Sir Alex Ferguson celebrates a remarkable landmark of 20 years as Manchester United manager on Monday. During this time Ferguson’s trophy haul has won him acclaim throughout the football world. Sue McCann spoke with Sir Alex’s peers to hear their thoughts on his impressive achievement beginning today with Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez.

“It was a surprise because in Spain it’s impossible to have a manager for 20 years, 20 months is quite good! (laughs). When I was in Spain Sir Alex was a person you could watch and learn from. Playing in Europe, it was amazing to see the team and how they played. My Assistant Manager Pako Ayestaran and I admired him and then we went to see how Manchester United trained for a week. It was a good experience because you could see another style of football and another form of managing because in Spain it’s different; it was a good experience, a very good experience.

“He has great experience, he can read the game and change things, he can prepare properly for every game because he’s a good manager. He’s very friendly, he’s a very, very nice person and you can talk to him about football and other things and he’s always very polite. It’s nice to talk with him about football or wine or horses because he also has a lot of knowledge about these things.”