Ryan Joseph Giggs OBE (né Wilson; 29 November 1973[3]) is a Welsh football coach and former player. Regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation,[4] Giggs played his entire professional career for Manchester United and briefly served as the club's interim manager.
The son of rugby union and Wales international rugby league footballer Danny Wilson, Giggs was born in Cardiff but moved to Manchester at the age of six when his father joined Swinton RLFC. Predominantly a left midfielder, he began his career with Manchester City, but joined Manchester United on his 14th birthday in 1987. He made his professional debut for the club in 1991 and spent the next 23 years in the first team. He retired from playing with the end of the 2013–14 season, holding the club record for competitive appearances – 963. Towards the end of the 2013–14 season, he became the club's interim player-manager following the sacking of David Moyes. He was assistant manager under Moyes' permanent replacement, Louis van Gaal. Giggs left United in July 2016, following the appointment of José Mourinho.[5] He is co-owner of Salford City, alongside some of his former teammates, commonly referred to as The Class of '92.
At international level, Giggs played for the Wales national team 64 times between 1991 and 2007, and captained the Great Britain team that competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He became the new manager of the Wales national team in January 2018.[6] Wales under Giggs qualified for UEFA Euro 2020.[7] Giggs did not manage the team at the tournament, which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as he was arrested on suspicion of assault. His assistant manager Rob Page took charge in his absence.[8] Giggs resigned in June 2022, and Page was named as his successor.[9]
Giggs is one of the most decorated footballers of all time.[10] During his time at United, he won 13 Premier League winner's medals – more than any other player in history, four FA Cup winner's medals, three League Cup winner's medals, two UEFA Champions League winner's medals, a FIFA Club World Cup winners medal, an Intercontinental Cup winner's medal, a UEFA Super Cup winner's medal and nine FA Community Shield winner's medals. Manchester United and Liverpool are the only clubs in English football history to have won more league championships than Giggs.[11]
Giggs was the first player in history to win two consecutive PFA Young Player of the Year awards (1992 and 1993), though he did not win the PFA Player of the Year award until 2009. He was the only player to play in each of the first 22 seasons of the Premier League, as well as the only player to score in each of the first 21 seasons. He was elected into the PFA Team of the Century in 2007, the Premier League Team of the Decade in 2003, and the FA Cup Team of the Century. He holds the record for the most assists in Premier League history, with 162. He was named as BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2009. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2007 Birthday Honours for his services to football.[12] He is one of only 28 players to have made over 1,000 career appearances.[13][14]
Giggs was born at St David's Hospital in Canton, Cardiff, to Danny Wilson, a rugby union player for Cardiff RFC, and Lynne Giggs (now Lynne Johnson). Giggs is mixed race – his paternal grandfather is a Creole from Sierra Leone – and has spoken of the racism he faced as a child.[15] As a child, Giggs grew up in Ely, a suburb of western Cardiff. His younger brother, Rhodri, is a former manager of EFL League Two club Salford City.[16]
He spent much time with his mother's parents and playing football and rugby league on the roads outside their house in Pentrebane. In 1980, when Giggs was six years old, his father switched from rugby union to rugby league, and signed for Swinton RLFC, forcing the whole family to move north to Swinton, a town in Salford, Greater Manchester. The move was a traumatic one, as Giggs was very close to his grandparents in Cardiff, but he would often return there with his family at weekends or on school holidays.
After moving to Salford, Giggs appeared for the local team, Deans FC, who were coached by Manchester City scout Dennis Schofield. Schofield recommended Giggs to Manchester City, and he was signed up to their School of Excellence.[17] Meanwhile, Giggs continued to play for Salford Boys, who went on to reach the final of the Granada Schools Cup competition at Anfield in 1987. Giggs captained the Salford team to victory over their Blackburn counterparts, was man of the match, and the trophy was presented to him by Liverpool chief scout Ron Yeats.[18] Giggs also played rugby league at schoolboy level.[19]
While playing for Deans, Giggs was observed regularly by local newsagent and Old Trafford steward Harold Wood. Wood spoke personally to Alex Ferguson who sent a scout, and Giggs was eventually offered a trial over the 1986 Christmas period. Giggs played in a match for Salford Boys against a United Under-15s side at The Cliff and scored a hat-trick, with Ferguson watching from his office window. On 29 November 1987 (his 14th birthday), Ferguson turned up at Giggs' house with United scout Joe Brown and offered him two years on associate schoolboy forms. They offered to waive YTS forms and persuaded Giggs to sign by offering the opportunity to turn professional in three years. Using the name Ryan Wilson, Giggs captained England at schoolboy level, playing at Wembley Stadium against Germany in 1989.[20] He changed his surname to that of his mother at the age of 16, when his mother remarried, two years after his parents' separation.[21]
Giggs was offered his first professional contract on 29 November 1990 (his 17th birthday). He accepted the contract and became a professional two days later (1 December 1990).
