What Neville told Fergie in Man Utd dressing room after facing Cristiano Ronaldo

Gary Neville told Sir Alex Ferguson he had to sign Cristiano Ronaldo after the Portuguese faced Manchester United in a pre-season friendly.

That’s according to Mikael Silvestre, who revealed the entire United squad was impressed with Ronaldo who was ‘torturing’ John O’Shea.

Ferguson had warned his team of a ‘talented young lad’ ahead of the match but hadn’t revealed Ronaldo’s identity, but it didn’t take the squad long to realise who he was talking about.

And Neville told his manager to ‘sign this kid’ as soon as he stepped into the dressing room after the match.

‘The first time I came across [Ronaldo] was in 2003, when we played a friendly at Sporting,’ Silvestre told FourFourTwo.

‘In the team talk beforehand, Ferguson mentioned a talented young lad to watch out for. He didn’t mention his name, but we all knew it afterwards!

‘He was torturing poor John O’Shea on the left wing, showing off his speed and changes of direction with the ball.

‘We were like, “Hmm, it would be good if this guy would wear a United shirt instead…”

‘After the match, Gary Neville came into the dressing room and said, “Sign this kid, gaffer”.

‘Sir Alex just said, “We’ll see what we can do”.

‘I can remember sitting on the team bus waiting to leave, and we were there for quite a bit longer than usual because Sir Alex was speaking to Cristiano and Sporting, convincing him to come to Old Trafford.’

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