Just like our former manager Alex Ferguson, I am convinced that my old Manchester United teammate Gary Neville will become a successful manager.

I worked with Gary, and his brother Phil, on a daily basis and saw how driven he was, how obsessed by football he was. Gary is intense, passionate and he spoke a lot, too. A bit too much, if you asked Roy Keane, who would tell him to shut up, even on the pitch. I loved having those two behind me, you felt that they wanted to win at all costs.

I was surprised that he was named as Valencia new manager on Wednesday, , but I shouldn’t have been, given his business links to the club’s owner, Peter Lim.

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It is a big job he is taking on. Valencia is a huge club with a fantastic history, but it is also a complicated, political club. The fans think they should be winning trophies.

I have played at the Mestalla many times. I scored there in my first game for Villarreal after making the move from Manchester United in 2004. Valencia were Spanish champions with an excellent side; we were little Villarreal, their neighbours.

I lived in the region of Valencia and they dominated the news. They did not like it that we had a better team than them. Villarreal beat them 3-1 at home and finished third that season, Valencia seventh.

Gary will make the same move as I did all those years ago. From rain and clouds to sunny skies almost every day of the year. The lifestyle in Valencia is superb; that is why so many British expatriates retire to that part of the world. Valencia is a smart, cosmopolitan city with a beach. Football matters there.

My advice to Gary is simple: learn Spanish as soon as you can. When Pep Guardiola knew he was going to become Bayern Munich manager, he studied German for four hours every day. He took a year out and had the luxury of time to study, which Gary will not have, but among his many other responsibilities he will need to get stuck into the language.

I know his brother, Phil, who will work as his assistant at Valencia, well too. He was a good friend of mine in Manchester. He has been learning Spanish since arriving in Spain in July. Good for him. British people can be lazy when they are abroad because so many people speak their language, but Gary will be in a dressing room where everyone speaks Spanish.

They will respect him because of who he is and what he has done as a player, but players will be judging him from the moment he first speaks to them. If he says the wrong thing then they will start to lose respect.

I know Gary; I know he has got a purpose and that he knows football. He does well at whatever he sets his mind to. He is ultra committed and some of his other interests will have to take a back seat. I know he has already said that he is stopping his television work in England.

Language is vital in the heat of the moment. While watching a game, you sometimes need to give an instruction immediately, not wait for it to be translated. Meanings can be lost in translation, too.

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Language is vital in the heat of the moment. While watching a game, you sometimes need to give an instruction immediately, not wait for it to be translated. Meanings can be lost in translation, too.

When I played in Japan, I had some good translators, but I recall one day when the trainer was telling us a metaphor about an egg being cooked for too long. The translator, who did not really know football, gave me the literal translation, but not the meaning. The momentum was lost when the translator had to stop the coach and say: “Sorry, please repeat the bit about the egg.”

Learning Spanish shows respect for the fans who pay your wages. The staff, too. They will know that you make mistakes, but it does not matter. At least you are making the effort. I even saw that Phil had done some tweets in Valencian, the local dialect. Nice touch.

My former club Atletico Madrid are now seen as the third strongest team in Spain, but that used to be Valencia. They have had huge financial problems, and their new stadium remains half built, but the potential at the club is huge.

Gary comes with a great reputation as a player and as an assistant coach in the England set-up, but he will need results quickly. At least Phil is there to help him and has had six months to understand the club, but he needs more than that.

There will be other people there who have a better understanding of how La Liga works, but Gary has enough talented players to make Valencia to be a top team. He also has the support of the owner and the agent Jorge Mendes, who is close to Lim. They are important people to have behind you.

I will watch how Valencia go against Barcelona tomorrow when Phil, rather than Gary, who officially starts his role on Sunday, picks the team. But my focus this weekend will be on my team, Penarol, winning the Uruguayan league. We are top of the division and are at home to 15th-placed Juventud. Around 50,000 fans are expected to attend the match and I cannot wait. Nacional, our rivals, are a point behind us, while Cerro are three points further back, so a victory for Penarol will ensure we win the championship.

Fingers crossed for me, and for my old teammates, the Nevilles.

sports@thenational.ae

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