Sir Alex Ferguson vs David Beckham
Perhaps the most infamous manager-player feud of all time. With Manchester United trailing 2-0 at half-time in a 2003 FA Cup tie against bitter rivals Arsenal, Sir Alex Ferguson dished out a few angry words during the interval.
At one point, he singled out David Beckham, who the United boss believed had been taking his foot off the pedal as he closed in on a move to Real Madrid. As Ferguson approached the player, he kicked a boot into his face, with the resulting cut requiring several stitches.
The next day, photos of Beckham's wound was all over the newspapers. Ferguson revealed in his autobiography that the incident convinced him he was losing control of the dressing room and he implored the board to sell the midfielder as soon as possible. They duly obliged, with Beckham moving to Santiago Bernabeu that summer.
Jose Mourinho vs Paul Pogba
Jose Mourinho vs Paul Pogba
In the immediate months following Paul Pogba's big-money return to Old Trafford, his relationship with manager Jose Mourinho was all sunshines and rainbows. However, during the 2017-18 season, the mask began to slip.
At the beginning of the following season, Mourinho took the vice-captaincy off the player. The decision came after months of reports that the pair's relationship had become irrevocably damaged, with the duo clashing on the training ground in a video captured in September 2018.
Mourinho was sacked soon after, but that was not the end of the feud. In April 2021, after the Portuguese had taken over at Tottenham, Pogba launched a scathing attack on his former manager, telling Sky Sports: "Once I had a great relationship with Mourinho. Everybody saw that and the next day you don’t know what happened. That’s the strange thing I had with Mourinho and I cannot explain to you because even I don’t know."
Mourinho did not accept Pogba's version of events, though, replying: "I would like to say that I couldn't care less with what he says. I am not interested at all."
Pep Guardiola vs Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Pep Guardiola vs Zlatan Ibrahimovic
The biggest personality clash in the history of the game? It could well be.
In theory, Zlatan Ibrahimovic should have made Pep Guardiola's brilliant Barcelona side even better when he joined the treble-winners from Inter in 2009, and the early signs were promising. Guardiola has even acknowledged himself that the towering and technically gifted forward was "excellent" for the first half of the season. The problem was that their relationship completely collapsed during the second half of the campaign.
Ibrahimovic had never felt quite at home in what he perceived as a school-like set-up at Barca in which everyone obeyed the man he sarcastically referred to as ‘The Philosopher’, and the outspoken Swede began to throw tantrums after effectively losing his starting spot to Lionel Messi, whom Guardiola decided to deploy as a 'false nine'. Ibrahimovic even accused the Catalan coach of having "no balls" and "sh*tting himself" in front of Jose Mourinho when Barca faced Inter in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
While Guardiola has since refused to throw any more fuel on the fire, Ibrahimovic has never shied away from blaming the former Blaugrana boss for him spending just one season at Camp Nou before returning to San Siro - only this time to play for AC Milan.
Roberto Mancini vs Mario Balotelli
Roberto Mancini vs Mario Balotelli
"I can understand [if some players are frustrated]. I told [Mario Balotelli] that if you played with me 10 years ago I give to you every day maybe one punch in your head. But there are different ways to help guys like Mario."
That was how Roberto Mancini summed up working with Balotelli at Manchester City, with the pair colliding on more than one occasion. Even if the manager did keep faith in the centre-forward through a lot of the chaos, with his favouritism even frustrating some members of the squad, this was certainly a love-hate relationship.
During a pre-season friendly against LA Galaxy in 2011, the Italian coach dragged the striker off after he bizarrely attempted - and missed - an audacious backheel, instead of tapping the ball into an empty net. In January 2013, the odd couple even came to blows on the training ground after the striker put in a crunching tackle on team-mate Gael Clichy.
Mick McCarthy vs Roy Keane
Mick McCarthy vs Roy Keane
The feud so bitter and divisive it spawned its own Wikipedia page. The 'Saipan incident' stemmed from Roy Keane's explosive reaction to what he deemed to be inadequate preparations from the FAI ahead of Ireland's 2002 World Cup campaign.
The combative midfielder aired his (many) grievances to The Irish Times, which understandably irritated manager Mick McCarthy. When the interview was published, Keane's coach questioned him about it, and the midfielder's response was legendary.
"Mick, you're a liar… You're a f*cking w*nker. I didn't rate you as a player, I don't rate you as a manager, and I don't rate you as a person. You're a f*cking w*nker and you can stick your World Cup up your a**e. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are the manager of my country! You can stick it up your b*llocks."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Keane exited the camp soon after, which led to all hell breaking loose back home in Ireland. Despite the intervention of then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the midfielder's chances of returning were extinguished when he opted to give an interview to the Mail on Sunday in which he claimed his squad-mates had lower standards than him.
