Tony Cascarino has revealed Sir Alex Ferguson tried to get him to convince Zinedine Zidane to join Manchester United.
Ferguson nearly convinced several world-class players to move to Manchester, with Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne just two of the names who almost played under the legendary manager.
And it is no secret that Zidane also could have played for the Red Devils, but it is perhaps less well known that he tried to use the Weekend Sports Breakfast co-host to do it!
The Juventus and Real Madrid legend was playing in his native France at the time, but was taking part in a charity game alongside Cascarino.
As the duo prepared to play alongside one another, Sir Alex reportedly came into the dressing room and asked the former Chelsea striker to test out his French skills to see if Zidane would consider coming to Old Trafford.
He said: “One of my greatest moments is being in a dressing room in Marseille and me and him [Zidane] are in the same team and Sir Alex Ferguson is asking me to have a word with Zizou about would he join Man United.
“Sir Alex said to me ‘How good is your French?’ and I said ‘It’s okay, I can get along’.
“And he said ‘Have a word with the Number 10’ – he wanted to know whether he would be interested.
“I don’t know why he didn’t use Eric Cantona because he was in the dressing room!”
The Scot was a huge admirer of Zidane, and is famously quoted as saying ‘Give me ten planks of wood and Zidane and I will win the Champions League’.
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But the 77-year-old couldn’t resist having a cheeky dig at Cascarino before asking him to convince the World Cup winner to join him.
Sir Alex came along with his bodyguard and he was on great from and he was very chatty and he made a joke at me first of all,” he continued.
“He said ‘I watched you in 1990’ and I asked if he wanted to sign me and he said no! Then two minutes later he went ‘Have a word with the number 10’.”