Former Manchester United favourite Park Ji-Sung has opened up on the ‘completely different’ side he saw to Sir Alex Ferguson during his time at Old Trafford.
Tales of Sir Alex’s fearsome nature, no-nonsense management style and the infamous ‘hairdryer’ treatment are part of English football folklore, but Park insists that this image couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Sir Alex Ferguson had a completely different image to what I saw in the media”, the former South Korea international tells FourFourTwo. “He was kind and a very warm person. He talked to me as though I was part of his family. If somebody had a struggle, on or off the pitch, he would go to players and his door was always open.
“When I joined Manchester United my English wasn’t good enough to talk to others, but he’d encourage me and tell me I was doing well, to keep doing what I was doing. At the right times, he’d check to make sure I was settling in fine. That had a big impact on me.”
Park also details the role Ferguson played in helping him recover mentally from a serious knee injury at the end of the 2006-07 season.
"At the end of my second season, I had an operation on my knee and missed nine or 10 months,” Park continued. “I was very depressed and wasn’t sure if I could come back, but he came to see me and said he was still thinking about me, that I was an important player at the club and that I’d return stronger than before. It touched my heart.
Ferguson’s ruthless side was on display when he left Park out of the squad for the Champions League final, but again, Park reveals the human side that his manager showed him.
“When we won the 2008 Champions League Final against Chelsea in Russia, he didn’t pick me in the squad – we had a personal meeting on the day of the match and he explained why I’d been left out. After the game, he apologised to me – even now when I meet him, he still apologises about that particular decision.
“My role naturally adapted during my time playing under him, as he got to know my strengths. One of my most famous roles was being asked to man-mark Andrea Pirlo against Milan in 2010 – we chatted before the match and he gave me a specific goal to stop Pirlo whenever we didn’t have the ball. When a manager places trust in you to perform a job like that, you want to show him he’s right.”
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