Since the late spring of 2008, Real Madrid began pursuing Cristiano Ronaldo in their own matchless mold - by attempting to freely unsettle the player while he was still at Manchester United. Not best satisfied by this, Fergie concocted his very own plot to settle the score with Madrid.

Or somewhere in the vicinity, Spanish football master Guillem Balague says in his most recent book - Cristiano Ronaldo: The Biography.

Not a man to down from a battle, the ace negotiator in Ferguson turned out - understanding that he couldn't keep hold of his player, he made a special effort to contact Barcelona to attempt and persuade the Catalan giants to make an offer.

"For quite a long time he'd sought after a Machiavellian approach of sorts, yet observing that he couldn't induce Cristiano to stay he reached Barcelona to urge them to offer."

That, however, obviously didn't work out. After a tumultuous 2008-09, in which he had fits, scored 26 goals in 53 games (he basically played well just in the most recent three months) and made a wide range of dramatization, Ronaldo says goodbye to Old Trafford.

What's more, Ronaldo was declared by Real Madrid as a then-world record marking in apparently the grandest announcement function ever! Before the end of the fracas, Fergie had made peace with the way that Real Madrid would get their man - as they quite often do.

Madrid accompanied that record expense, and Ronaldo did sufficiently only in the most recent couple of months to drive United to the title that season. Criteria met, he was headed toward sunny Madrid and the grand Estadio Santiago Bernabeu

It's interesting to look back and speculate for one moment, what might have happened if Fergie had gotten his direction.

Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo on the similar group, that would certainly be an interesting pairing.