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from Breakingviews:

Man Utd about to discover Fergie’s true worth

By Peter Thal Larsen

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Alex Ferguson’s retirement should worry Manchester United’s fans and investors as much as it delights long-suffering rivals. His triumphant 26-year reign has gone hand-in-hand with the soccer club’s equally impressive financial rise. Ferguson’s departure will reveal how much of that value depends on the manager.

Plaudits for the 71-year-old will rightly focus on his triumphs on the pitch. In his 26 seasons in charge, Manchester United won an astonishing 13 English Premier League titles, five English FA Cups and twice claimed Europe’s Champions League.

Yet Ferguson’s tenure also coincided with British soccer’s emergence as a global sport, with Manchester United as its chief beneficiary. He has seen the club float on the stock market twice - in London in 1991 and in New York last year. In between, a takeover by Rupert Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting was blocked by UK competition authorities, and Manchester United succumbed to a leveraged buyout by U.S. financier Malcolm Glazer.

from Left field:

Cristiano Ronaldo graceful in controversial Real Madrid triumph over Manchester United

Manchester United fans, players and manager Alex Ferguson will no doubt be fuming for a few more days about the controversial nature of their Champions League defeat by Real Madrid before the club’s attention turns to Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Chelsea at Old Trafford.

But even the referee’s decision to send off Nani when a booking seemed sufficient could not overshadow the graceful manner in which Cristiano Ronaldo handled the occasion of knocking out his former club at a ground where he is apparently still adored.

from Left field:

Is Chicharito the new Solskjaer?

Former Manchester United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said recently it was his dream to take over as manager at Old Trafford one day and if he fulfills it in the foreseeable future, the 39-year old Norwegian could coach a lethal finisher that is almost a carbon copy of himself from his playing days.

Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez made an immediate impact after joining United in the summer of 2010, helping the club to their 19th league title with more than just a few vital goals.

from Left field:

United’s problems will not go away

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson rued what he called an unfortunate 3-2 defeat by Tottenham, United’s first to the North London side at Old Trafford since 1989, but the truth is that you can only ride your luck for so long.

Fortuitous wins against Southampton, Fulham, Galatasaray in their Champions League opener and especially at Liverpool, coupled with the opening day defeat at Everton, should have warned Ferguson that United’s relatively good start to the season belied their obvious weaknesses so effectively exposed by Spurs.

from Breakingviews:

Man Utd counts on investors behaving like fanatics

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Manchester United is counting on investors to behave like soccer fanatics. The English club’s committed supporters expect nothing short of greatness, an ethos that carries through to Man Utd’s initial public offering. Though devotees of the Red Devils are rarely disappointed, buyers of the stock at the mooted price probably will be.

from Breakingviews:

Man U’s New York listing crowns race to the bottom

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
If Manchester United kicks off its public stock offering in New York this year, it will probably be touted as a triumph for U.S. capital markets. This is, after all, England’s top soccer team, and of all the listing venues the club could have chosen, not least London’s, it looks like Man U is coming to America.

But this apparent financial score isn’t worth cheering like an extra-time win. While U.S. exchanges dwarf the competition in raising capital this year, there’s a dark side to this distinction that investors should heed. Man U won’t be choosing New York because Americans are gaga for the sport. Just 1 percent of respondents in a recent Harris Interactive poll called soccer their favorite sport. Rather, the Glazer family, which also owns the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will be taking advantage of the leeway America’s listing standards offer companies to practice poor corporate governance.

from Breakingviews:

Man Utd’s IPO transfer keeps owners in control

By Quentin Webb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Manchester United’s IPO transfer will keep the Glazer family firmly in control. For months, the owners of the English soccer club had sought a $1 billion initial public offering in Singapore. Now the plan has switched to a U.S. listing, reports IFR. New York doesn’t seem like the natural venue for a soccer share sale. But it’s plausible the deal will still fly, and the lop-sided governance in plan A remains.

from Left field:

Chelsea vanquish Moscow ghosts

Some things are meant to be, others are not.

Frank Lampard said he never doubted Chelsea would win the penalty shootout against Bayern Munich in Saturday's enthralling 2012 Champions League final, although they trailed in the spot kicks after Juan Mata’s early miss, while the hero of their astonishing victory Didier Drogba firmly believes it was Chelsea’s destiny to cover themselves in glory.

And rightly so one might add, having suffered an exact reverse four years ago on a rainy night in Moscow, which ended in agony for Chelsea after they were ahead in the penalty shootout against Manchester United only to see the elusive trophy snatched away by their Premier League rivals after John Terry’s barely believable miss.

from Left field:

Has Alex Ferguson lost his edge?

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said in the run-up to his team’s 1-0 defeat by Manchester City that playing for a draw in the derby with so much at stake would be inviting trouble and he did exactly that with a cagey and defensive 4-5-1 formation lacking any sort of guile, creativity and bite.

If it was a last-gasp attempt by the wily and trophy-laden 70-year old Scot to outfox his Italian counterpart Roberto Mancini, it backfired spectacularly as United were second best throughout the contest and were lucky not to have lost by a bigger margin.

Still refusing to accept that his team are in the driving seat to win the title after overhauling an eight-point deficit to go top on goal difference with two games left, Mancini appears to have unnerved Ferguson with his pre-game rhetoric just as he emphatically won their tactical battle on the pitch.

from Left field:

City v United is fitting climax to Premier League title race

Three weeks ago it seemed the Manchester derby would be little more than a dead rubber after City’s 1-0 defeat at Arsenal left champions United eight points clear at the top, in a commanding position to clinch their 20th league title and their fifth in the last six seasons.

But a rollercoaster Premier League title race produced yet another twist after United’s 1-0 loss at lowly Wigan, followed by a rip-roaring 4-4 home draw with Everton in which they threw away a two-goal lead late in the game, let City back into the title race after they had squandered a seven-point lead over United with their own dip in form.