Not really, I am afraid it was not as simplistic as he made it
out to be... And certainly more difficult than the last few EPL
seasons i would say... as they only won the title on the final day
beating Tottenham Hotspur 2 - 1. Tell me how many championships was
won on the final day easy? The pressure, the tension and the mental
strain from the last 2 months of the season certainly can't be
easier than when they won it with 6 points last season right.
Arsenal's 2004 title was won with 11 points from the 2nd placed
team, Chelsea even better, 12 points in 2005. These would more
probably qualify as easy wouldn't you agree as they didn't have any
pressure place on them week in week out towards the end of the
season... We have seen what these pressure done to teams...
Noticeably Chelsea, last season they were defending champions, they
won their title by 8 pts in the previous season, then spend another
$80m pounds on new players for last season but when place under
pressure for the first time, players as well as their coach
breakdown... Its not easy, sometime you can do it and sometimes you
can't.
The 1999 Premier League season was a very tense one, one Alex
Ferguson described as the hardest of the 3. They became the first
and only English team to win The Treble - the Premiership, FA Cup
and UEFA Champions League in the same season. And if it was so
easy, to date it has only been done once, they can't do it again
the following yrs with the same team, even the great Liverpool team
of the 70s and 80s couldn't manage it.
Their FA Cup win wasn't just about a Ryan Giggs wonder goal against
Arsenal in the semi-finals. They even had to play 2 replays and I
guess many are probably not aware that they went through their
qualifying matches playing most of the premiership big teams in the
form of Middlesbrough 3rd rd, Liverpool 4th rd, Fulham 5th rd,
Chelsea 6th Rd Home, Chelsea 6th Rd (Replay) Away, Semi-final
Arsenal, Semi-final Arsenal (Replay)... Only then do they meet
Newcastle United in the Final. So you can see it certainly wasn't
as easy as some would like to think...
Then the Champions League... I belief many just remember that they
beat Inter and Juventus along the way to the title but i guess many
have forgotten or are not aware that they were in a qualifying
group along with FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Brondby... and
only the top 2 would progress. And they made it through from that
"group of death" group.
The then Barce had players like Rivaldo and Luis Enrique... Juve
had World Cup winner Zinedine Zidane at the height of his game in
their ranks and also others like Filippo Inzaghi... So you can tell
it wasn't so simple coming through these matches.
Winning the Treble was never easy, Players don't get enough rest,
suspensions, miss players for important finals... They played their
CL final without their 2 central midfielders Scholes and Keane. But
they had to overcome all these. They played their last EPL match on
a Sunday, 6 days later they were playing in the FA Cup final... and
4 days later the Uefa Champions League Final... with not much rest
in between for the players like Schmeichel, Beckham, Giggs,
Johnsen, Yorke & Cole.
Dreaming is part of sports... If you don't dream, then you probably
have no ambition at all. Its not easy, it never is or was... and
probably not many will achieve it in a lifetime But i guess Fergie
didn't started out 1999 thinking he would be able to do it but as
the season went on... He probably started dreaming and I guess we
all can say his dreams did come true afterall in 1999.
