Roy Keane wishes he’d played abroad during his storied football career.
The seven-time Premier League winner, who also won the Champions League in 1999, plus the FA Cup times achieved a myriad of accolades and awards during his 17-year playing career, which saw him captain Manchester United.
Having began his career at Irish side Cobh Ramblers back in 1989, Keane then starred at Nottingham Forest for three years before moving to Manchester United in 1993.
He went on to make 480 appearances for the Red Devils, scoring 51 goals in the process.
The former midfielder then played out his final season at Celtic – the club he had supported as a child – after leaving United in 2005.
The Premier League Hall-of-Famer is also a national icon, and he is the joint most successful Irish football of all time.
After taking up management roles at Sunderland and Ipswich Town between 2006 and 2011, Keane has now become a popular broadcaster and pundit.
But for all his successes, Keane wishes he’d taken a leap of faith and played abroad as he explained to Ian Wright, Jill Scott, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher on the Stick to Football podcast.
And when the 52-year-old was posed a question about what the hardest thing he had ever had to do in has career was, his answer proved to be particularly illuminating.
“Probably leaving United at the time,” he replied. “That was probably hard.”
But the question led Keane into another area of discussion as he discussed the options he had after leaving the Red Devils.
He went on: “Talking about decisions also, I definitely should’ve gone abroad. I had opportunities to play abroad.
“I should’ve been brave enough to have gone over and played in Italy or Germany or Spain, and I had the opportunity.”
And when pressed to name a team that he could have gone to, Keane said there was one club that immediately came to mind.
“Do you know, I always had a soft spot for Juventus,” he revealed. “And they offered my a deal but I remember the deal wasn’t, kind of… At the time thinking it wasn’t amazing, I was going for an amazing deal.
“The club that offered me the most amazing deal ever was Bayern Munich.”
However, given United were then among Europe’s best teams, it is understandable that the winning mentality he imposed on teammates would have been tough to leave.
He added: “And then when I left United I went up to Celtic and I could’ve gone to Real Madrid for a year and a half, they offered me a year and a half.
“Celtic, it was emotional. I was fine making those kind of decisions, I was 34, I just thought, will I go to Madrid and make an impact?”