Roy Keane’s and Patrick Vieira’s rivalry was iconic with pair trying to dominate one another to help their title chances.
Appearing on the Stick to Football podcast the former rivals were asked various questions, one of them being who had won the most caps for their country with both answering that the Frenchman had more caps.
When it came to the international scene, Keane infamously left the Ireland squad on the eve of the World Cup 2002 competition and the Arsenal legend didn’t miss when bringing it up.
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“He qualified for more tournaments,” Keane said.
“And I never walked out of them,” Vieira fired back.
This left the crew along with Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher and Ian Wright in stitches.
You can watch the video below:
"I was terrified to say that!" 🤣
This is savage from Vieira to Keane… pic.twitter.com/ZGCfXNoqEF
— The Overlap (@WeAreTheOverlap) June 10, 2024
On his exit from the squad he had said:
‘The tipping point was the 2002 World Cup. I showed my frustration, but that doesn’t mean to say I wouldn’t turn up and do the business in a game. People missed the point with me leaving the World Cup.
‘There’s always been question marks about my commitment to playing for Ireland from the media – I missed one game. The manager felt he wanted to bring that game up in front of a group of players.
‘We qualified months in advance – if that happened with England, France, Germany, and there was no training gear, no footballs, no bibs, you’d be a laughing stock. But for some reason, when it was Ireland… I’d had enough of that. I had my debate with Mick – I said this is unacceptable.
‘I had media commitments, and I said one or two things that I wasn’t happy with. Mick McCarthy was very much in bed with the Irish media – which is another story. Mick also questioned me then – I’d been asked by a reporter if I respected Mick, and I said no, I didn’t.
‘I told the reporter that it was private, and that was it. Word got back to Mick, and in the meeting, I said in front of the lads that I didn’t respect him, after the accusations about me missing the game. Just because I didn’t respect him, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
‘Mick pulled me to the side and said ‘if you don’t respect me, how can you play for me?’ I thought that I wasn’t playing for him –,I was playing for my country. But I said to him “alright, I won’t [play].” I walked out of the team meeting – no regrets about it.’
