Rio: I Love To Defend

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…