The biggest mistake of Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United premiership will always be challenging John Magnier and JP McManus over the Rock of Gibraltar racehorse's stud rights. His second has to be failing to make a phone call to Pep Guardiola.
Ferguson met Guardiola in New York during the September international break in 2012 and informed Guardiola he was United's real chosen one long before that banner was pinned to the Stretford End. Ferguson told Guardiola to contact him whenever he considered any serious managerial offer. Ferguson should have called him.
"I asked Pep to phone me before he accepted an offer from another club but he didn't and wound up joining Bayern Munich in July 2013," Ferguson wrote in his 2015 book Leading.
It was in December of 2012 that Ferguson decided he would retire at the campaign's conclusion and his error was Guardiola was not his next port of call after he broke the news to his wife, Cathy. In January, Bayern announced Guardiola would replace Jupp Heynckes in the summer of 2013.
Manchester City's long-term Pep project began in 2012. Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain - Guardiola's allies at Barcelona - arrived at the club in September and October and City first touched base with Guardiola about becoming their coach that year.
Perhaps Guardiola really had mapped out his career path back then and City were always his intended. Ferguson was latterly quick to concede defeat in a challenge for a prized asset, be it Karim Benzema, Mesut Ozil, Wesley Sneijder, Samir Nasri or Lucas Moura. The difference with Guardiola was he was unattached and attainable.
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Guardiola, the only opponent Ferguson never bested, would have been enticed by the prospect of managing Manchester's bigger club with the challenge of enhancing a squad that had punched above its weight with the 2013 title. The autonomy would have appealed to a self-isolated figure like Guardiola, spared the politicking that wore him down in Catalonia and then Bavaria, and the Premier League landscape was serene. Had United plumped for Guardiola or Jose Mourinho in that seminal summer six years ago they would almost certainly have retained the title.
Rather than appoint a manager who had won everything, United opted for one who had won nothing. "Life is such that the best of theories, or the best of intentions, sometimes don’t translate into practice," Ferguson added. "Believe me, the United board wanted nothing more than to select a manager who would be with the club for a long time." The United board? Ferguson forgets Avram Glazer's statement: "Alex was very clear with his recommendation and we are delighted that David has agreed to accept the job."
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In Ferguson's last book he implied David Moyes was the sixth-choice after Guardiola, Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Jurgen Klopp and Louis van Gaal. The inclusion of Van Gaal - a name absent from bookies' chalkboards for the next United manager until 2014 - was surprising.
“My English in that period was not as good as it is right now," Guardiola diplomatically recalled of the rendezvous with Ferguson at a press conference last season. "And so maybe I just didn't understand what Sir Alex said,” said Guardiola.
“We met in a magnificent restaurant for dinner and I think he has said he suggested to me something about going to Old Trafford. But I really don’t remember that! We spoke about life, about football, about the Premier League. But there was no message sent to me under the table about United. I think I would remember that!
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"It was just two friends, two colleagues in football, talking about many things. But what I do remember is that Sir Alex spoke really fast and it was difficult to understand him! But it was nice because he chose an amazing restaurant – and of course he paid!"
City's supremacy has been unwittingly abetted by Ferguson, the last English club manager to retain the title before Guardiola emulated him. Ferguson treated Guardiola to dinner following City's championship triumph in April of last year and the Catalan's goodwill message to Ferguson as he recovered from his brain haemorrhage was heartfelt. Sparing United supporters of the apocalypse of a Liverpool title might secure Guardiola another dinner date.
Ferguson was at Old Trafford on Sunday and supporters converged to greet him at full-time whereas others vainly booed in Ed Woodward's direction. Ferguson was accosted during the infamous 3-0 derby defeat in 2014 over anointing Moyes but appreciation and adoration for him grows with every underachieving year.
United have had ample time to atone for Ferguson's dormancy six years ago. In the summer Woodward settled on Van Gaal in 2014 he should have reached out to Guardiola as part of a long-term strategy and succession plan. By that stage, United had changed dramatically as a club, Ferguson was no longer the kingmaker and the Plc left the FC in its shadow.
But they dialled M for Moyes.
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