Sir Alex Ferguson is probably the most intimidating manager of all time. Well, there may be lesser coaches who were more fearsome, but none have managed to turn that formidable managerial style into success quite like he did.
Winning the Premier League 13 times with Manchester United, as well as two Champions League titles, and many other major honours, the Scottish coach dominated English football for over two decades. Ruling with an iron fist, whatever he said at Old Trafford went.
He was no stranger to falling out with his best players either. Famously, kicking a boot at David Beckham, calling Paul Ince a 'bottler', and giving many more big names the famous 'hairdresser treatment'.
However, he did once admit that there was one Man Utd star who intimidated him.
Ferguson Was Intimidated by Peter Schmeichel
Feared for his safety after an argument
Peter Schmeichel was a brilliant goalkeeper, quite likely the best Man United ever had. Ferguson certainly seemed to think so, ranking the Dane as his personal number one.
Perhaps, though, he said this with a little bit of fear in the back of his mind. After all, the legendary manager made a rare admission about one of his players, once admitting that he was intimidated by Schmeichel after being confronted by the shot-stopper during an argument:
"He was towering over me and the other players were almost covering their eyes. I'm looking up and thinking 'if he does hit me, I'm dead'."
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Ferguson Once Threatened to 'Sack' Schmeichel
They clashed after a loss to Liverpool
Despite rating Schmeichel so highly, and being intimidated by him, that still didn't mean Ferguson was able to bit his tongue when frustrated by the Dane. He once even threatened to 'sack' the iconic goalkeeper after they clashed.
Ferguson had criticised Schmeichel following a 2-0 defeat by Liverpool, the shot-stopper felt it was unfair and was so enraged he completely lost his head. Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast (via Daily Mail), the Dane said:
"Sir Alex Ferguson picked on me after a game and the second half was so bad, but I made a lot of saves and I felt like I kept the team in. He blamed me for my goal kicks.
"I felt really hard done by for him picking on me. My head went and that was probably my biggest regret in football and I’m not repeating that.
"On a Monday morning, he called me into his office and said that he was going to sack me and that we can’t have a player doing this. I accepted that and I apologised to him.
"He had a meeting in the changing room after and it was the worst I’ve ever seen him. He was so angry. He never done that in training before. He left and then I apologised to the team. My behaviour was so out of order. There are certain things you can do and certain things you can’t do.
"In the 90 minutes, I feel like you can say whatever because it’s all about winning. Before the game and after the game, you can’t say anything. It’s up to the manager or the coach to talk about what happened. You can’t go in and say you played bad, but I did that. I shouldn’t have done that. But he never brought it up again."
Perhaps Ferguson was able to forgive Schmeichel because, deep down, he was intimidated. More likely, however, was the simple fact that he didn't want to lose such a good player.