Eighteen years ago one of the greatest English footballers ever died: when United released him he stood in the stands and didn’t move. He had to tell an attendant an hour later that the game was over
Drinking and dribbling start the same way; he had never thought about it, and yet no one played them better than him, sometimes at very, very close range; but he had never shown up drunk to a training session; almost never, let’s say, because there is a story of an occasion in which he seems to have been quite drunk before starting to frolic at the “Cliff”; then after the warm-up the practice match started and he scored three goals.