The One That Got Away
Transfers that never happened
By Jovan Belev
Atletico Madrid midfielder Saul Niguez got a lot of football fans excited this week, particularly those who follow Manchester United.
The Spanish schemer had announced that he would announce a new club on his social media accounts and began a daily countdown to the unveiling.
For the red half of Manchester there was excitement that a player who their former captain Rio Ferdinand has been recommending as a key signing for the club could be joining them.
Needless to say there was disappointment when D-Day came. Saul’s annoucement was that his new club was to be none other than... Costa City, a Nike-sponsored academy in his home city of Elche that will be run in partnership with his brother Aaron, who plays for Malaga.
While the 25-year-old, who has played more than 250 times for Atletico Madrid since breaking into Diego Simeone’s team in 2014-15, could yet join Manchester United in the next transfer window, the chances are that this is a transfer we can file in the “never happened” drawer.
There are many others, and they came a lot closer to happening than Twitter celebrating Saul swapping the Spanish capital for Salford Docks.
Manchester United have been involved in plenty themselves. The club thought they had signed Paul Gascoigne from Newcastle United when the youngster had just burst on to the scene in the 1987-88 season, winning the PFA Player of the Year award. Manager Alex Ferguson was set to go on his summer holidays to Malta and was reassured by the midfielder that he would sign for the Red Devils.
Holiday spoiler
“We spoke to him the night before I went on holiday,” Ferguson said. “He says, ‘Go and enjoy yourself Mr Ferguson, I’ll be signing for Manchester United.’”
Gascoigne, of course, signed for Spurs instead with the London club buying his parents a house swinging the deal.
There were plenty that got away from Ferguson over the years. The club appeared to be in the driving seat to sign Ronaldinho from Paris St-Germain but he chose Catalonia over Castlefield and picked Barcelona. Rumor has it that United would have got their man if they had agreed to a helicopter to fly him to London to party.
Alan Shearer was another who came close to Old Trafford – and more than once. When the striker left Southampton as a 22-year-old, Ferguson wanted him but the club told Shearer he would have to hang on while they found the money. Shearer said he felt slighted by this and he opted for Blackburn Rovers, where he would win the English Premier League title.
When he was leaving Blackburn he came close again and met with Ferguson, as well as Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan. Even Shearer thought he was going to Old Trafford until he spoke to Keegan a second time and he opted for his boyhood club. Another rumor doing the rounds at the time was that the Manchester United Megastore had already printed “Shearer 9” shirts up and quietly sold them off for a massive discount. Shearer himself went for a British transfer record. Ferguson signed an unknown Norwegian called Ole Gunnar Solskjaer instead.
Blackburn Rovers did not get it all their own way with Manchester United in the transfer market. When Roy Keane was leaving Nottingham Forest he had agreed to join Rovers, even shaking hands with boss Kenny Dalglish, but had not signed for them. “Why don’t you come to Manchester and have a chat with me before you do anything?” Ferguson asked him and the rest was history.
Another midfielder is arguably a greater source for Rovers staff kicking themselves: Zinedine Zidane.
The Frenchman was at Bordeaux when he was spotted by scouts, given the runover by Ray Harford and his assistant coach Derek Fazackerley, and then recommended to the Ewood Park board. The English champions looked at the then 23-year-old and decided agaisnt it. The story goes that Rovers
‘Zlatan doesn’t do auditions’
Other times, it just was not meant to be. Arsenal had a teenage Zlatan Ibrahimovic but he turned down a trial because “Zlatan doesn’t do auditions.” It was similar with Cristiano Ronaldo training with the club, though Wenger claimed Manchester United having Carlos Queiroz swung the deal – as did the players demand Ferguson sign him after a friendly against Sporting Lisbon. Weirder than all of them was a young Diego Maradona nearly signing for Second Division Sheffield United. The club would not pay 200,000 pounds for a 17-year-old and opted for countryman Alex Sabela for 40,000 pounds cheaper. They went down that year. Maradona of course went on to become one of the greatest players the game has ever produced. Maybe he would not have made a difference in South Yorkshire but the fans can dream.