Nemanja Vidic announced his retirement from football today, citing an accumulation of injuries as his reason for calling it a day.
During his time with Man Utd, the Serbian was a picture of eastern European sternness; an immovable, near emotionless rock at the centre of the Man Utd defence.
It seems there a humour to the player though. Albeit, a dry, deadpan one.
Following the announcement of Vidic's retirement, The Secret Footballer shared a page from one of his books featuring a tale of an encounter with Vidic.
Despite The Secret Footballer growing weary of dressing room and on-pitch joviality, Vidic managed to stir some amusement from the player with a comeback.
I have never been able to get my head around the players who say they miss these day-to-day exchanges. In the end your knees ache, your hips are sore and the banter gives you arthritis in your brain. I couldn't wait to get away from it. I was very rude to my teammates in the process, when asked what I thought about this car or that bird, or this watch. I just couldn't have the conversation so I removed myself from it. A curious thing happened because of that decision - the players left me alone and seemed to respect me more as somebody who had bigger fish to fry.
Banter got more and more tired. I enjoyed, at the end, a guy like Nemanja Vidic at United. I once asked him to swap jerseys with me at the end of the match. I just wanted to annoy him. 'Thanks',' I said, when he handed it over. 'I have to clean the car during the week. This is perfect. I'll text you a pic.'
'Yeah, no problem,' said Vidic. 'Same here, but I'll have to send you pictures of all my cars one by one if that's OK?'
He got me fair and square but those moments were rare.
