Patrice Evra, in his always-entertaining podcast, shared the controversial clash between Ruud van Nistelrooy and Cristiano Ronaldo during a Manchester United training session, involving Carlos Queiroz.

Evra said: “We were like a family back then, but in training, we hated each other. Playing against Manchester United was 10 times easier than training with them.

In my first training session, Cristiano Ronaldo had just lost his father, and Carlos Queiroz was refereeing an intra-squad game. He called a dubious foul on Ronaldo. That’s when van Nistelrooy told Ronaldo, ‘Is Carlos Queiroz your new dad?’“

Then Cristiano started crying, and a huge fight broke out between them. Ferguson ended the training right there. My first training session at Manchester United lasted only half an hour. That’s how we used to torment each other back then.”

The former United star, who played for the club from 2006 to 2014, also shared his thoughts on Sir Alex Ferguson’s legendary management style: “If Ferguson were a manager today, he’d probably be in jail. There’s no way he wouldn’t be imprisoned for the things he did. I saw players cry many times because of arguments with him or because he threw shoes at them. He was a bad man.”

Finally, the former defender recounted an incident from 2011 during a visit to Anfield, where Nani was brutally tackled by Jamie Carragher.

Evra said: “We saw the scene and all ran in. Gerrard, Scholes, and me. When Scholes saw Nani crying, he immediately said, ‘Go to hell.’

After the game, Ferguson told Nani, ‘I hope your leg is broken. I really do. A Manchester United player shouldn’t cry at Anfield, and we were waiting for the next training session because we wanted to kill Nani.’

In our team, if you cried because of bleeding, you were dead—you weren’t one of us. Ferguson eventually gave him a week off to recover mentally because we were waiting to kill him. You cry? You die—you’re not part of the group. We still use his crying photo at Anfield in our WhatsApp group.”