As ManUtd.com's 'Goalkeeper Week' ends, we turn our
attention to defenders and talk to Rio Ferdinand
about the art of stopping goals…
Everyone loves to watch free-flowing football and see
great goals, but essentially your job is to destroy that
beauty…
I know everybody loves to watch players scoring goals but I equally
enjoy stopping them. For me, to make a good block or to keep a
clean sheet is as good as scoring a goal. It hasn’t always been
that way – when I was a kid I used to love scoring – but I’ve grown
into that and that’s what I enjoy now. As a centre-half you look at
the 'goals against' column before the 'goals for' column. I admit
there are times when I love to sit down and watch the beautiful
game and admire great goals, but not if they’re scored against
us!
What about when United concede a really great goal –
what percentage of you (if any) is admiring the
goal?
None. Certainly not at the time. If we go on to win the game then
maybe you can sit down afterwards and watch it back and talk about
its merits, but even then you’ll probably start dissecting it and
pulling apart the move to see what could have been done to prevent
it. Of course, there are times when you just have to hold your
hands up and admit there was nothing you could have done. I
remember playing Chelsea in 2005 and Tiago scoring a belter from
long-range that nobody would have saved. What can you do about
that? I guess you just have to make sure that next time you don’t
give somebody the space to take a shot in the first place.
Are you someone like Alan Hansen who looks at goals from
a defender’s point of view?
Always. Absolutely. The other day I watched back Chicharito's first
goal against Bolton, when he ran across the front post and poked
the ball in at the near post. But before he made that run he made
two other movements to shake off his defender. And when a striker
does that it’s incredibly hard to defend against. I think if I was
a coach then I’d put that goal on DVD and I wouldn’t even send my
team out to train – I’d just make them watch that goal because that
tells you all you need to know. I’d tell them to sit down and watch
because this is what you need to do when the ball goes out to wide
areas. It was absolutely brilliant.
How difficult is it to defend against good
movement?
You can defend against it if you’re on top of your game and
concentrating at a high level but it definitely makes your life
much harder as a defender. If a striker makes a forward movement
and you see it, you’re automatically going to take a step in the
same direction to combat that. But if he checks back again and you
lose him for a split second, he can get the time and space he needs
to punish you. If forwards run in straight lines and don’t try to
pull defenders all around the penalty area, then you start to get a
feel for where they’re going to be when the ball goes out wide to
the wingers. That makes it easy for you to defend against them. But
if the striker’s always moving and you’re not sure where he’s going
to move next – if he keeps you guessing – then it’s so much more
difficult. We’ve got players here now who do that – players like
Chicharito and Wayne Rooney, who’s bringing a lot more of that into
his game now. And Louis Saha used to be a master at it.
Do you think defenders who come up against Chicharito
are worried about him?
Yeah, for sure, because not a lot of strikers make the sorts of
runs he does. It’s physically demanding – you have to be really fit
to make those movements for 90 minutes. If I was a coach I’d be
telling every young striker that he should take note of how
Chicharito plays because that’s what you have to do if you want to
be a top player. It will certainly give you a head start.
Would you rather defend against a burly forward or a
forward like Chicharito?
I don’t really have a preference. Each sort of striker poses his
own threat. If you’ve got somebody who’s tall and strong in the
middle then he doesn’t have to move as much as somebody who’s
shorter because he’ll automatically have more chance of winning a
header and dominating a physical battle. But if you’re shorter then
you might have to check your run and make one or two extra
movements in order to get onto the end of a cross.
As a defender, how do you prepare to play against
different strikers?
Yeah, definitely. Before games you’ll watch videos and go through
possible scenarios in your head so you’re mentally prepared. I
wouldn’t prepare to play against somebody like Kevin Davies in the
same way as I would if I were coming up against Ian Wright or Andy
Cole.
You’ve talked about Diego Maradona being your football
inspiration, and being agog as a seven-year-old at the famous mazy
dribble he scored against England. What would you have done to stop
that one?
I don’t know if I would have been able to stop him. I think the
only way you could have prevented that goal was if you took him
out! But you’d have had to get close enough to him in the first
place…