#Roy Keane and Michael Owen are fighting battles they’ll never win"

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Roy Keane and Michael Owen are fighting battles they’ll never win

It's more than 20 years since I interviewed Roy Keane for the only time. Manchester United had not yet moved to their ground training and so we sat on chairs on the balcony above the covered field at The Cliff. I was younger and intimidated by his reputation back then, but he spoke just as forcefully and honestly as now.

After the talk was done, the photographer Keane asked if he would mind if his photo was taken outside. Keane looked carefully. He muttered something about what the manager could say. He did not want the hassle of causing the volatility of Sir Alex Ferguson. So we dived out of sight of the manager's office windows. Keane had his photo taken with his back to a brick wall.

It was my only real snapshot of the way the two men existed next to the field. Football is full of strong characters, but in the history of our game there were few stronger than them. Keane tolerated Ferguson's volcanic showers and Ferguson used Keane's simmering anger as his valued weapon. Last week Gary Neville said he was afraid it would always end badly. He was right.

Roy Keane has beaten this week with former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson

Keane and Ferguson worked together for 19 years at Manchester United

The duo are at odds since Ferguson told Keane to leave the club in November 2005

It was a coincidence that Keane with Neville had to sit on stage at a theater in Dublin last week and evacuation of Ferguson at the same time Michael Owen took a sledgehammer to his reputation of his former friend and fellow goals legend Alan Shearer.

Unlike some, I saw some particular sadness in the fact that Keane and Owen had chosen to speak out in different ways. Keane & # 39; s intensity is hypnotic and if his frankness upset people, that's their problem. When asked what he thinks about Ferguson, why would he lie? I agree with what he said. Why would he break up?

But it is also true that both Keane and Owen are waging wars they cannot win. They compete against men whose performance in the game transcends their mistakes. Ferguson won 13 Premier League titles and two Champions League titles in his team at Old Trafford. Shearer is the biggest goal scorer in the history of the Premier League. They are both unassailable.

Keane made no concessions to the age of Ferguson or his recent health problems when asked about their relationship. He attacked the way the manager handled Keane & # 39; s exit from Old Trafford.

He was still stung by the fact that when Ferguson and former CEO David Gill called him to the end of his club, they thanked him for his 11 and a half years of service when he was 12 and a half years had been with United. He was also averse to the idea that Ferguson always had the best interests of United in mind.

He went after his family. He implied that Ferguson's son, Darren, owed his playing career at United to nepotism. The same for Ferguson's brother, Martin, who was the main scout. Keane said that Ferguson would have given his wife a job at the club if he could have done that.

Owen's attack line, partly via the pages of his new book, Reboot, and partly via Twitter, would call Shearer's loyalty to Newcastle into question. He accused him of trying to move to Liverpool when Sir Bobby was Robson's manager. He said that loyalty in football was a myth. He said he wanted to puke because of this when he saw players kissing the badge on their club shirt.

Both Keane and Owen seem to be trying to fix something. They want to correct something that has devoured them. And in both cases it is not enough to talk about themselves. To achieve the justification they seek for their behavior in a career that ended years ago, Keane and Owen seem to feel the need to bring someone else down.

Michael Owen doubted Alan Shearer's loyalty to Newcastle in his new autobiography

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Owen and Shearer were good friends, but they are also fighting each other now

It is something that goes beyond football. It is a fight for reputation. It is a struggle for revisionism. It is a fight for the truth. Or their version of the truth. It is a fight for something that has been lost. If something is sad about it, it is that what has been lost cannot be rediscovered by trying to undermine someone else.

History will not judge Ferguson because he was a ruthless man who could be bullying and greedy. It will judge him because of the trophies he has won. It will not judge him because he has signed Eric Djemba-Djemba. It will judge him because he made youth team boys the cornerstone of his team.

And Shearer will not judge history because of some machinations in Newcastle. It will judge him by the goals he has scored and the records he has set. It will hug him because he overshadowed Jackie Milburn and embodied everything we admire about an English center striker.

However, Keane and Owen also want to see the foibles. Ferguson and Shearer got away with it. They are assessed less strictly. They have reputations that they don't deserve. They are set on lions and their mistakes are swept away. Keane and Owen are consumed by their perception of their injustice. They have become avengers for their own reputation.

One day they may realize that the struggle was a waste of their energy. Hopefully one day they will realize that they did not have to attack Ferguson or Shearer to restore their own reputation.

Owen may be stung by the accusation that he was a fickle player that fans of clubs never liked he played before but history won't remember. It will remember that goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, his hat trick against Germany in Munich, it will remember that he won an FA Cup final for Liverpool and that there was a time when his brilliance made him the face of optimism and joy .

Keane may have been stung by the way he left Old Trafford, but that will also disappear in public memory. I still consider his appearance for United against Juventus in Turin in the semifinals of the 1999 Champions League as the best showing a player has seen for an English club in Europe.

History will remember him for that and because, alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, he is the best player in the years of United's dominance in the 1990s and beyond.

That is the irony in all of this. The reputation of Keane and Owen is secure. History will love them too. It's just that they don't know yet.

RAFA IS ACE … BUT IT WAS LINED FOR ME

Rafael Nadal is the hot favorite to add a 19th Grand Slam title for his incredible record when he plays Daniil Medvedev on Sunday in the final of the US Open men's singles.

If he wins, he gets a 20-degree title from Roger Federer, which makes the debate about who is the greatest of all time.

Nadal is a great talent, but he could win 25 Grand Slams and I would still choose Federer as the biggest player. Federer cannot be beat for his grace, for his elegance, for his ability to lift the soul with a wave of his backhand, for the sheer beauty of his tennis.

Rafael Nadal becomes only one Grand Slam title behind Roger Federer if he wins on Sunday

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