Roy Keane has named Zinedine Zidane as the toughest opponent he ever faced on a football pitch, but admits he always loved the 'nasty' side of the Real Madrid legend.
Keano came across the classy midfielder several times during his career both for Manchester United and even in the green of Ireland, and has revealed the hilarious advice his Irish friends gave him to counter Zidane.
Opening up about Zidane, Keane noted that many fans don't appreciate how tall Zizou was as well as his own smaller stature as he claimed his friends across the Irish Sea told him to kick him when they faced off.
But above all, the Boys in Green hero claimed he admires Zidane's nasty side when speaking to Micah Richards as part of Sky Bet's Micah and Roy's Road To Wembley series.
"Yeah," Keane said when asked if the French legend was his toughest opponent.
"And do 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".