At this time, United had recently won the FA Cup – their first major trophy since the appointment of Alex Ferguson as manager in November 1986. After two seasons in the league where they had finished mid-table, they were finally starting to threaten the dominance of Liverpool and Arsenal, though they only managed to finish sixth that season. Ferguson's quest for a successful left-winger had not been an easy one since the departure of Jesper Olsen two years earlier; he had initially signed Ralph Milne, but the player was not a success at United and lasted just one season in the first team before Ferguson secured the Southampton winger Danny Wallace in September 1989. Wallace had failed to shine at Old Trafford, and by the time Giggs turned professional Wallace was contending with 19-year-old Lee Sharpe for the role of first-choice left winger.[citation needed]
Giggs made his League debut against Everton at Old Trafford on 2 March 1991, as a substitute for the injured full-back Denis Irwin in a 2–0 defeat.[13] In his first full start, Giggs was credited with his first-ever goal in a 1–0 win in the Manchester derby on 4 May 1991, though it appeared to be a Colin Hendry own goal. However, he was not included in the squad of 16 that defeated Barcelona in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final 11 days later. Lee Sharpe, who had won the race to displace Danny Wallace, took to the field as United's left winger, while Wallace was selected as a substitute. Giggs became a first-team regular early in the 1991–92 season, yet remained active with the youth system and captained the team, made up of many of "Fergie's Fledglings," to an FA Youth Cup triumph in 1992.[citation needed]
Giggs paved the way as the first of many Manchester United youth players to rise into the first team under Ferguson but as the youngest member of the United first-team squad, Giggs looked to the older players such as Bryan Robson for advice. Robson recommended that Giggs sign up with Harry Swales, the agent that he himself had inherited from Kevin Keegan.[22]
That season, Giggs played in the team that finished as runners-up to Leeds United in the final year of the old First Division before the advent of the Premier League. United had led the table for much of the season before a run of dismal results in April saw them overtaken by the West Yorkshire side. Giggs collected his first piece of silverware on 12 April 1992 as United defeated Nottingham Forest in the League Cup Final after Giggs had set up Brian McClair to score the only goal of the game. In the semi-final he had scored the winning goal against Middlesbrough.[23] At the end of the season, he was voted PFA Young Player of the Year – the award which had been credited to his colleague Lee Sharpe a year earlier.[citation needed]
By the start of the 1992–93 season, the first season of the newly formed Premier League, Giggs had ousted Sharpe to become United's first-choice left-winger. He was recognised as one of English football's two best emerging young wingers, alongside Steve McManaman,[24] who were notable for being a throwback to the Stanley Matthews era of the 1950s winger.[25] Giggs helped United to their first top-division title win for 26 years.
His emergence and the arrival of Eric Cantona heralded the dominance of United in the Premier League. Ferguson was protective of him, refusing to allow Giggs to be interviewed until he turned 20, eventually granting the first interview to the BBC's Des Lynam for Match of the Day in the 1993–94 season.[citation needed] United won the double that season, and Giggs was one of their key players alongside the likes of Cantona, Paul Ince and Mark Hughes. Giggs also played for United in the Football League Cup final, where they lost 3–1 to Aston Villa.
