufficient to put them in pole position for an automatic spot at the finals.
With two fixtures remaining, Wales can still reach the European championships. But if they do not, Giggs will have fallen conspicuously short of the standards set by his predecessor, Chris Coleman, who led Wales to a first major tournament in 60 years at Euro 2016 and reached the semi-finals.
Phil Neville took England’s Women to the semi-finals of the World Cup. But the months since have been downbeat, with one win in six fixtures.
Stam and Solskjaer, meanwhile, confront the most highly charged fixtures on their calendars just when they seem most vulnerable.
Feyenoord go to Ajax in nine days’ time, to play out Dutch football’s most raucous rivalry on unusually mismatched terms. Ajax are top of the Eredivisie, Stam’s team barely in the top half.
And Solskjaer? On Sunday, just as on that reunion night in May, he will greet a set of European champions at Old Trafford. Only this time, Liverpool are the European Cup holders and sit 15 points clear of United, secure on their perch at the top.