Former Tottenham Hotspur striker Mido has recalled the day Roy Keane tried to sign him for Sunderland - by taking him on an awkward date to Pizza Express.
The Egyptian international revealed he flew to Newcastle to meet Keane in 2007 to discuss the move to the newly-promoted Black Cats.
After Keane picked him up at the airport, the pair took a tour of the club's training base before heading for an intimate Italian lunch.
And Mido admitted he "knew straight away" that he wouldn't get on with the Sunderland boss and would ultimately join Gareth Southgate's Middlesbrough instead.
"I was very surprised that he didn't talk to me much," he recalled.
"Normally you take a player for lunch, you try to talk to him, try to convince him to sign for the club, but he didn't. He didn't talk much, he was just very quiet.
"But I knew straight away that me and him, we cannot work together. We will end up fighting. I knew straight away.
Mido was out of favour at Tottenham following the arrival of Dimitar Berbatov the previous summer, despite hitting double-figures in hist first full Premier League season in 2005/06.
The Black Cats, meanwhile, were on the lookout for a goalscorer to replace the ageing David Connelly. They would eventually bring in Michael Chopra and Kenwyne Jones from Cardiff City and Southampton respectively.
