Before McManaman's joining Madrid, Spanish media outlets like "El País", eager to make sense of why Madrid were insisting on signing McManaman when he had not even featured much in the last World Cup, concluded that the only rationale to explain McManaman's non-selection by Hoddle must have been because McManaman was known as a free role-playing playmaker, and was "difficult to classify. He needs the point of freedom...not provided in the English team" and that he was therefore by implication, difficult to place into Hoddle's system.