Rio Ferdinand has revealed that an earful from Roy Keane in his first Manchester United training session inspired him to become a better player, and says he wishes he could have played longer with the now Ireland and Aston Villa assistant manager.
The QPR centre-back was speaking at the second day of the 'Sport Summit', part of the 'Web Summit' tech conference in Dublin's RDS.
“One of my first training sessions, I got the ball and passed it to Gary Neville, who was on my team in the training session," said Ferdinand.
“In a normal world, that was a good ball; you pass to your team-mate, then you go up the pitch.
“Keane turned round and started going ‘Pass it forward. Take risks. You’re not at Leeds or West Ham now, you’re at Man United.
“I stood there and thought ‘This guy is crazy’. Pass it to a team-mate, that’s what you’re taught as a kid. I got home and thought ‘This guy is nuts. How am I going to deal with him on a daily basis?’
“But I realised, you do have to take chances, and that’s how I ended playing [for the rest of] my career, not just playing the simple ball to Gary [Neville] or whoever but trying to get the ball in to the strikers’ feet, Rooney, Van Nistelrooy or Ronaldo, so they could turn and get at the other team’s back four."
Ferdinand joined Manchester United from Leeds for £30m in 2002, playing only three seasons alongside Keane before the Corkman left acrimoniously in November 2005.
The Londoner was one of the players targeted by Keane in an infamous non-broadcasted rant for the club's in-house channel MUTV, in which he reportedly said of the defender "just because you are paid £120,000-a-week and play well for 20 minutes against Tottenham, you think you are a superstar".
"I got home and thought ‘This guy is nuts. How am I going to deal with him on a daily basis?’" - Rio Ferdinand
Ferdinand seems far from bitter though, praising his former team-mate's ability to nurture younger players and expressed regret that they didn't get to play longer together.
“It was unfortunate for me that I got to Manchester United as his career was on the way down, so to speak," said Ferdinand. "He left after a few years.
“He was demanding on the young lads. He demanded they worked hard and was always on top of the likes of Sheasy [John O’Shea], Wes [Brown], Darren Fletcher and those guys. They say it now, they owe him a lot, in terms of how he was driven.”
Ferdinand likened Keane's motivational methods to that of their former manager, the phenomenally successful Alex Ferguson.
“He [Keane] was aggressive in that sense but I liked that stuff, and I liked when [Alex] Ferguson approached me in that aggressive manner, I responded better.
“That was the genius of Ferguson. He knew not to say ‘Rio, you were brilliant’, because he knew I’d be walking around like I was the man.
“He knew that I’d turn into that type of guy maybe so he never gave me any praise. I was always thinking ‘This guy doesn’t even respect me’ but then I was always out there trying to prove to him how good I was, so he kept me on a string really.”
Ferdinand also confirmed that he wouldn’t appeal the recent three-match ban and £25,000 fine handed out by the English FA for his use of the derogatory term ‘sket’ in a Twitter exchange with a user who suggested QPR needed a new centre-half.
As well as the ban and fine, the 35-year-old has also been told to attend an education programme arranged by the FA, who called him "an experienced Twitter user" and "role model for young people" who should know better.
“I didn’t see any point in doing it [the appeal]” he said. “The rate of success on appeals, on these type of disciplinary panels is almost zero.
“I didn’t see the games getting taken away so [rather than] prolong the affair, I thought I’d nip it in the bud now."
Ferdinand is one of the most active Premier League footballers on Twitter, and highlighted the temptation to respond to criticism as one of the perils of social media for high-profile athletes.
“You’ve got to pick your moments,” he admitted. “The problem is, sometimes you’re at home, you’ve lost a game, you’re sitting there and you’re looking through your Twitter feed...
“You’re already frustrated. You’ve lost the game and you played rubbish. You’re not where you want to be in the league.
“You see a few tweets that come in and you think ‘that one’s funny’, ‘he’s giving me a bit of stick’, ‘that one’s funny’, ‘oh that one’s come back on again and giving me stick again’ and you think ‘I’m going to shut him down’.
“I can’t go on Twitter after a defeat. When we win games you’ll see me everywhere!"
“Invariably, I get it right, and he gets retweeted and has to set up a new account because he gets destroyed but this time I was deemed to have gone over the line and we are where we are now.
“You’ve got be mindful of what you say and when you say it. Normally I’ve been quite good at doing that.
“I can’t go on Twitter after a defeat. When we win games you’ll see me everywhere!
“I say to a lot of people, if you don’t have a thick skin then don’t go on there. There are times people say some outlandish, crazy, evil stuff on there. You’ve got to be able to dust if off and move on.
“The main reason for me to go on Twitter was to be closer to the fans. I remember what I was like as a kid, I wanted to know what they ate, how they travelled, where they went, what [boots] they wore.”
He refused to comment on recent reports he was planning to retire at the end of the season.
