CAN there be a more entertaining and energising force in top-flight football than Sir Smart Alex Ferguson indulging in his favourite sport - mind games?

Forget football and his near-obsession with collecting silverware. Forget horse-racing and his regular admission to the winner's enclosure.

Fergie's driving desire, his burning yearning, his steeliest zeal is surely reserved for putting the boot into opponents - no, not the boy Beckham - at the most timely of moments via a media of which he is so often scathing.

It was just last month that the Manchester United master of spin delivered his 'annus contractus' verdict on the domestic title run-in. This was the time, mused the professor of psychological warfare, of shrinking sphincters.

Besides his 'twitchy-bum' jibe being so apposite when directed at arch-enemies Arsenal, it also had the desired effect.

Within a few games the Red Devils had clawed back an advantage that previously allowed Arsenal to bask in an arrogant conviction that the Premiership crown would remain in their hands despite many points still to play for and an imminent clash against their bitterest rivals yet to be fought.

But before the dust had settled on that particular derriere dnouement, Fergie goes off on one again.

This time it's the mandarins of UEFA and the mad-for-it madristas of Real Madrid that have felt the snap of the gin-trap that is the voice of the supremo of subtle stir-it-up.

Ahead of tonight's epic first-leg quarter-final encounter between United and Madrid at the latter's Bernabeu fortress, Ferguson claimed that the draw which pitted the two together had been fixed in favour of those remaining clubs from Italy and Spain, and more particularly favouring the nine-times winners of Europe's premier trophy.

The emperor of emphasis - everything he utters may as well be accompanied by a battalion of exclamation marks - proposed that UEFA did not want United to reach the final because it was being held at United's Old Trafford home on May 28.

To the neutral his latest sounding-off sound-bite was deemed preposterous, while UEFA countered that the knight of the Old Trafford realm had been 'silly'.

Far from it. Fergie's latest outburst is, I would venture, all part of a ploy to wind up his illustrious opponents before tonight's collision in the Spanish capital.

Remember, this is the Real Madrid side, who since winning the European Cup last May - ironically in Ferguson's own Glasgow backyard - have added World Cup winner and player of the summer tournament Ronaldo to their squad of supernovas.

The Bernabeu boast is that they can field at least five of the current top ten players in the world. Besides Ronaldo, they can summon the sublime services of Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos and Raul. The golden five, they call them.

Why, therefore, would Fergie want to rattle such an exalted line-up? Well, the clue could be in another part of Ferguson's weekend diatribe which got so many pundits in a lather. He said he would have preferred United to have been drawn away in the second leg as it is on an opponent's ground where a visiting team can do most damage.

So come tomorrow you can just imagine the Real Madrid elite going all out, gung-ho, white boots a-blazing to put the United upstarts in their place. Cue then Messrs Beckham, Giggs and van Nistelrooy countering with their customary venom to plunder one critical away goal, if not more.

And so, the Scotsman, who has put the Mac into Machiavellian, will have struck yet again.

Updated: 11:10 Tuesday, April 08, 2003