Over the years we’ve seen plenty of stories about players almost joining this club or that.
Arsenal nearly signed a young Zlatan Ibrahimović. Blackburn turned down Zinedine Zidane because they already had Tim Sherwood. Harry Redknapp almost signed literally every player to have ever stepped onto a football pitch.
Another of the stories which gets trotted out from time to time is the one about Cristiano Ronaldo almost making the move from Sporting to Arsenal back in the day.
You’ve heard it. We’ve heard it. Everyone else has heard it. But for some reason Damien Comolli is treating it as a huge revelation.
Speaking on French TV programme ’91st Minute’, Comolli recalled how – after spotting a 15-year-old Ronaldo at a tournament in Portugal – he alerted a contact of his to the teenager’s abilities.
Comolli was working with Arsenal at the time, and – as he recalls – Ronaldo visited Arsenal’s training ground on two occasions before money got in the way of a potential move.
“He came twice to the training centre. Nobody knows that. [Literally everyone knows that]. He met Thierry (Henry) who was his idol. And when making the transfer, there was no money,” Comolli said.
“Some months later, Manchester United made a partnership with Sporting [and played] a friendly match in Lisbon, [after which] Sir Alex Ferguson said: ‘He must go to United’.”
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at Comolli being so late to the party in sharing this story. After all, this is a man who thought Stewart Downing was still a £20m player in 2011.
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