divimg alt=”" src=”http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/26012?ns=guardianpageName=Football%3A+Make+mine+a+pintch=Footballc3=The+Observerc4=Premier+League+%28Football%29%2CManchester+United+%28Football%29%2CSport+interviews%2CObserver%2CFootballc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CPremier+Leaguec6=Jamie+Jacksonc7=2008_11_16c8=1118646c9=articlec10=GUc11=Footballc12=Premier+Leaguec13=c14=h2=GU%2FFootball%2FPremier+League” width=”1″ height=”1″ //divpIt was the best game of the season so far, but a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/manchesterunited”Manchester United/a lost it and Rio Ferdinand was feeling despondent when he was driven away from the Emirates Stadium last weekend. It had been his 30th birthday the day before the game and he should have been feeling better than this. He fancied a drink./pp’We’d got beat. And when you lose - we lost in training today and I’m depressed - but when you lose against Arsenal it’s not the best feeling, it does your head in. I was going back to meet my family in a hotel for my birthday. It was meant to be a really happy time. So I thought before I go back maybe I’ll go and have a couple of drinks in a pub. So I told the driver to stop off at some London pub. And he was like, “No, I can’t let you can’t go in there.” I had my Man United tracksuit on in a West Ham area. I said, “Nah, just drop me off, leave me. Stop the car.” So he did, and I went in. And to be honest everyone was looking. I could see people going, “What’s he doing in here?”/pp’I ended up having a couple of drinks, three packets of crisps and sat in the corner watching the football results coming in on the TV. Then I got up and went home. Players do do normal things. People think we don’t, but we do.’/ppWhen Observer Sport catches up with him at Old Trafford after that training defeat on Thursday, Ferdinand is talking to a group of teenagers in his role as an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust. The central defender is playing his part in Youth Week, an initiative that aims to change the public perception of young people./ppAccording to the charity, 60 per cent of the media’s coverage of young people is negative. Ferdinand, who has had his share of challenging press during his career, including the furore over his nine-month ban for missing a drugs test, will not be surprised to hear that. He talks to the youngsters, all of whom have been excluded from local schools, with ease, more relaxed than he ever can be when speaking publicly./ppOne teenager wants to know how it feels being the world’s most expensive defender. ‘It’s all right. People say about the pressure of costing pound;30million, but I never ever think about it. I’m always focusing on what I want to win next. There is always something to be done.’/ppNext on the agenda is England’s visit to Berlin for the friendly against Germany on Wednesday, when he will partner John Terry in central defence if Fabio Capello fields his strongest team./pp’Results breed confidence. We had a good game against Belarus, where I thought we played quite well,’ he says of the 3-1 victory in Minsk last month - missed by Terry - that has given Capello’s team a flying four-from-four start to qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. ‘And especially with the manager, he’s very keen for us to continue.’/ppManchester United’s form has been less impressive than England’s. Ferdinand’s club have dropped points in successive Champions League matches and have points to make up in the Premier League after losing two of their three matches so far against fellow members of the Big Four, at Liverpool and Arsenal. They are defending champions in both competitions, but they will need to improve if they are to retain either or both of those titles./pp’Last season we were also defending champions [in the Premier League] and managed to retain it so it’d be nice to do the same,’ Ferdinand says. United are the only team to have won the Premier League three seasons running, at the turn of the millennium. Can they do it again?/pp’We’ve been there before,’ he says, despite that pound;30m move from Leeds not being until 2002, a year after the hat-trick was completed. ‘It’s a hard task, but we know what it’s all about. Up to now it’s not gone as well as we’d have liked, there have been a few indifferent results, we’ve dropped points. We need to go on a big run now to put us back in contention so that after the Christmas, when the nitty-gritty gets started, we’re in a good position.’ Yesterday’s 5-0 win at home to Stoke, in which Ferdinand did not feature, was a fine start./ppFerdinand is not convinced about the challenge from Liverpool, who have been neck and neck with Chelsea and went three points clear before the Blues’ match at West Brom last night. ‘It’s early days. Liverpool have started well in a number of different seasons so we just have to wait and see to see if they’re going to be a team that will be there or thereabouts at the end. Good luck to them, they’re definitely playing good stuff at the moment and getting the results. But I’m more concentrated on what we’re doing.’/ppWhat of the campaign to defend the Champions League, which United won so memorably on penalties against Chelsea in Moscow in May?