Something of a journeyman, the Italian-American had spells with the Red Devils, Villarreal Fiorentina, Genoa, and even Newcastle United.
It was only a short-lived period at Old Trafford for Rossi. The forward moved to the Premier League giants from Parma when he was just 17 years old and made his first-team debut at home to Crystal Palace in 2004.
He made 14 outings for United in total, netting four goals during that period. But it wasn’t enough to convince Sir Alex Ferguson to keep him and he was sold to Villarreal for €10m.
He was quizzed about his time in England by Calciomercato.com, where he was asked about some of his former teammates at Carrington – including Nemanja Vidic.
“Vidic, [he was] an animal: I was afraid to go up against him because he would kick you. He would break you, so I had to find a strategy to get past him. I think he was one of the best centre-backs of the last twenty years.”
Rossi also touched on his relationship with Ferguson, admitting that that he did feel the full wrath of the Scotsman while he was there.
“I was 18, I was a starter in the FA Cup: at half-time we were losing 0-1 and after a first half in which I had played well and hit the crossbar Ferguson took me off to put Rooney on. He got angry and told me I had to do better, even if I didn’t deserve that substitution he took me on to give everyone a boost: we turned it around and won 2-1. I wondered what I had done wrong. The next day however everything was forgotten, he came to training and smiled at me straight away”.
