Tottenham Hotspur's Eric Dier has revealed in The Players' Tribune that ex-Manchester United trio Roy Keane, Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand were among his idols as a child.
Dier, who is with the England squad in Dortmund ahead of Wednesday's friendly against Germany, was raised in Portugal and is comfortable playing in both defence and midfield.
He says he enjoyed watching midfielder Keane and centre-backs Vidic and Ferdinand, as well as Barcelona defensive pair Gerard Pique and Rafael Marquez, the latter of whom is similarly versatile and now plays for Atlas.
"I watched a lot more English than Portuguese football," Dier wrote. "I was a big fan of Roy Keane when I was younger, and then it was Nemanja Vidic [one of the reasons I like the No. 15 is Vidic] and Rio Ferdinand.
"But I liked different kinds of players as well. Vidic was a bit of a warrior, yet at the same time I loved to watch Gerard Pique and Rafael Marquez, who played in both defence and midfield at Barcelona."
Dier returned to England in January 2011, spending 18 months on loan at Everton and helping them to the under-18 league title as well as playing for the club's under-21s.
He returned to parent club Sporting Lisbon at the end of the 2012-13 season and broke into the first-team before joining Tottenham for around £5 million in 2014.
"My hardest times came before I joined Tottenham," Dier wrote. "At 16, there was a period when I went on loan to Everton, and that was extremely tough for me. I moved on my own from Lisbon to Liverpool, and for the first six months I didn't know what I was doing there -- I felt completely lost.
"At that age, you doubt yourself. You give so much to football but you don't know if it's going to give anything back. It's sort of a lottery.
"Then in my last season at Sporting Lisbon I barely played any games. In my first season with the senior team I had been involved a lot, but then a new manager came in and I didn't get as much playing time. That was a horrible period -- probably my worst, and I didn't know what was going to happen.
"You know, playing in Portugal is a bit different than playing in England. Things can go south very quickly -- the lower leagues in Portugal are not quite the same as they are in England.
"It was tough for me, but then in the summer a new manager came in, Marco Silva [who's now the manager at Hull]. He was fantastic for me in the month we were both there, and at that point I wasn't thinking about anything other than trying to start for Sporting Lisbon."