Jury remains out after Franck exchange

IT WAS the eagerly-awaited Champions League quarter-final first leg between two old rivals, two bitter old feuding football nations, and two players, at differing stages of their respective careers, for whom the tie at the Allianz Arena served as something of an audition.

For United full-back, and captain on the evening, Gary Neville, the target was simply maintaining his place in the only team for which he has ever played, with the added incentive of a possible place in Fabio Capello’s England World Cup squad for South Africa this summer.

For the player standing opposite him in the Bayern Munich line-up, Franck Ribery, the game could have had far bigger impact, the chance to show his worth against elite European opposition and earn himself a move away from the Bundesliga to greater fame and fortune in England or, more likely, Spain next season.

Such has been Ribery’s modus operandi throughout his itinerant professional career. Still only 26, Bayern are his seventh club in 10 seasons, with the Frenchman having announced he will be seeking club number eight next term.

Bayern’s response has been predictable, and the same as it was last summer when Ribery also flirted with suitors – Manchester United and Real Madrid, among others – and a figure of anything up to €100 million was placed on his head by the German club’s president Uli Hoeness.

Indeed, when Alex Ferguson has spoken often this season about the lack of value in the international transfer market last summer, when he was looking to possibly invest the windfall he received from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real, it has been assumed that Ribery is exhibit A to which the United manager is referring.

There were moments last night, as there have been throughout this Champions League campaign, when Ribery showed glimpses of why his reputation and stock stands so high, despite the fact he has scored just four goals in his previous 20 appearances for the German club this season. Goals, unlike Ronaldo, are clearly not this winger’s stock in trade.

Yet, he moves with a fluidity and grace that shows his pedigree, sees and completes passes few could hope to match and has an innate feel for the game only the true elite share. There was no more fitting individual to claim Bayern’s equaliser, therefore, than Ribery, even if his 20-yard free-kick required a deflection off Wayne Rooney to wrong-foot Edwin van der Sar and earn the Bavarians a deserved equaliser.

That free-kick had come from a handball by Neville, one of the few errors he had committed on an evening in which he brought all his experience and guile to bear on proceedings. Here is a classic example of a veteran player – he is now 35 – who uses his brain to replace the lost edge in sheer physical ability.

Ribery had the beating of Neville on only a handful of occasions and, even then, United’s midfield did a decent job of coming to their captain’s aid. More often than not, Neville was cute enough to choose a better angle of approach, to channel Ribery into a more favourable area, to drop slightly deeper before attacking the ball; basically, to use every trick he has amassed in all his years at the top.

That is why Neville, who won the last of his 85 England caps in February 2007, is in genuine contention for South Africa, especially given the fact that United team mate Wes Brown, the obvious back-up for first-choice Glen Johnson, is still out injured. Given his form, his intelligence and the fact that now, as he has done throughout his career, Neville is a master of playing within his limitations, the United man would not be out of place.

For Ribery, last night was inconclusive and, as long as his club hold out for the sort of colossal figures being mooted, suitors are going to be limited. If Ferguson thought he was over-valued last summer, this season will have done little to convince him otherwise, even if he is an admirer. Possibly, Real Madrid, and their huge funds, is a more likely destination for Ribery. Ronaldo on one wing, Ribery on the other? There is a pairing drawn straight from fantasy football.