Rio Ferdinand names surprise league he wishes he played in during career

Rio Ferdinand has opened up on the league he would "want to go and play in" after seeing the atmosphere at games.

The 45-year-old former defender, who called time on a 19-year career in 2015 following spells at West Ham, Leeds, Manchester United and Queens Park Rangers, took part in a Reddit AMA [ask me anything] this week.

He spoke about a number of subjects, including Wayne Rooney's now-iconic "do you want picking up in the morning pal" tweet, the funniest player he's played with and the lowest point of his career.

And the former England international also revealed his love for the Brazilian game after being asked if there was a club he was interested in playing for, but never got the chance.

He said: "I'm going to Real Madrid especially if it was now with Jude in front of me. Man, imagine that. Vinicius, Rodrigo that alongside Rudiger, Militão it would be a joke. [Luka] Modric, Toni Kroos, imagine that playing for Madrid. That'll be unreal.

"Outside of I'd want to go and play in I'd go and play for one of the Brazilian clubs, Sao Paulo, Fluminense, Flamengo, one of them teams like that, because the atmosphere that I see over there, the skills, it just looks nuts."

Ferdinand added: "I'd love to be part of one of those big derbies over there, or go and play it. The Copa Libertadores and play against Boca Juniors or River Plate or Independiente like man imagine, you know, I want to go to one of those games, actually."

As mentioned earlier, the former centre-back also opened up on the funniest player he played alongside, mentioning Manchester United's new technical director Jason Wilcox in his lengthy answer.

"I would have to say there's two of them," he began. |I don't know if you know him, and I don't know how old you are, but look him up. John Moncur played for West Ham. Was the funniest, one of the funniest, if not the funniest, player that I ever played with.

"A lunatic - would do mad stuff. It was cold once, and we used to have training kits. You get your own training kit, but then your hoodies and your wet jackets and your tracksuit bombs used to be in a like a big, big basket, and it was like a coming whoever gets there first takes it, a first come first serve situation.

"He obviously got there. It was freezing outside, raining, house, stones, everything. And we all went out. Everyone's gone out, and he come out about five minutes later in just a pair of pants and his football boots, because he couldn't find no tracksuit bottoms or no wet top. But he was just mad, like, I ain't going out in the freezing cold weather like that.

"He just ran out, like, big smile on his face. And the manager was like, he said, “There's no kit boss. There's no kit Harry”. So he's one of the funniest and funnily enough, the guy who's just gone into man united as technical director now, Jason Wilcox."

Image credit: Getty

He added: "I played with him at Leeds. He is a funny guy. He's Mr serious now and he's dead like professional great at what he's done, done really well to get now being at Man Utd. But one funny guy, man, a great impersonator of football managers and football people."