Rio Ferdinand has opened up about beating Chelsea in the 2008 Champions League final in Moscow.

Manchester United captured their first European trophy since 1999 with a penalty shoot-out win over their Premier League rivals.

When asked by BT Sport whether it was more difficult to face teams that United would play in the Premier League in Europe, Ferdinand said: "That added pressure to me definitely because I was playing against friends, international friends, friends I'd grown up with. It made it a much higher pressurised situation because so much more was at stake if it could have been.

"It was tough, it was really tough because at the end of the day again there was so many bragging rights to be had between us.

"And listen, if we beat someone from Italy, Spain or Germany, you don't see them really until you play them in a year or two down the line whereas if you lose to Chelsea in Moscow that's folklore, that's history, that's there every time you go to their stadium, twice a year if not more, and from the fans that you see.'

He added: "I was coming back to live in London after that so they would have been on me all the time. That pressure mounts up so it becomes a crazy, crazy beast before the first whistle has even blown."