
Around 2003, the young and then slightly unknown Cristiano Ronaldo had a try-out at Arsenal before Sir Alex Ferguson took notice of him (SAF noticed him after his then club Sporting Lisbon defeated Manchester United by 3-1 and the Red Devils’ players was so impressed by Cristiano that they urged SAF to sign him up to them) and around that time too, Cristiano was offered by his agent to FC Barcelona but in the end, obviously, he ended up in Manchester United because Barcelona couldn’t top Manchester’s offer after already spending a lot of money to other players. While Lionel Messi, despite already in the youth academy of Barcelona, his agent with the suggestion of his father to sell Messi to another club because he felt that his son wasn’t or will not earn huge amount of money if he stayed in Barcelona. So the young Messi was offered in Real Madrid but the treacherous move did not happen, probably Messi doesn’t want to anyway, but also because Florentino Perez (as the president of Real Madrid first time around) believes investing in big names namely, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo, who speaking of, was from Barcelona and caused a lot of criticism from moving so Perez also felt that getting the then unknown yet talented Messi might cause another huge conflict with Barcelona.
This week, there will be two Clasicos and I wonder, what if those events happened the opposite and Ronaldo is Barca’s star while Messi a Madridista? Just wondering.
