Nani spent eight years at Old Trafford, playing 147 times in the Premier League, scoring 25 goals in the process.
The former Manchester United coach was known to be a martinet, but Nani, a player who currently plies his trade for Orlando City in the Major League Soccer, insists Ferguson was lenient when players turned up drunk to training after New Year’s Eve.
"I never got in trouble," the 33-year-old said in an interview with Tribuna Expresso.
"Nights out at the right time, if I had the next day off, for example, then I could have some fun. Or on special days like Christmas or New Year - no one in England cares about that.”
"On New Year, we could even go to training drunk and the coach didn't care about it.”
“That's the side of [Sir Alex] that knew how to deal with the players and have the perception to say 'this day is special, I can't make demands'.
"We had been playing non-stop all year long. If one day Wes Brown gets drunk, what are we going to do? It was a joy, a moment of relaxation, a different kind of training - clowning around.”
He added: "I won't lie, I liked nights out. But now I avoid them because to be able to play at the highest level you have to drop the nights out and know the right time to enjoy yourself. That is basically what I do."
