Arsenal have had their fair share of transfer near misses over the years.
Indeed, the Gunners have tons of stories of players who nearly signed for the club under Arsene Wenger.
Kylian Mbappe nearly signed for Arsenal at one point, while Luis Suarez could’ve been an Arsenal player in a different world.
Back in 2008, Cristiano Ronaldo actually blocked Arsenal from making two other signings too.
Indeed, speaking to Shoot for Love, former Manchester United pair, Rafael and Fabio explained how they almost signed for Arsenal, but Cristiano Ronaldo convinced them to join United instead.
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Rafael and Fabio almost joined Arsenal
The twins spoke about how they almost joined the Gunners.
However, at the last minute, Cristiano Ronaldo made a call to both players convincing them that a move to Man Utd would be better.
“Yeah, he called me, I was 15 years old, it was a rainy day in Rio,” One of the twins said.
“It was Cristiano, ‘come to United, it’s a great club, he said it’s a great club, but the city, the rain.’
“I think Fergie asked him to call us, at the time Arsenal wanted us as well, and he mixed it up and said ‘tell them to come here’.”
“Arsenal wanted both of you guys?” The host asked.
“Yeah, but our mind was made up to go to Manchester already,” One replied.
Cristiano Ronaldo almost joined Arsenal
It’s ironic that Ronaldo blocked Arsenal from signing Rafael and Fabio in 2008, because a few years prior, he was in a similar position.
Indeed, Ronaldo nearly signed for Arsenal in the 2000s as John Cross recently explained
“I’ll tell this story about them [Arsenal] tracking Ronaldo, they were desperate to sign Cristiano Ronaldo,” he began.
“They sought Ronaldo for so long and basically really went for him and basically, you know, Wenger took it to the board and basically said, ‘We really need to sign this kid’.”
“The decision was taken, you know, Wenger was clearly frustrated, but ultimately accepted that basically you couldn’t spend on, you know, whatever small a sum it was, on this player because it was a gamble on a kid basically because of the financial constraints.”
“Their [Arsenal’s] perspective was that they could have got the player in the building because they felt as if they had that connection, they’d done the groundwork, but ultimately couldn’t afford the relatively small transfer fee at the time to get Ronaldo.”
In another world, Ronaldo, Rafael and Fabio could all have been Arsenal players at one point.
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