Gary Neville and Ruud van Nistelrooy clashed in an incident during their Man Utd stint together which almost led to punches being thrown, the pair have admitted.
Dutch striker Van Nistelrooy spent five seasons with United, scoring 150 goals in 215 appearances. There were highs - not least the 2002-03 Premier League title win - but there were also more difficult moments.
One of those came after a match against Middlesbrough, where he and team-mate Neville appeared ready to come to blows. However, with a number of years having passed, both have been able to reflect calmly on the heated incident.
Speaking to Neville on The Overlap, Van Nistelrooy admitted - to Neville's surprise - that he considered himself to blame. "You gave me a right b*****ing and rightly so," the former Dutch international said after Neville made reference to him being "the only player that’s come to punch me at the end of the game".
"Yeah, you were right," he added when quizzed further. "I didn’t do a lot in that game. That’s what you were going on about."
The striker admitted to not showing enough for the ball, prompting Neville to recall in vivid detail what happened. "I put it in and went, ‘F***ing move!’ I remember shouting and you went, ‘F*** off’."
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"I just snapped, I completely lost it," admitted Van Nistelrooy, who is now PSV Eindhoven's manager. "I was then storming in the dressing room and just came up to you."
Van Nistelrooy claimed to have been in so much pain that he wore flip-flops in the lead-up to the game. The comments from the striker, who had an inflamed toe at the time of the game, prompted another response from Sky Sports' pundit Neville.
"I remember I got substituted, I don’t remember if the manager got angry at me, but I went into the changing room and all of a sudden I heard you shouting coming through the door and you were like, ‘I’m going to…’ and I was like, ‘Oh, Ruud’s snapped!’ Everyone jumped in between us," he said.
Van Nistelrooy eventually left United for Real Madrid after no longer seeing eye to eye with Ferguson, and the 2006 League Cup final was a real flashpoint. The Dutchman essentially called time on his United career by swearing at the manager after being left on the bench for the win over Wigan, playing just 10 more games in English football.
"I think one of the big catalysts for Ruud leaving was the League Cup final," another member of that squad, Rio Ferdinand, told The Beautiful Game podcast in 2020. "He didn't start the game, but he said that the manager promised he was going to come on. But he didn't come on.
"Ruud went nuts. He was going crazy on the bench, screaming, swearing at the manager. I think the manager was like 'you know what... ooh, now's the time [to sell him].'"
