Football icons Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira have been brought together to discuss their explosive rivalry on the pitch for the first time in a new ITV4 documentary.
In a personal and playing confrontation that defined one of the most compelling eras of the Premier League when Arsenal and Manchester United vied for the top honours, the two come face-to-face before the cameras to tell each other exactly how they saw it at the time and how they feel now looking back.
Airing on Tuesday, December 10, at 10.00pm on ITV4, the documentary presents a fascinating study of one of football’s most infamous personality clashes between the former midfield enforcers.
The documentary uses a combination of searing individual interviews carried out by ITV Sport’s chief reporter Gabriel Clarke, plus an extraordinarily insightful two-men-across-a-table honest conversation between the protagonists.
A special animosity seemed to exist between the two whenever they clashed on the field. Indeed, Keane once described himself as being in a war with Vieira.
While their two clubs competed with each other for the biggest prizes in the domestic game, their leaders fought on the pitch and argued off it, with the most infamous bust-up coming in the tunnel at Highbury.
Their infamous feud before the match in February 2005 has entered folklore and most fans would agree that the pair were footballing warriors that defined their age.
In this special ITV film, produced by Love Productions, the two men come together to try to explain their toxic relationship.
The pair face each other across a table candidly discussing the most tense, frustrating and important moments of their careers, including the so-called ‘Battle of Old Trafford’ in 2003.
They speak candidly about just why they hated each other and express their views on their respective managers, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, and what they really thought of them, both now and then.
It took more than two years to persuade Keane and Vieira to agree to sit down together and talk face-to-face about what happened between them as professional footballers.
Since then, they both have on occasion appeared together as pundits on ITV’s football coverage, including Champions League games and at Euro 2012.
Find out the full story of their intense nine-year playing rivalry, the brutal competitiveness, an absolute desire for physical domination and, from one side at least, hatred.
‘Keane & Vieira – Best of Enemies’ – Tuesday, December 10 – 10.00pm-11.15pm.
Repeated on ITV – Tuesday, January 7 – 10.35pm-11.50pm
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Preview clip via ITV4’s YouTube channel