Sir Alex Ferguson vs Roy Keane
Keane and Ferguson are two of the most legendary figures in United history, but an issue as trivial as a holiday villa caused the pair's relationship to fray at the edges back in 2005. The Irishman was supposedly unhappy about the condition of the house allocated to him, his wife and their five children for the club's pre-season training trip to Portugal. However, the United boss did not agree, feeling that Keane was being unnecessarily difficult.
The split between the duo only widened when Keane slammed his team-mates during an un-broadcasted MUTV interview following a dismal away defeat to Middlesbrough. When the video was shown to the squad, with their captain present, several of them took exception to his harsh words, but he would not back down.
"What I noticed about him that day as I was arguing with him was that his eyes started to narrow, almost to wee black beads. It was frightening to watch - and I’m from Glasgow," Ferguson recalled while launching his autobiography.
Shortly after, Keane would depart the club, with the two men continuing to trade blows in the media in the years that followed.
Jose Mourinho vs Ricardo Quaresma
Jose Mourinho vs Ricardo Quaresma
When Inter signed Ricardo Quaresma in 2008, Mourinho soon made it clear that he planned to turn the famously free-spirited wideman into a more disciplined operator. It's safe to say the experiment didn't work, with the coach stating just a few months into his Nerazzurri career: "He will have to learn, otherwise he won't play, and I am sure he'll change and become more tactically disciplined. He likes kicking the ball with the outside of his foot, but if you ask me about him in a few months' time, we'll be talking about a different Quaresma."
After a frightfully disappointing start to life in Milan, Quaresma was shipped out on loan to Chelsea. That didn't worked out either and the following season, he once again barely featured as Mourinho led Inter to a famous treble.
As evidenced by a recent interview with Portuguese newspaper Publico, it's clear the trivela-specialist does not have many fond memories of his time at San Siro. "My happiness and self-confidence were taken away from me. At one point I wasn't even called-up any more. I felt on the margins of the squad and woke up crying when I had to attend training sessions," he said.
Pep Guardiola vs Samuel Eto'o
Pep Guardiola vs Samuel Eto'o
Pep Guardiola effectively forcing Samuel Eto'o of Barcelona in order to bring in Zlatan Ibrahimovic - at great additional expense too - must rank as the worst trade of all time.
Guardiola had tried to offload the Cameroonian immediately after taking over as Barca boss in 2008 but the striker stayed, and helped the club win a first treble, scoring the opening goal in the Champions League final win over Manchester United in Rome. However, Pep still wanted to get rid of Eto'o and refused to explain precisely why. "There is not a single major reason for this decision," he said. "It is a matter of feeling and sensations."
Eto'o was less than happy, and much more forthcoming when it came to discussing the circumstances surrounding his exit, revealing that he had taken exception to Guardiola’s alleged arrogance. "I first of all reminded Guardiola that he'd never been a great player," he later claimed. "He was a good player, that's true. But, as a coach, he had proven nothing."
Unsurprisingly, their relationship went downhill from there - despite Barca's on-field success.
Erik ten Hag vs Jadon Sancho
Manchester United were absolutely desperate to sign Jadon Sancho and finally snapped up the English prodigy from Borussia Dortmund in July 2021 for £74m ($92m). However, the winger struggled terribly to justify his sky-high price tag. Things just didn't click consistently under Solskjaer, and interim boss Rangnick could not get the best out of him either. However, Sancho's United career stooped to even greater lows under Ten Hag.
After missing a sizeable chunk of the 2022-23 campaign due to "mental and physical struggles", the hope was that Sancho would get back to something approaching his best the following season. However, things came to a head after he was left out of the matchday squad entirely for his side's 3-1 loss to Arsenal on September 3, 2024.
During his post-match press conference, Ten Hag explained that Sancho's omission was a result of his training performances, leading to the 23-year-old hitting back at his manager after the game on social media.
Ruben Amorim vs Marcus Rashford
There was some hope when Ruben Amorim succeeded Erik ten Hag as Manchester United manager in November 2024 that he might help Marcus Rashford rediscover his best form. That did not prove to be the case, though, and the Portuguese boss made it painfully clear that he had no interest in even working with a player who publicly expressed his interest in finding a new club just two days after being left out of the squad for December's Manchester derby due to behavioural reasons.
Indeed, Amorim even joked after a 1-0 win at Fulham the following month that he'd rather play United's 63-year-old goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital than bring Rashford back into his starting line-up. He added when pressed on why Rashford had fallen to the bottom of the attacking pecking order: "The reason is the training, the way I see what a footballer should do in training, in life. It’s every day, every detail. If things don’t change, I will not change."
Five days later, the England international was loaned to Aston Villa, where he miraculously started playing with a smile on his face again. Rashford secured another loan move in the summer, this time to Barcelona, where he has since taken his resurgence up a notch, working alongside a host of world-class players.
