Sven-Goran Eriksson has revealed Sir Alex Ferguson threatened 'to kill him' if he chose to take then- Manchester United talisman Wayne Rooney to the 2006 World Cup with England.
Rooney was a key figure for both club and country 16 years ago and had the nation's nerves on a knife edge when he injured himself during the tail-end of the 2005/06 season just months before the Three Lions World Cup campaign in Germany.
His spell on the side-lines stemmed from an incident during a title-deciding clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge which Rooney has since admitted he donned longer than usual studs for as he wanted to "hurt someone."
"I always wore the old plastic studs with the metal tip and for that game I changed into big, long metal ones, the maximum length you could have because I wanted to try to hurt someone, to try to injure someone,” conceded United's record goal-scorer.
“The studs were legal, they were a legal size, but they were bigger than what I would normally wear.”
While Rooney was successful in his quest to injure an opponent after clattering into John Terry, his studs may have also been responsible for the injury he gave himself.
Another particularly thunderous challenge from Rooney backfired for the former United forward and left his World Cup hopes dangling by a thread.
"I blame myself for that injury," the ex-England international has since admitted as part of a new documentary, ‘Rooney’, which will be released by Amazon Prime.
"I think if you look at it back by front studs have got caught in the ground, and my foot has bent forward. I broke three metatarsals."
The sight of Rooney writhing around in agony was a cause for concern for both Ferguson and Eriksson and led to communication between the pair.
With the shadow of the imminent World Cup looming large, United's iconic boss reached out to the England manager to try and turn him off the idea of taking a barely-fit Rooney to the biggest competition in world football.
Ferguson's attempts proved futile, as Eriksson explained: "Sir Alex didn't want Rooney to go. He told me very, very straight 'you don't take him, that's it Sven. I'm going to kill you... verbally!
"And I said 'Alex, go on holiday. I'm going to take Rooney and we're going to the World Cup. Sorry. And that was it."
Eriksson was true to his word and selected Rooney for a World Cup campaign that ended in failure as England were dumped out at the quarter final stage at the hands of Portugal.
That clash was to be best remembered for another incident involving Rooney's studs as he raked them down the leg of Ricardo Carvalho and received a red card as a result.
The decision to send Rooney off may have been helped by his United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo immediately surrounding the official to try and force the red out of his back pocket.
The dismissal came just after the hour mark and though England held on to take the game to penalties, they were beaten in the shootout.
Rooney's treatment after the red card was not quite on par with David Beckham circa 1998, but he was largely blamed for England's exit given the game was finely balanced at the time of his sending off.
'Rooney' is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video from Friday 11th February.
