But to be a Manchester United player. That’s something entirely different again.
It’s not a quality defined purely by the yardstick of appearances, goals or trophies, but by aura – drive, hunger, attitude, the will, or perhaps an insatiable need, to win. And then win again.
It’s found in all the United greats, past and present, from sepia-tinged heroes to sons of the Technicolor age: from Billy Meredith and Joe Spence, through Duncan Edwards, Bobby Charlton and the Busby Babes, to Denis Law, George Best, Ryan Giggs, Eric Cantona and beyond.
Nowhere, arguably, has that flame burned more brightly than in the soul of Roy Keane.