The inside story of Cristiano Ronaldo's £12million transfer to Manchester United in 2003 is very well known.
The Red Devils were facing off against Sporting Lisbon in a pre-season friendly in Lisbon and after an 18-year-old Ronaldo dazzled in the match, Sir Alex Ferguson spoke to the teenager and told him he wanted to snap him up then and there.
But the story could have been different.
Former Juventus sporting director Gianni Di Marzio has revealed that the Portguese star almost made the move to Italy a year earlier - only for Chilean striker Marcelo Salas to scupper the move.
Di Marzio agreed a swap deal which would have seen Ronaldo and Salas swap places, but the Chilean would not agree to the terms of the deal.
The move mooted deal initially came about after Di Marzio went to Lisbon to scout Ricardo Quaresma, but he did not play in the clash against Belenenses.
In his place was a rookie Ronaldo, who gave an early display of the talents that would one day win him the Ballon d'Or in just his third appearance for the club.
"He was eighteen when I worked at Juventus," Di Marzio told Marca .
"I called my club and told them I'd seen someone who would be the best player in the world, obviously after Maradona.
''I negotiated and brought Cristiano over to Turin in 2002 to sign for Juve, but Salas didn't accept the terms of the swap.
''For just a few million euros, Salas didn't want to leave and so Juventus lost out on Cristiano Ronaldo.
His agent [Jorge Mendes] knows this story very well."
No comments:
Post a Comment