Manchester United midfielder Fred spent nearly one hour speaking to Esporte Interativo in a live chat on Facebook this week.
The 27-year-old has talked about the Coronavirus break, his great season at the Old Trafford side and also interacted with Red Devils’ fans from Brazil.
Among the many questions he’s been asked, there have been two about club legends and how he sees them. The first one was in a little game where Fred was given Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and Paul Scholes, and had to leave one of them out.
“Oh man. They are three phenomena, but I think I’d leave Beckham out. I’d take the other two. I think Giggs has 960 games for United, he can’t be left out. Beckham I can’t even talk about him. But you have to leave one out, and Scholes for how he played there,” Fred told Esporte Interativo.
And it turned out that Fred had a great story on how Paul Scholes had a big impact in his improvement this season, even without speaking to him.
“Before the game against Brugge, in which I scored two goals, I hadn’t scored a goal this season. We were at the hotel there for lunch, just before the game. And the TV here likes to show old games. And they were showing only Scholes’ goals. And I was like, ‘Man, this guy gets in the box so much. He’s a midfielder and is always in the box, he always scores with his head, all the time’.
“Back then, I saw him playing but I didn’t follow so much, in Brazil I wasn’t able to watch all United games. And then, seeing his goals, he would enter the box, shoot from outside the box, right foot, left foot. And I said ‘what’s that, man, this guy’.
“And then Bruno said ‘See? You have to do that. Enter the box and you’ll score’. Then I went and scored two goals in that game. That’s why Bruno celebrated a lot, he was on the bench. I watched his videos and said ‘man, what a great player’.”
The other question was about Sir Alex Ferguson, with Fred being quizzed if he’s already had the opportunity to speak to the manager. The Brazilian has talked about the honour of seeing him a few times.
“It was an honour to meet this Sir. One of the guys who revolutionised football. And each story of Alex Ferguson here is gigantic and it’s a guy that Solskjaer played for, so he’s always there in the training centre watching some training, at the stadium, sometimes he goes to the dressing room to greet us. Man, it’s an incredible feeling to meet him, to touch his hand.
“He’s a guy who, in Manchester United’s history, I think he is, I don’t think so, I’m sure he’s the greatest coach in football history. So he’s an idol, not only mine but of all football, and I’m very happy to have had the pleasure of meeting him and other idols here at the club. So I have enormous gratitude for that.”
