In a Twitter Q&A session held before Manchester United took on Liverpool in the Europa League last night, former United centre-back Rio Ferdinand revealed that he considers Sachin Tendulkar to be his ‘favourite Indian’. The Englishman also noted that he considers Gerard Pique to be the best centre-back in the world, while revealing other interesting nuggets of information as well.
Tweeting with the hashtag #AskRio, Ferdinand answered a question midway through his storm of tweets that is sure to have pleased a number of Manchester United fans in India. Twitter account @RedUnitedFC asked Ferdinand, ‘Who is your favourite Indian?’, to which the Englishman had the following response.
It’s not all that surprising a tweet from Ferdinand, as the BT Sport pundit considers Tendulkar to be one of the best batsmen of all time. In the 2011 Cricket World Cup final, Ferdinand was rather panicked when Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed by Sri Lanka early on.
Ferdinand, who was recently in India, had noted that for football to progress in India, the children of India needed a ‘Tendulkar’-like figure to look up to, saying “We were talking about how important that is if India wants to have an association with football and for it to grow, they need a star player to come out and go into Europe.”
“To be that guy that kids look up to. They’ve got [Sachin] Tendulkar in cricket and they need one in football, and that’s important. They’ve got to invest time, effort, enthusiasm and money to do that.”
Gerard Pique is the best CB in the world
Ferdinand also was quite generous with his opinion about other matters in the Twitter Q&A, as he picked Gerard Pique as his topmost centre-back. The Englishman was asked by @Kushagra ‘Who according to you is the best CB in the world right now?’ Ferdinand had a clear answer, tweeting:
Ferdinand was no mug at centre-back either, with many rating him as the best in the world at his peak. Switching positions for a moment, Ferdinand was asked about the toughest striker he’d ever faced. The Englishman’s answer included Brazilian striker Ronaldo, Real Madrid legend Raul and of course, Lionel Messi.
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