The fact that Roy Keane still scares him was an admission which Gerard Pique made in an interview with FourFourTwo magazine three-year-an-a-half years ago. Even at 26, Pique said that he was 'shitting himself' in Keane's presence.
That feeling perhaps stems from an incident in the Manchester United dressing room when Pique was still a callow young defender.
In an article for The Players' Tribune, Pique tells of his phone once going off in as he and his teammates waited for Alex Ferguson to enter the room.
It was one of his first games for the club. He was seated next to Roy Keane with very little space between them thinking, "Just do your job and go unnoticed". His mobile ringing ensured that did not happen.
It’s dead quiet. All of a sudden, you could hear this little vibration. Very soft.
Bzzzzzz ……
………….. Bzzzzzzz.
Roy is looking around the room.
Bzzzzzzz …..
Considering how Keane has subsequently reacted to phones going off in his presence at inappropriate moments, it's no surprise to hear that it raised his ire.
Oh, shit.
I realize it’s me. It’s my cell phone. I left it on vibrate, and it’s in the pocket of my pants, stuffed in the clothes bag that’s hanging right behind Roy’s head.
Roy can’t find where the noise is coming from. Now he’s looking around the room like a maniac. His eyes are darting everywhere, and he’s trying to figure it out. You know the famous scene with Jack Nicholson in The Shining, when he bursts through the door? That’s what he looked like.
He screams out to everybody, “Whose phone is that?!”
Silence.
He asks again.
Silence.
He asks a third time.
“Whose. Bloody. F*****g. Phone. Is. That?!”
The 18-year-old Pique eventually admitted that it was his.
Finally, I spoke up, like a little boy. Very softly, I said, “I’m so sorry. It’s mine.”
Roy put his arm around me, and he laughed, and he told me not to worry about it.
….
…. No, come on, of course I’m joking! Roy lost his mind! He went nuts in front of everybody! It was incredible. I almost shit myself. But it was a good lesson.
Pique calls it "one of a thousand mistakes" he made during his time at Old Trafford.
Pique does appear to have his timeline of events mixed-up surrounding the moment. He says it was 2006 when Keane went into meltdown. He was, of course, departed from Old Trafford by that time.
