Ask any player unfortunate to come out against Sir Alex Ferguson’s teams in the 90s and early 2000s about their fiercest opponent, and Roy Keane will frequently be the answer.
Roy Keane was a titan in Manchester United’s midfield, a player with supreme ability, a huge heart, and a real ruthless streak, for opponents and his own teammates.
But there was no disputing, he was one of the best, not just of his generation, but in the club’s history. The late Sir Bobby Charlton even named him in his greatest Manchester United XI of all time.
But what about Keane? Who does he say is his toughest-ever opponent? Well, this is a question he has provided the answer to.
Roy Keane picks his toughest opponent
One of Roy Keane’s most memorable rivalries was with Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira, which included the Irishman dunking a brace on the Gunners at Highbury in a 2-1 win, and then calling him out in the tunnel before a game where United won 4-2.
But it is a different French midfielder who really had Keane’s admiration, one who did not play in the Premier League, who he competed against at international level and in the Champions League.
It was Zinedine Zidane who Keane most greatly admired, one of his opponents ‘that night in Turin’, a performance Sir Bobby Charlton rated as the greatest individual display he had ever watched. It was his tackle on Zidane which resulted in him missing the 1999 Champions League final – but there are no hard feelings.
Keane explained his respect for the Frenchman, in an interview with Sky: “You know why? People still to this day don’t realise how big he was.
“When I played against him – I’m quite a small guy I’m what, 5′ 10? people maybe think I look bigger on the pitch.
“The best thing when I used to play against Zidane, obviously at club level, I played against him for Ireland. The advice I would get from my friends in Ireland would be, the technical advice they would give me is, ‘just kick him’.
“And I used to say: ‘he’s 6′ 2, he can deal with that’. And I think he had been sent off 8 or 9 times.
“What he was, what I loved about Zidane was, he was nasty”.
Keane doubled down
There was more to Zidane than physical attributes and an attitude, of course, something Keane acknowledged in a separate interview way back in 2003.
He was quoted telling a newspaper, via Sky: “The best player I’ve ever come up against would have to be Zidane. It seems so easy for him.
“He works hard on his game, he is a physically strong player, he’s got a great attitude and has all the attributes.
“Look at his goal in the European Cup final last year [v Leverkusen]. That’s a top player, on top of his game.
“To score, on his weak side, a volley coming out of the air it was fantastic, and it was a great goal to win the European Cup it really was.
“I think he was the only player in the world who could have finished that goal.”
Many fans of course remember Zidane for his moment of madness in the World Cup final in 2006 when he was sent off for his hot-headed headbutt on Marco Materazzi.
Roy Keane had a few moments like that too. Just ask Alf Haaland. It’s no wonder Zidane is a player he respects so highly, one who was not to be messed with, and could back it up on the pitch.