Sometimes there are one event that have the most impact on a person’s life. For Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United, that one incident occurred on August 6, 2003. Exactly 14 years ago, Manchester United lost 3-1 to Sporting Lisbon in a match that The Guardian had called a “wasted friendly match”. At that time, perhaps The Guardian did not realize that the friendly match was a match that changed the destiny of an 18-year-old Portuguese boy whose full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro.
“I was the coach when he (Ronaldo) played against Manchester United,” said Fernando Santos. “I played it and I’m sorry. One week before, I lost [Ricardo] Quaresma to Barcelona, two days later he moved to Manchester United!” joked the coach who led Portugal to win the 2016 European Cup.
Calling a friendly match in pre-season a “wasted game” may be perfectly natural. Especially before United had just returned from their tour to the United States and looked exhausted so many of the main players were rested by Sir Alex Ferguson. Another fact speaks if the match was indeed an invitation match from Sporting to open their new stadium, Estádio José Alvalade. The match was so special, Sporting even wore two uniforms in that match: the home uniform (horizontal stripes white-green) in the first half and the away uniform (yellow gold) in the second half.
Not surprisingly, the exhausted “Red Devils” lost 3-1 through goals from Luís Felipe (26 minutes) and João Pinto (62 and 81 minutes). They didn’t even technically manage to score as United’s one goal was scored through an own goal towards the end of the game.
After returning from a pre-season tour of the United States that involved four games, Manchester United had one more friendly in Lisbon, Portugal. At that time, many of United’s supporters criticized the match because they thought the players were still tired. The protesting supporters would have changed their minds if they had known what would happen next.
Sir Alex himself did rest some of his main players although he still fielded players such as Paul Scholes, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, John O’Shea, Rio Ferdinand and Nicky Butt (as captain) as starters. Fabien Barthez and Mikael Silvestre, who had not previously been on tour to the United States, also started as both players had just returned from the Confederations Cup. In addition, Eric Djemba-Djemba was also given his debut match at the time after he moved from Nantes.
Other players who started as starters were Kieran Richardson, Quinton Fortune, and David Bellion. Meanwhile, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Darren Fletcher, Danny Pugh and Mark Lynch were introduced as substitutes in the second half. The players mentioned above are those who witnessed the greatness of the boy number 28.
“It was in the first half when he dribbled inside John O’Shea,” said Gary Neville, who was just watching from his home. “I thought ‘damn’. When you look at a player who usually plays against you, you see him well and it’s very rare to see movement and pace [like Ronaldo].”
“Few people can take the timing of that run, on the inside at full-back and at centre-back – really fast,” said Neville, as quoted by the Independent. “You see Ronaldo getting the ball, and you see him pranking John O’Shea, and you laugh at yourself,” said Ryan Giggs, quoted from Metro. “He brings the game to life, all the [United] players talk about him after the game.”
It wasn’t just Neville and Giggs who were in awe of Ronaldo that night. Ferdinand and Butt were also stunned. Even Ferdinand immediately said to Ferguson in the dressing room afterwards, “Are we going to buy him or not?” “United would never buy a player just because of 90 minutes in a pre-season friendly. But they might be able to finish it sooner after that,” said Neville.
“I remember we were all waiting for the coach and everyone was wondering what else we were waiting for,” said Giggs. “Then we got a leak if the deal was done for 13 million pounds.” At least Ferguson wasn’t as innocent as Neville, Ferdinand or Giggs, because he knew Ronaldo before, even if only a little.
Ferguson’s quick move to buy Ronaldo didn’t happen just because of the 90 minutes against Sporting. Ferguson says he has watched Ronaldo before, although he also admitted that at that time Ronaldo was not his main target, but Ronaldinho. “I thought we had [Ronaldinho], but when I flew to Paris to talk to him, everything changed,” Ferguson said, quoted by the Telegraph. “Next thing I know, he’s in Barcelona the next day.”
“It was a big disappointment at the time, but we got Cristiano Ronaldo in the same summer. Maybe we wouldn’t buy Ronaldo if we got Ronaldinho.” “We may indeed keep an eye on Ronaldo because we have a pre-contract agreement with Sporting. But maybe we won’t rush the signing of Ronaldo like we did [if we got Ronaldinho],” Ferguson said.
United did have time to confirm their desire to buy Ronaldo in a meeting on Cascais beach the night before the match. Ronaldo himself already thinks of the day as “M-Day” or “M-Day” (M for Manchester).
“My friends said to me, ‘Cristiano, if you play well against Manchester United, you can play for them’,” he said. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me? No, it’s too fast. I’m only 17`”
He woke up on August 6, 2003 which was the day he scavenged his destiny to defeat United players such as O’Shea, Ferdinand, and Djemba-Djemba. “Then that night, I played well! I played really well!” It came as no surprise, therefore, when Ronaldo, Ferguson and agent Jorge Mendes met briefly after the game. Two days later the 18-year-old arrived in Manchester with a tag of £12.8 million (a huge amount at the time for a young player who had yet to prove anything), with no luggage or even spare clothes because he was sure United would loaned him back to Sporting for another year.
“No problem,” Ferguson said when explaining that he wanted Ronaldo in Manchester straight away for the season. “Tomorrow you will train here and then you will go to Portugal to tidy up and carry your things,” said Ferguson confidently. Eight days later, he played Bolton Wanderers in front of a crowd of 67,000 at Old Trafford wearing Manchester United’s most iconic number 7. It all happened so fast thanks to a “wasted friendly match” on August 6, 2003. A match that started Cristiano Ronaldo’s great destiny.
ASL
