TIM HOWARD reveals Roy Keane’s hidden genius at Manchester United… and why he turned down his dinner invite

• DailyMail.com’s Tim Howard played alongside Roy Keane at Manchester United
• The former goalkeeper has seen both sides of the former captain at Old Trafford
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news

I was in my first or second year at Manchester United when Roy Keane found out my family was back in the States for a week. He invited me to dinner with his wife Theresa and the kids.

I was a young, foreign player, but he knew everything that was going on at the club. He knew my family had gone home. He knew I was alone. No one sees that side of Roy – he is a gentleman in so many ways.

I didn’t go in the end – I was too scared! I remember thinking: I’m so scared to sit across from Roy in his own house and have dinner. He was Manchester United at the time – and he was much scarier in person. But the feeling was there.

Not a moment went by that Roy didn’t feel like he was contributing to a winning mentality: showing up on time, how you look in your suit or tracksuit. Everything mattered. He was a winning master.

The particular thing I took away from Roy was that sometimes leaders slip up – they say one thing and then do another. Roy was never caught slipping.

He was incredible, impeccable leadership – even if I didn’t like it at times because I was a young player and I was deathly afraid of him. But when you hold people to a higher standard – and you’re able to maintain that – it’s pretty special.

If one moment to sum it up, it was at Highbury in 2005. Arsenal vs Manchester United, the night Roy confronted Patrick Vieira in the tunnel.

What can I tell you from being in the dressing room? None of this was an act. There was a meeting after the warm-ups between Gary Neville and Patrick. And something was brewing. It was talked about in the dressing room. But none came from Roy.

So many people get caught up in the yelling and screaming in the dressing room – “I’m going to do this and that.” Roy never said boo. He waited, walked away and said exactly what he needed to. That was. This was Roy: he didn’t do anything for the cameras or the show. He just did.

Later in my career I lived in the same village – I went to Everton, Roy was Ireland manager. He would come to see some of our Irish players and then we would have a cup of tea and chat.

Roy is an incredibly well-read, intelligent and thoughtful man. But he’s also not one to share that with anyone. Not everyone understands that side of Roy Keane. You have to earn that part of him.

What I learned at a young age was that his expectations were incredibly high. But if you pushed yourself to that level, then you were able to understand it more. If you didn’t take shortcuts, then respect yourself.

Some people wonder if this driving style could work in today’s game. I think it would be. Why? Because winners win.

He would thrive alongside the best players of this era because they want to be great too. It would still raise the level of the top teams.

I was nervous about everything when I first arrived at Manchester United in 2003. But when I meet someone, Roy is a gentleman – he looks you in the eye, shakes your hand and speaks very clearly.

It’s only once you lace up your boots and start training that you realize: this is a different animal. Roy created such an impossible standard – and set it, and that set the bar for the players around him.

He believed there was a right way to do things – and there was. He was obsessed with being the best.

Simple: Roy wanted to make sure there was no one in Carrington or Old Trafford who was there just for the sake of it. He hated that. He wanted everyone who had a job to do it right. Physiotherapists, catering staff, tourism staff – it didn’t matter. If you were employed by the club and had a job to train the players, Roy had an opinion about it and his opinion was right.

He had seen people take advantage of coming to Manchester United just by resting on their laurels. So he didn’t allow anyone to do that.

He was also incredibly intelligent. Roy is very calculated in what he says, how he says it, the timing, the tone. I mean in the most respectful way – he understood what the team needed at any given time.

Take Manchester United vs Liverpool, the biggest game on the calendar. If he thought the team needed to see him completely emotionless – sitting in the locker with his boots on, waiting for the buzzer – then that’s what he did.

If he felt he needed to come through the dressing room and make sure people knew their job and be a little more vocal, he did that too. Sometimes he would make a little joke and a wry smile when you least expect it.

There was never one way and he always changed it in the biggest moments. Good leaders understand when a game feels different and you need to act different.

Those big matches ignited Roy’s character and his desire to lead the charge. That’s when true leaders are measured – they don’t blink, they don’t flinch. And he never did. Not.

HALL OF FAME MAKES SURE MY CAREER IS OVER BUT IT WILL NEVER DIE

The National Soccer Hall of Fame put together a great weekend for my induction in Texas on Saturday – there was a welcome dinner, a concert and then the ceremony.

So many of my World Cup memories came flooding back and old friends reached out to congratulate me, including Sunil Gulati, who is a good friend and former president of US Soccer. He couldn’t attend, but he was special to admit it.

The only thing I wanted to correct in my speech was to make sure I paid tribute to all the people who helped me along the way. And I think I did that.

In terms of my football achievements, this is as close to the top as possible. It felt like a nice cap to my career. It marked the end.

But the irony about the Hall of Fame is that you are, in fact, immortalized forever. It keeps your memory and your career alive. That, for me, was the most revealing part. My career is over, but now it stands by itself, forever. That’s pretty special.