Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United: How the deal was done

The Athletic FC Podcast

The Athletic

Football, Soccer,, Sports, Soccer

4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mark Chapman is joined by The Athletic's David Ornstein, Adam Crafton and our Manchester United writer Laurie Whitwell to take you inside the remarkable 24 hours that saw Cristiano Ronaldo go from the verge of joining Manchester City to completing a sensation return to Manchester United. We hear how the like of Sir Alex Ferguson and Rio Ferdinand played a role in turning the tide, we have insight into how Jorge Mendes put the deal together, plus discussion of where this leaves Manchester City after a summer of missing out on top targets in the no.9 department. All this plus updates on Kylian Mbappe's potential move to Real Madrid in the last two days of the window, Chelsea's pursuit of Jules Kounde which now looks unlikely, and we have news of an off-field depature at Anfield as Liverpool's sporting director Michael Edwards looks set to leave the club at the end of his contract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Athletic Hello I'm Mark Chapman welcome to the Athletic Football
0:16.8	podcast each week we are joined by a selection of writers from the
0:20.4	Athletic to bring you unrivaled access and insight into the biggest stories in football.
0:26.0	So just like most of these podcast, David Ornstein and Adam Crafton are with us.
0:31.3	And this week we're joined by the athletics Manchester United writer
0:35.4	Laurie Whippa why are you on the pod what what on earth could we be talking to you
0:39.8	about Laurie over the next hour? I'm as mystified as you chappas. Please enlighten me.
0:44.8	Right, well, what do you think the best role is for Dan James then? That appears to be the
0:50.1	pressing issue. No, let's focus on Christina Rinaldo then that 24 hours that ended up with him coming back, well, if he passes a medical
1:00.4	of degrees of contract coming back to Manchester United.
1:04.6	When did it swing then Laurie? We believe it swung on Thursday night when news
1:10.3	became apparent that Man City were really in for him that he really had agreed to join and there was a bit of a crisis meeting I think
1:16.4	at old Trafford where they realized the impact that this would have not only in terms of a playing situation
1:22.4	you know bringing Christianiano and Aldous,
1:23.9	Samantha City, they need a striker, he's a very good striker, admittedly in the twilight of his career perhaps, but still someone that could have
1:30.7	scored lots of goals for them this season, but there's a wider consequence of what it meant for Manchester United as a club where you have a sort of legendary figure really going to the city rivals, the sort of tainted nature that that might bring to his legacy perhaps and also the way that potential recruits and current players felt about what Manchester United were doing.
1:51.0	If they didn't make an effort to sign Ronaldo Ronaldo what did that say about the direction of the club I suppose
1:56.7	Olegon A solshah was very aware of that potential place to call to Edward Wood we're told and it was very
2:02.0	quick conversation.
2:03.0	We understand where Edward said, yeah, we can do this deal.
2:06.0	We'll get onto it.
2:08.0	In the meantime, various of the Manchester United alumni went to work on persuading Rinaldo that actually coming home was a much better bet than going to Manchester
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.