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" In the coming days, there will be plenty of rightful celebration over Sir Alex Ferguson&amp;#039;s successes. The longtime Manchester United manager, who announced today that he&amp;#039;ll retire at the end of this season (the championship of which United has already technically won), was the best soccer manager in history. He won England&amp;#039;s Premier League 13 times in 21 seasons (to translate that into American sports terms, Phil Jackson would have to, impossibly, win two titles in a future single season to tie that rate). The next closest has won it thrice. There are plenty of other accolades, too: Premier League manager of the season ten times; champion of the world&amp;#039;s most stacked sports tournament, the Champions League, twice; a record of his team scoring twice as often as those playing against them; a damn knighthood. And so the chants of &amp;quot;Ferguson&amp;#039;s Red Army!&amp;quot; echoing from the stands in his final two games will boom especially loudly. One would expect there&amp;#039;s already been tears.  But it will not only be fans of Manchester United who will miss Sir Alex. What with his prodigious gum-chewing (the Guardian estimated he went through 14,980 sticks of gum through all of his games). And, most importantly for everyone else, his red-faced rage. For those who loathed United and Alex and their greatness, there was nothing more enjoyable when playing the Red Devils \u2014 aside from victory itself \u2014 than watching a frustrated Ferguson scream and wave his hands at referees, cursing in his Scottish brogue. During his career, he implied that referees were too out of shape to officiate a match, saying that one penalized players because he &amp;quot;needed a rest&amp;quot; (which got him fined and briefly suspended). He cursed out reporters for asking him a question about an unruly player; &amp;quot;You [fking] know the rules here,&amp;quot; he said. He rationalized screaming at one ref by saying, &amp;quot;They&amp;quot; \u2014 the referees \u2014 &amp;quot;don&amp;#039;t like the truth.&amp;quot; (Another fine and suspension.) Ten years ago, he got into a locker room kerfuffle with David Beckham, kicked some cleats at the man, and in doing so, cut Beckham&amp;#039;s face.      There was also the time when he accidentally spat out his gum mid-tirade. And those happened just over this past year.  In the long run, none of this should or will overshadow Sir Alex&amp;#039;s actual managerial virtuosity and dominance. In fact, the joy found in watching Ferguson&amp;#039;s frustration only underscores how great he is. Because the reason those moments are so enjoyable was because they were so rare, because Sir Alex has been so great. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/news/a22537/sir-alex-ferguson-retires/>