Manchester United almost bagged the Real Madrid legend in 2010 when the striker's illustrious Bernabeu career came to an end, but former manager Sir Alex Ferguson thought he had enough firepower and passed up the opportunity. Instead, Raul ended up at Schalke, scoring 28 goals in a two-year spell for the German outfit, helping them to a DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup double in 2010-11. But the Champions League's all-time record goalscorer could so easily have ended up at Old Trafford instead, had it not been for the fact we already had Michael Owen, Javier Hernández, Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov at the time. Ferguson once said of Raul -
"Bringing in Raúl would have been similar to when we managed to get Henrik Larsson for a short time a few years ago. It was obvious his time at Real Madrid had come to an end, and he certainly wasn't too old to be effective, as he has been showing in Germany. We spoke to his agent about a possible move but we already had Javier Hernández by then and, with Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and Michael Owen available, we thought we could afford to let the chance pass. If we hadn't had Michael at the club at the time I might well have signed him."
Raul himself added:
"There were "a couple of possibilities and United was one".
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.
