During his 12 years with Manchester United, Rio Ferdinand faces some tough strikers, including world’s best players. The Red Devils defender played regularly for sir Alex Ferguson’s side both in the Premier League and in the Champions League and and usually came on top, but there is one player in particular who caused problems for the Englishman and his defensive partner Nemanja Vidić – Fernando Torres. Liverpool striker was not the tallest or the strongest striker out there, but was lethal while playing for the Reds. He scored four goals against the Red Devils in 14 Premier League matches against them, with three of those coming in just six Liverpool appearances. And he could share a punch too. Lampard and Ferdinand used to party every night“Torres was a great player, by the way. He scored some mad goals. Me and him had good battles. He could look after himself. He stamped on my foot and I had about six stitches at half time. There was blood pouring out of my boot and everything. The ball wasn’t even around us, he just stamped on my foot” Ferdinand said on his FIVE YouTube show.’Alex Ferguson was talking to his horse racing bookie during Manchester trainings’But, it was not only Ferdinand who had problems with the Spaniard. Another famous Manchester defender, Nemanja Vidić, had nightmares when he was playing against Torres. In fact, Ferdinand was a partner with the Serb in the middle of Manchester’s defense at the time, and while others were afraid of them, Torres knew how to play against them. “First of all, it’s the best partnership ever in Premier League history. Trust me. Listen, strikers were playing out on the wings sometimes because they didn’t want to come up against us, it was mad! There’s always going to be that one player in your career who’s difficult. He might not be the best player on the planet, but his style is made to hurt your style. And Torres might have just been that for Nemanja. He’s someone he found difficult to play against. And he’s probably the only player I’ve seen consistently give Vida a hard time, and he got sent off in a couple of the games didn’t he, early on in the games. But listen, Torres was a great player and when he was in his pomp when he was at Liverpool, he was one of the best strikers about. He was a devastating striker. But with me one-v-one, he didn’t cause me any problems if I’m honest” said Rio recently to the Beautiful Game Podcast.
