The finest midfielder of his generation

Yet when it comes to summing up the career of Paul Scholes, who announced his retirement from football yesterday after 676 games with Manchester United and a further 66 matches with England, it is perhaps best to consider a brief snapshot from the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s Champions League final at Wembley.

While the rest of the Barcelona squad cavorted on the turf, Andres Iniesta, arguably the best midfielder in the world at the moment, was at the opposite end of the field, deep in conversation with Scholes.

After a chat and a mutual pat on the back, Iniesta accepted Scholes’ shirt and trotted back to join his colleagues.

With a Champions League winners’ medal to come, the Spaniard had claimed the two mementos he was desperate to take back to Catalonia with him. And if the rumours are to be believed, he had to outrank four of his team-mates just to get the jersey.

RYAN Giggs can claim greater longevity, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira undoubtedly won more tackles, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard have won more caps for their country.

But when it comes to selecting the most gifted midfielder of the Premier League era, Scholes would surely be at the top of the list.

He was the player that in their wildest of imaginings, most supporters would love to have been. He was also the nearest thing English football has produced in the last two decades to a natural number ten (even though he never wore the number himself), a playmaker in the mould of a Lionel Messi who can unlock an opposition defence with a single shot or pass.

It was passing, that most un-English of footballing traits, that was always Scholes’ forte, whether it was the swift short ball that propelled an attacking move forward or the searching longer delivery that instantly turned defence into attack.

It may be apocryphal, but Sir Alex Ferguson is supposed to have retold an incident in which Gary Neville was satisfying a call of nature some 45 yards away from where Scholes was standing on the training ground. Without even looking up, the Manchester United Academy product hit his team-mate flush on the backside.

He could pick out a pass like that effortlessly, whether in the cut-andthrust of a high-profile Premier League encounter or the heightened tension of a Champions League knockout tie.

“Playing with Paul Scholes is like playing with the light on,” former Manchester United assistant, Carlos Quieroz, once said. Even from the sidelines, you knew exactly what he was getting at.

It wasn’t just the passing of course. As Manchester United fans loved to sing, “He’s Paul Scholes my Lord, he scores goals.”

He did, racking up 150 for his club and another 14 in the colours of his country.

They went in from each and every angle, but two varieties in particular stand out.

The first resulted from the kind of perfectly-timed run into the penalty area that is a staple of the attacking midfielder’s art, but which is never as simple in practice as it appears to be in theory.

Scholes had it off to a tee, regularly appearing at just the right moment to direct a side-footed shot or a deftlyglanced header into the net.

His other speciality was more eye-catching, and generally involved a longrange pile-driver that evoked that other great finisher from Old Trafford, Sir Bobby Charlton.

From the moment he announced his arrival on to the first-team scene with a double against Port Vale, Scholes always possessed a venomous shot, and surely none was better than the first-time volley that dispatched David Beckham’s corner into the Bradford City net in March 2000.

“I hit it okay,” said Scholes, when asked to describe the goal recently, with his discomfort at expressing his own brilliance revealing a humility that never left him throughout his career.

Despite starring in an era that saw footballers move from the back pages of the newspapers to the front, Scholes remained the antithesis of the modern-day superstar.

He eschewed publicity zealously, instinctively shying away from the bright lights and temptations that lured a number of his colleagues.

Never happier than when returning to his native Oldham with his family, Scholes was the professional that enabled you to retain your faith in football. Little wonder then that Ferguson still holds him up as the model for aspiring youngsters to follow.

IF there were downsides to Scholes’ career, they were minor. His tackling never matched the standards of the other parts of his game, and it remains a source of regret that a suspension ruled him out of the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich.

From a patriotic perspective, it is also a shame that he retired from international football prematurely in 2004 at the age of 29.

There were compelling reasons behind his decision – a desire to extend his club career, the effects of his asthma, Sven-Goran Eriksson repeatedly picking him in a left-midfield position in order to accommodate Lampard and Gerrard – but it nevertheless felt like a rare admission of defeat, an acceptance that international honours would not be forthcoming.

Perhaps Scholes simply felt he had achieved more than enough in a Manchester United shirt.

The statistics speak for themselves – ten Premier League titles, three FA Cups, two League Cups, five Community Shields and two Champions League winners’ medals – but they only tell half the story.

Thanks to his dedication, drive and modesty, Scholes, who will now take up a position on Manchester United’s coaching staff, was always the players’ player.

You only have to look in Iniesta’s Champions League hand luggage for evidence of that.