Champions League final 2011: I was told to keep Manchester United move secret, says Javier Hernandez

Champions League final 2011: I was told to keep Manchester United move secret, says Javier Hernandez

Javier Hernández has revealed for the first time how one of football’s most closely-guarded secrets has taken him from obscurity to the brink of Champions League glory with Manchester United.

Sharp shooter: Javier Hernez's unheralded capture by Sir Alex Ferguson was the culmination of a lengthy operation performed under a cloak of secrecy 

By Mark Ogden 10:30PM BST 27 May 2011

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Hernández, aka Chicharito (Little Pea), is expected to complete a remarkable first season in English football by lining up against Barcelona at Wembley on Saturday as United aim to secure a fourth European Cup.

Thirteen months ago, the Mexican’s £6 million arrival from Chivas de Guadalajara, just hours after United's Champions League quarter-final exit against Bayern Munich, was greeted with bewilderment and apathy by a United fan base distracted by the green-and-gold movements against the club’s owners, the Glazers.

Yet Hernández’s unheralded capture by Sir Alex Ferguson merely proved the culmination of a lengthy operation performed under a cloak of secrecy, which was even kept from the 22 year-old’s closest family.

“My father and I knew about the move to United for two to three months,” Hernández said. “It was very hard to keep it secret. We are a big family. We are all very close and always want to talk about what is going on with each other, but we didn’t tell my grandparents or my mother, so it was difficult.

“When we came over to Manchester to sign for United, we didn’t tell the whole family, friends and other people. The week [of the deal] was a free week, a holiday, so we flew to Atlanta, then on to Manchester, but told my family that we were staying in Atlanta to get a hotel and get to know the city.

“One hour before the deal was made public, we called my family and our closest friends from Manchester to tell them of the surprise, because any moment there was going to be an announcement about my transfer to Manchester United.”

As Hernández’s performances for Mexico in last summer’s World Cup highlighted, where he scored twice and was recorded as the tournament’s quickest player, United had clearly unearthed an uncut diamond from Central America.

Yet United’s chief scout, Jim Lawlor, had somehow been able to strike a deal for Mexico’s brightest talent without so much as a hint of their interest being revealed.

United’s arrival on the scene was initially shrugged off by Hernández, however, until the emotional reaction of his father, Javier snr, gave the game away.

“The first time I spoke to Jim Lawlor, I didn’t believe it that he was from United,” Hernández said. “The first I heard about it was when my father said to me there’s a person interested in you, he wants to talk with you, and he gave me Jim Lawlor’s card with the United badge on it.

“I didn’t know if it was genuine or not, because some agents in Mexico have cards on which they put the badges of all the big teams of the world, so I thought ‘OK, it’s one more of them, OK’.

“But my father told me ‘No, it’s really Manchester United’. I said to him ‘Don’t joke with me about that,’ but when I saw my father crying, I knew it was really true, that it was Manchester United.”

Hernández’s success at United, where he has scored 20 goals in 44 appearances this season, is all the more remarkable considering his readiness to walk away from football three years ago due to his disillusionment with a lack of progress with Chivas.

A summit meeting with his parents, and grandfather Tomas Balacazar, restored his faith in his ability and propelled Chicharito towards stardom.

“At the time, the coach wasn’t playing me,” Hernández recalls. “I was a little bit frustrated, my confidence started to go down and I asked my father and my family whether I was still right to play football.

“I just wanted to play. I was training with the squad all week and wouldn’t play in the games, so I thought that maybe, if this is what God wanted for me, I needed to work hard.

“So I decided I had to enjoy this [football] and not only enjoy the weekends. I was obsessed with thinking that I had to play at the weekend to enjoy my football.

“But always, my family helped me a lot. They say that I spend a lot of my time doing this and trying to make my dream come true, so not to give it up.

“Would I have given up? I don’t know, but probably yes. Without my family, I wouldn’t be in football.”

Hernández admits his pre-match praying ritual, when he kneels in the centre circle, is a gesture of thanks stemming back to his decision to continue as a footballer, but United manager Ferguson credits the player’s current status to his dedication and determination to improve.

“In the first training session last summer, I looked at myself and realised I needed more strength.” Hernández said. “I am not the tallest and biggest, so I knew I needed to improve on that.

“That’s why I get here early every day for training, because I want to work hard. It is the same after training, when I will work a little bit.

“It’s still hard to believe how this season has gone, especially when I was with my family when I got my medal and the Premier League trophy on Sunday.

“When I came here, my first thought was that I needed to work very hard to get a lot of minutes or to try my best to play a little bit, like 10 minutes, in every game.

“But right now, I’m playing a little bit more, a lot in fact, and when I got the medal it was just an unbelievable feeling.”

Adding to the medal haul by defeating Barcelona is United’s challenge tonight, yet Hernández insists the calibre of their opponents at Wembley will not alter the team’s focus.

“We prepare every game in every competition looking at every team and knowing how we are going to play them. Barcelona have some clever players, but the most important thing is that we think about us. We want to play like we have done for the whole of the season and we want to win like that.”

So what about the nickname? Ferguson calls him Chico, the shirt says Chicharito, yet English football still refers to him by the name he was born with.

“It’s Chicharito, sometimes Chico,” he said. “All my team-mates are trying to do their best to call me by my nickname because it’s strange, but they call me Chich, Chico or Chicha sometimes.

“Most people at the club call me Chica or Chico. My family call me ‘Javi’ and when they are angry it’s Javier!”
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