Ex-captain Keane left Old Trafford in 2005 after more than 300 league appearances for the Red Devils, his final outing for the club coming just a month before Pique's Premier League bow for the 20-time champions of England.
The Spanish stopper only made another 11 league outings for United before returning home to Barcelona in 2008 and winning every major honour there is for club and country including two Champions League crowns and the World Cup.
I hid my face with my hand... he still scares me. I was sh*tting myself!
However, the 27-year-old says the sight of Keane still sends shivers down his spine, telling FourFourTwo exclusively that the Irishman – now assistant manager at Aston Villa – was scarier than Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous ‘hairdryer treatment’.
“I wouldn't say I was scared of [Ferguson]. Roy Keane? Well, maybe that's different!” Pique said while answering readers’ One-on-One questions in the November 2014 issue, available in shops and on iPad now.
“I remember we were in the changing room at Old Trafford and my phone started vibrating. Keano could hear the vibrations and went crazy trying to find out who the phone belonged to. That’s who he was.
“Before we [Barca] beat Celtic 1-0 last season, I noticed him by the side of the pitch as a pundit as we went to warm up. I hid my face with my hand because he still scares me. I was 26 years old, and I was sh*tting myself!”
Read the full One-on-One interview with Gerard Pique in the November 2014 issue of FourFourTwo, in which he reveals why Louis van Gaal pushed him over as a 12-year-old and how much Shakira knows about football. The magazine also unearths the truth behind Man United’s record-breaking new No.7, Angel Di Maria, features exclusive interviews with Chelsea’s Eden Hazard and Manchester City striker Stevan Jovetic, and chats to Seattle Sounders’ Clint Dempsey on the USA captaincy and former Spurs midfielder Darren Anderton on being the poster boy for chronic injury problems. Available now in print and in a specially-designed-for-iPad version.
