By his own admission, Gary Neville wasn’t the most talented or technically gifted player that Sir Alex Ferguson coached during his 26-year spell at Manchester United.
But few players worked harder than the right-back to maximise his potential. Neville dedicated himself entirely to his profession - and reaped the rewards for doing so.
Neville ended his career with a host of major honours - including eight Premier League titles, three FA Cups and two Champions League winners’ medals - having made 602 appearances for the Premier League outfit.
His name is still sung by United fans on match days and he’s widely regarded as the standout right-back of the Premier League era.
One man who couldn’t have predicted the success Neville would go on to enjoy, it turns out, is United’s legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel.
What Schmeichel said to Neville in the early 90s
Despite the fact Schmeichel had only been a United player for one year before Neville made his debut for the club, the Danish goalkeeper initially made life difficult for the young right-back.
Neville has explained on Joey Barton’s latest podcast that Schmeichel was particularly harsh with him in the early days - and he only learned the reason why a couple of years later.
The current Sky Sports pundit, who retired from football seven years ago, said: “He told me on a Christmas day out, about three or four years after I broke in, ‘I genuinely didn’t think you were good enough and I thought you were a risk to us winning the league and conceding goals. I thought you would make mistakes - I didn’t think you were good enough.’”
Harsh.
Surely older players are meant to help younger players in training and matches, not hammer their confidence and self-esteem.
Different times, eh.
“We used to do crossing practice at the end of training,” Neville added. “He used to stand on the penalty spot and catch my crosses and tell me they were crap.”
This video now makes more sense
Suddenly the awkward video of Neville ignoring Schmeichel in the tunnel before a Manchester derby in the early 2000s makes more sense…