Off the pitch, newspapers claimed Giggs had "single-handedly revolutionised football's image" when he appeared as a teenager "with pace to burn, a bramble patch of black hair bouncing around his puppy popstar face, and a dazzling, gluey relationship between his impossibly fleet left foot and a football."[26] As a result of this, he was afforded many opportunities not normally offered to footballers at his young age, such as hosting his television show, Ryan Giggs' Soccer Skills, which aired in 1994, and also had a book based on the series. Giggs was part of the Premier League's attempt to market itself globally, and he featured on countless football and lad mag covers, becoming a household name and fuelling the era where footballers started to become celebrity idols on a par with pop stars,[27] in and around the mid to late 1990s. Despite his aversion to attention, Giggs also became a teenage pin-up and was once described as the "Premiership's First Poster Boy,"[28] and the "boy wonder."[29] He was hailed as the first football star to capture the public imagination in a way unseen since the days of George Best;[30] the irony was that Best and Bobby Charlton used to describe Giggs as their favourite young player, turning up at The Cliff training ground just to watch him. Best once quipped, "One day they might even say that I was another Ryan Giggs."[30]
At the end of the 1993–94 season, Giggs won a second title in a row, and became the first player in history to win two consecutive PFA Young Player of the Year awards, a feat equalled by Robbie Fowler, Wayne Rooney and Dele Alli.[31]
Giggs proved to be a scorer of great goals, with many of them being shortlisted for various Goal of the Season awards. Widely regarded as among his best were those against Queens Park Rangers in 1994, Tottenham in 1994, Everton in 1995, Coventry in 1996, and his solo effort against Arsenal in the replay of the 1999 FA Cup semi-final.[citation needed] During extra time, Giggs picked up possession after Patrick Vieira gave the ball away, then ran from his own half, dribbled past the whole Arsenal back line, including Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and Martin Keown before launching his left-footed strike just under David Seaman's bar and beyond his reach. He famously whipped off his shirt during his goal celebration as he ran over to his teammates. It also has the distinction of being the last ever goal scored in an FA Cup semi-final replay as, from the following season, the FA Cup semi-finals are decided in a single game, with extra time and a penalty shootout if required.[32]
1994–95 saw Giggs restricted through injury to 29 Premier League games and only 1 goal. Later in the season, he recovered his form and fitness, though it was too late to help United to any major trophies. A failure to beat West Ham United on the final day of the season saw them lose the Premier League title to Blackburn Rovers. A week later, Giggs came on as a substitute in the FA Cup final against Everton, but United lost 1–0.
On a more positive side in the 1994–95 season, Giggs did get on the scoresheet twice in the opening Champions League game against IFK Göteborg (a 4–2 win, although United ultimately failed to progress to the quarter-finals) and also managed a goal in the FA Cup fourth-round victory over Wrexham, meaning that he had managed four goals in all competitions that season.
In 1995–96, Giggs returned to full form and played a vital part in United's unique second double, with his goal against Everton at Goodison Park on 9 September 1995 being shortlisted for the "goal of the season" award, though it was eventually beaten by a goal by Manchester City's Georgi Kinkladze. In November that season, Giggs scored two goals in a Premier League match against Southampton, where United won 4–1 to keep up the pressure on a Newcastle United side who actually went ten points clear on 23 December but were finally overhauled by United in mid-March. Giggs was also in the side for United's FA Cup final win over Liverpool on 11 May 1996, though Eric Cantona scored the only goal of the game. By now, Giggs had several new key colleagues in youngsters Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, David Beckham and Paul Scholes. Beckham took over from Andrei Kanchelskis on the right-wing and Butt succeeded Paul Ince in central midfield to complete a new look United midfield along with Giggs and Roy Keane.[citation needed]
The following season, Giggs had his first real chance to shine in Europe. Having played a key role in United winning their third league title in four seasons, he helped them reach the UEFA Champions League semi-finals, the first United side in 28 years to achieve this. However, their hopes of European glory were ended by Borussia Dortmund, who edged them out by winning each leg of the semi-final 1–0. At the end of this season, Juventus' Alessandro Del Piero told Italian media that Giggs was one of his two favourite players.[33]
In 1997–98, United were pipped to the Premier League title by Arsenal, following a dismal run of form in March and early April, leaving them without a trophy for only the second time since 1989. The following season, Giggs missed a lot of games through injury, but when he was fit his form was excellent and he played in both of United's cup finals that season. Memorable moments were his extra-time goal in the FA Cup semi-final against arch-rivals Arsenal giving United a 2–1 win,[34] and his 90th-minute equaliser in the home leg of the UEFA Champions League semi-final against Juventus.
The highpoint in the 1998–99 season was when Giggs set up the equalising goal scored by Teddy Sheringham in the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final that set United on their way to the Treble.
Giggs was also the Man of the Match as United beat Palmeiras 1–0 to claim the Intercontinental Cup later that year.[35]