A man(ager) for all seasons

Though many football fans will rejoice at the impending retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, there will be plenty of those same fans who will have a tinge of regret.  I am one of them.  As contemptible and objectionable as he could be, especially with those mind games with the fragile Kevin Keegan (the only time Ferguson felt sorry for deploying such wind-ups), he has been part of the football furniture for as long as I've known football.  I would have liked to see him win a third European Cup, thereby matching Paisley - Liverpool fans would still carp that their cups were achieved in a shorter period but that was in a time when there were half the number of matches as there are in the current Champions League and by only playing the winners of national leagues (instead of the continental elite) the quality English sides faced in the 1980s could be very variable.  This was why Ferguson was so upset after being eliminated from the Champions League this season because he knew it would be his last.  This is why he talked up Rio Ferdinand never winning an FA Cup medal when he had not had the ultimate triumph in this compeition since 2004 (and over any top-flight opposition since 1999).  Apparently, by mid-February he was determined to retire at the end of the season and wanted a high, hence Man Utd slogging their guts out in a win over Everton a few days before their Champions League first leg at Read Madrid, thereby at least wrapping up the domestic league.  Had he prevailed over Madrid, there was a path where he could be playing the Champions League final against another retiring coach who has won his respective domestic league at a canter, Jupp Heynckes.
For me, Ferguson is simply the best manager these isles have ever produced and, allied to his work at Aberdeen (showing he could win at unfashionable clubs), he is in the top five in global history.  The veneration is so rarefied though it would appear to the uninformed observer that Ferguson has died.  By departing at the age of 71, he leaves at the same age as his fellow footballing knight, the late Sir Bobby Robson, when the latter was foolishly sacked by the Newcastle United hierarchy.  I just hope that Ferguson has many more years of life to enjoy retirement as one fears that such a ferocious workaholic could feel a little redundant without planning the challenge of a new season.
David Moyes was identified as a Mini-Me of Ferguson eleven years ago by a cheeky photoshopper in a Guardian gallery competition.  It has now become reality (or will very shortly).  Despite his only managerial acquaintance with silverware being a FA Cup loser's medal, I like the idea that Moyes is promoted to the top job in English club football, rather than going for a foreign import as the other big clubs do (of course, after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, he could well become foreign). He will get to compete in the Champions League proper for the first time and will have the kind of money to spend that Everton never had.  Good luck to Moyes (but not too much).  I just wonder how long before Moyes' performance prompts a return for Ferguson to sort out the 'mess', as Matt Busby had to do in his time (although that was part of the problem as well).  Moreover, will the new man at Everton continue Moyes' levitating trick with thrift.