/pp’We should have won against Villarreal and Celtic, but we’ve more or less qualified,’ he says, with only one more point needed to progress. There are those who feel the competition has become too predictable through the group stages. ‘Nah, Champions League nights are different, there is an unbelievable atmosphere, and you have to win the games to qualify so there’s no way you take the foot off the gas.’/ppOn Wednesday United defeated QPR in the Carling Cup, so the quadruple, never achieved, is still a possibility. ‘I don’t like talking about stuff like that. Yes, it can be done, because there’s four trophies, but it’s not happened yet. It’s obviously the hardest thing ever to do. If you were to achieve that, you’d go down in history. It’d be a great achievement, but I’m not greedy.’/ppFerdinand’s desire to win means he still rues the ones that slipped by, including the defeat to Portsmouth at Old Trafford last season in the sixth round of the FA Cup, when Ferdinand was forced into goal after Tomasz Kuszczak was sent off. ‘That game was weird, we had so many chances. A few of us sat down after and said the Treble could’ve been on. But it’s all ifs, buts and maybes.’/ppAsked by one of the teenagers from the Prince’s Trust about playing in different positions, Ferdinand mentions his experience during that Cup tie and nominates goalkeeping as the most isolated role on the field. ‘I went in goal against Portsmouth, and it was a lonely place to be. You’re by yourself and the ball’s at the other end and you’re waiting for it to come up to your end. There’s thousands of people behind you screaming and shouting.’/ppFerdinand’s manager, as the possessor of the infamous hairdryer, certainly knows all about what a good yell can do. Before the game at Celtic earlier this month, though, Ferguson decided on silence when he informed Sky TV they were banned from interviewing him because he was unhappy at the criticism of Wayne Rooney by their pundits, Paul Merson and Phil Thompson. This was followed a few days later by Roy Keane agreeing with his former manager and saying he would not ‘trust these people to walk my dog’./ppDespite the recent slip-up that gave Hull a penalty in United’s awkward 4-3 victory at Old Trafford, Ferdinand’s form during the past year or so has been excellent enough for him to avoid criticism from the so-called experts in the media. But what does he think of pundits? After a pause he says: ‘I don’t know, it depends. A lot of people you hear on TV who have influence on the general public - half have never kicked a ball in their life./pp’You wonder how did they get into that position. But personally it doesn’t bother me when I look in the paper and see if I’ve been given four out of 10.’/ppDo the ex-players who become pundits forget too quickly what it was like to be on the other side? ‘I could hammer so many,’ he says with a wry smile. ‘Some ex-footballers on television, when you look back on their own CVs as players, they’re not nearly as good as the ones they’re criticising.’/ppFerdinand, whose father is from St Lucia and whose mother is Anglo-Irish, is one of many mixed-race players now featuring in the Premier League. And he has only praise for the man from a similar racial background who has just become President of the United States, Barack Obama. ‘The way he’s conducted himself, he would’ve got my vote. Some of the statements and improvements he says that he’s going to change from the previous government, like taking people out of Iraq, it’s a big challenge. But if he does it he’s obviously the right man for the job.’/ppFerdinand’s time with the kids from the Trust ends in them drawing some interesting responses from him. Have you, one wonders, always supported United? ‘No,’ he begins, to laughter. ‘When I was at Leeds, they were always winning so I thought, “I hate that club.” Obviously, when I signed here, from day one, it changed. When I had the media presentation I thought, “Whoa! I dreamed about this for years, to sign for one of the biggest clubs in the world”.’/ppAnother kid asks if Ferdinand considers his Manchester United team-mates to be friends. ‘They’re your mates at work,’ he says. ‘If you didn’t feel comfortable with them that’d be no good. There’s a good dressing room at United, we’re a real family club.’/ppFinally, Frankie, a 16-year-old who joins the army in eight weeks’ time, offers a statement rather than a question. ‘My mum,’ he informs Ferdinand, ‘told me to tell you she thinks you’re fit!’/ppFerdinand blushes and the room roars with laughter. ‘That’s a new one!’ he says. ‘Well, I think that really is about the end now, isn’t it?’ And the teenagers are sent home, more than happy./pdiv style=”float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;”ullia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/premierleague”Premier League/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/manchesterunited”Manchester United/a/lilia href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/sportinterviews”Sport interviews/a/li/ul/diva href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk”guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href=”http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html”Terms Conditions/a | a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html”More Feeds/a
Original post by Jamie Jackson