Gary Neville has revealed that one major rule under former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was ingrained in the back of his mind during his career.
The 49-year-old Sky Sports pundit rose to prominence at Old Trafford during the 1990s and broke out of the youth academy and into the first team at the Red Devils.
Gary Neville spent his entire prolific playing career at Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson and enjoyed incredible success at the Premier League club.
One of the famed ‘Class of ‘92’ stars, Neville made a whopping 600 first-team appearances for the Red Devils and served as club captain for United.
The former United right-back lifted eight Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies, three FA Cups and three League Cups with the Red Devils.
Neville bowed out of Old Trafford as a player in 2011 and tried his hand at coaching, including his disastrous managerial spell at Spanish club Valencia.
Neville on Ferguson’s hard-line rule
Gary Neville has found success in the world of punditry and his venture with The Overlap, including his widely popular Stick to Football podcast.
The Manchester United legend has also pursued other avenues away from football, including his involvement in property development in Manchester.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, Neville opened up about his decision to enter the world of business and the impact that Sir Alex Ferguson had on him.
The former United and England defender admitted that Red Devils legend Ferguson made sure that distractions were seen as “absolutely illegal” for his players.
However, Neville wanted to plan ahead for when he retired from football and he “loved” the line of work that he ended up discovering in the business world.
“For 10 to 12 years, I had this almost like double life,” he said,
“I did it under the radar, purely because I knew that it would be deemed as a distraction.
“Under Sir Alex, distraction was absolutely illegal, you know that. But I knew that my football career would come to an end, and I knew that I had to plan for it, I knew that I had to do something different and I loved it.
“The meetings, the thrill of the interior design, the selling part of it, the finding the land, the planning.”
Neville talks his Man Utd career
Neville recalled the “tough environment” he played in at United under Ferguson and he felt he had to live at a high level “every single day” of his life at one point.
“I had this thing at 36 that my second half of my life had to be better than my first,” he said.
“I knew that was going to be near-impossible but I actually love my post-football career, I think even more because there was an element of playing at United which was amazing, the best thing in the world, and some of the thrills and highs were unbelievable.
“But under Sir Alex it was a tough environment in that the standards were hugely high, which meant that you had to live at that level every single day. I’ve got more of a consistency.
“You maybe lose those huge highs, but you also lose those big lows that you have, like losing a Champions League semi-final and all of a sudden the world feels like it’s coming on top of you.”
from United In Focus https://ift.tt/B0MXxUp