Profile: Ryan Giggs's glittering career for Manchester United before assault trial

Former prodigy among the pantheon of English football's greats

Ryan Giggs arrives at Manchester Crown Court. The former Manchester United midfielder and manager of the Welsh national team is facing charges of using coercive and controlling behaviour against an ex-girlfriend, and of assaulting her sister. Getty Images

A court artist sketch of Ryan Giggs being questioned as he gives evidence at Manchester Crown Court. PA

Giggs directing the Welsh team during a UEFA Euro 2020 qualifier in October 2019 in Cardiff. Getty Images

Giggs, then Manchester United's interim manager, walks off the pitch following a loss at Old Trafford in May 2014. Getty Images

Paul Scholes, Phil Neville,Giggs, Nicky Butt, David Beckham and Gary Neville attend the world premiere of 'The Class of 92' in London in December 2013. Getty Images

Giggs celebrates scoring a goal while captaining Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympics. Getty Images

Giggs and Patrice Evra of Manchester United hold the trophy after winning the UEFA Champions League Final in Moscow in May 2008. Getty Images

Giggs and Gary Neville of Manchester United lift the Premier League trophy in May 2007. Getty Images

Giggs celebrates with the Premier League trophy in May 2001. Getty Images

Giggs drives the ball past Arsenal's David Seaman to score the winner in the FA Cup semi-final in May 1999, which helped Manchester United secure a historic 'treble' of trophies - the Premier League, the FA Cup, and the UEFA Champions League. Getty Images

Giggs glides past Liverpool defenders during a Premier League clash in October 1996. Getty Images

Giggs poses during a Reebok advert in 1995 in London. Getty Images

Giggs meets Nelson Mandela during a tour of South Africa with Manchester United in 1993. Getty Images

Giggs in action during a Premier League match in March 1994. Getty Images

Giggs during a Division One match at Old Trafford in September 1991, the year he made his professional debut for the club. Getty Images

Giggs at a pre-season photocall in August 1991. He would go on to play for Manchester United until 2014. Getty Images

A prodigious and precocious talent, Ryan Giggs enjoyed a glittering career with Manchester United where he accumulated a medal collection which bears comparison with those of football’s greats.

The knowledge and expertise he gleaned during a glittering career led to him becoming a coach who guided Wales, his native country, to the Euro 2020 finals — held last year due to the coronavirus — but allegations of assault meant he did not join his team at the tournament as he stepped down for his assistant Rob Page to take over.

For almost three decades, the Welshman, 48, has been a poster boy for the game, the benchmark to which others aspire after rising from a difficult childhood to secure a place in the Old Trafford pantheon and a reputation which extends much further.

Born Ryan Wilson in Cardiff in November 1973, he moved to Salford aged 7 when his father Danny Wilson headed north to pursue a career in professional rugby league, adopting his mother’s maiden name, Giggs, after his parents split up.

If life was testing, football was his escape and having demonstrated his abundant potential as a schoolboy, he was snapped up by United from under the noses of derby rivals Manchester City on his 14th birthday.

Impressed by Giggs’s pace and dribbling ability, manager Sir Alex Ferguson thrust him into the limelight as a 17-year-old and, while placing a protective arm around his prodigy, expertly nurtured his budding talent.

Ferguson once said: “When Ryan runs at players he gives them twisted blood. They don’t want to be a defender any more.”

Swiftly labelled “the new George Best”, a tag which never seemed to weigh him down, the winger instantly took to senior football, with Ferguson all the while ensuring his feet remained firmly on the ground.

He won his first silverware as a member of the side that beat Nottingham Forest in the 1992 League Cup final but, perhaps as significantly, he was also in the United team that won the FA Youth Cup that year.

The core of that side — the fabled ‘Class of 92’, which comprised Giggs, Gary and Phil Neville, David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt — went on to be the nucleus of the first team that swept all before them.

Giggs constantly adapted his game to the challenges that came his way and as age started to take its toll, he transformed himself from a flying winger with a knack of scoring spectacular goals into a more intuitive midfielder, a process which did little to blunt his influence.

When he finally hung up his boots at the age of 40 in 2014, he had amassed 963 appearances for United and won 34 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues, scoring 168 goals.

On the international front, he earned 64 caps for Wales between 1991 and 2007 but never played at a major tournament.

Having worked as player-coach under Ferguson’s successor David Moyes, Giggs briefly took charge of the first team after the Scot’s dismissal in April 2014, and was retained as assistant to Louis van Gaal on his appointment.

Tainted by association with the Dutchman’s ill-fated spell at the helm, his near 30-year stay on the red half of Manchester drew to a close in 2016, only for a dream job to come his way in January 2018 when he was appointed Wales boss.

The national team, which had made it to the Euro 2016 semi-finals but failed to qualify for the World Cup two years later, prospered under his charge, with a new generation of players emerging to ensure a return to the European stage.