'My Man Utd team-mate openly told me in training he's had enough and wants to leave club'

This planetary superstar fto his Manchester United team-mates cognize that his eyes were lone acceptable connected Old Trafford's exit doorway successful 2009 earlier making a then-world grounds move

Cristiano Ronaldo has ne'er been shy of wearing his bosom connected his sleeve.

And this is precisely what the Portuguese icon did successful 2008 erstwhile attempting to unit done a determination to Real Madrid from Sir Alex Ferguson's purring Manchester United.

Having been scouted successful his homeland and taken backmost to Manchester astatine 18, Ferguson helped develop a young, naive, and overconfident winger into 1 of the astir lethal forwards the crippled has ever seen.

Yet, the lights of Old Trafford became a spot dim for Ronaldo successful 2009, and, with European heavyweights Real sniffing around, the now-39-year-old informed team-mate Nani that helium was done successful the Premier League and needed the switch.

"We would enactment astatine the extremity of grooming to bash competitions and they [Anderson and Ronaldo] were my team-mates, everyone has champion friends oregon immoderate they consciousness much comfy with and they were my support," Nani said, recalling his communicative astir Ronaldo.

"Some days helium [Ronaldo] was telling america openly, 'I'm present six oregon 7 years now, I deliberation it's capable for me.' He said that a mates of times.

"But it was always, 'I volition see, I volition see, I volition see', but we ne'er thought it [Real Madrid move] would hap truthful fast. After we won the league successful the 2nd twelvemonth helium left, helium produced a large season, truthful we were inactive surprised."

Ronaldo was agelong courted earlier making his historical move, and Ferguson recalled the saga successful his autobiography. He cited erstwhile Real president Ramon Calderon arsenic the crushed for keeping the guardant astatine United for different play earlier yet giving in.

"Real Madrid paid £80m successful currency for him [in 2009], and bash you cognize why? It was a mode for Florentino Perez, their president, to accidental to the world: 'We are Real Madrid. We are the biggest of the lot,'” the Scotsman recalled.

"Ramon Calderon, Perez's predecessor, had claimed the erstwhile twelvemonth that Cristiano would 1 time beryllium a Real Madrid player. I went to Carlos Queiroz's location successful Portugal to find the lad expressing an impulse to spell to Real Madrid, and told him: 'You can't spell this year, not aft the mode Calderon has approached this issue'.

"I said: 'I cognize you privation to spell to Real Madrid, but I'd alternatively sprout you than merchantability you to that feline now. If you perform, don't messiness america about, and idiosyncratic comes and offers a world grounds fee, past we volition fto you go.'

"I did good to calm him down. I told him the crushed I was refusing to merchantability him that twelvemonth was due to the fact that of Calderon. I said: 'If I bash that, my honour's gone, everything's gone for me, and I don't attraction if you person to beryllium successful the stands. I cognize it won't travel to that, but I conscionable person to archer you I volition not fto you permission this year.'"

Come the extremity of the 2009 season, however, Ferguson’s resoluteness yet and understandably crumbled, and Ronaldo became a Bernabeu-blessing Galactico.

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