Just imagine the scene. "Neymar runs with the ball down the wing, gives it to Suarez, Suarez crosses to Ronaldo, Ronaldo chests it down, takes the ball past the defender and plays in Messi... Who scores! Right in the top corner." It's a mouth-watering scenario that you'd only get playing FIFA, yet it's one that nearly came true in the summer of 2003. During his days playing for Sporting Lisbon, Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes offered the forward to Barcelona in the summer of 2003, but the Catalans declined as they had already made a series of transfers. This allowed Manchester United to step in and bring CR7 to Old Trafford that same year. 'Mendes offered us Cristiano Ronaldo when he was still under contract with Sporting. We worked with Jorge quite a lot back then,' said former Barcelona president Joan Laporta recently.
'We could have got Ronaldo for a lower price than Manchester United eventually paid for him. However, we had just signed Ronaldinho, Ricardo Quaresma and Rafael Marquez, and we lacked the financial resources to make another signing.'
Barca's loss was certainly United's gain with Ronaldo going on to score 84 Premier League goals in 196 appearances during a sparkling six-season spell at the Theatre of Dreams before eventually getting his move to Spain - but to Barcelona's rivals Real Madrid instead, who paid a then-world-transfer record £80 million for his services in 2009.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
