Page 59 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

on a Saturday morning and you see a George Best, a Ryan Giggs or a Bobby Charlton. That’s what I
felt that day in Lisbon. A revelation.
That was the biggest surge of excitement, of anticipation, I experienced in football management.
The next best was from Paul Gascoigne, for a different reason. Newcastle had been fighting relegation

and Gascoigne had been out injured. We were at St James’ Park on the Easter Monday. I played
Norman Whiteside and Remi Moses in the centre of the park. It was hardly a midfield of choirboys.
You wouldn’t dance round that duo. Well, Gascoigne nutmegged Moses right in front of where I was
sitting in the dug-out, and then patted him on the head. I flew out of that dug-out, shouting, ‘Get that so-
and-so …’
Whiteside and Moses tried to impress on Gascoigne that he had just made a serious error of
judgment. A little re-education was in order. But Gascoigne just skipped all round them.

We tried our best to sign him that summer. But Newcastle sold him to Tottenham instead. When you
have that experience, of seeing this talent right before your eyes, you know you’re experiencing one of
those moments you search for every hour in management. And that sense of discovery rushed me into
trying to tie up a deal for Gascoigne that very day.
With Ronaldo, in contrast, Kenyon did manage to complete the deal. I sensed that Sporting might
have been happy not to have sold him to a Spanish club. The deal was concluded quite swiftly, with

add-ons that took it up to about £12 million, with the sole condition that, should we ever sell him,
Sporting would have the option of taking him back. A couple of days before we sold him to Real
Madrid, we had to tell Sporting that they could have him back, but it would cost them £80 million.
Not surprisingly, no cheque was forthcoming.
As Cristiano started his new life in Cheshire, his mother and sister came with him. That was good.
His mother was very protective, as you would expect, and was a good, straight-talking woman, with
no airs or graces. She was highly maternal. I explained to Ronaldo that Lyn and Barry Moorhouse

would look after them with things for the house, bank accounts and so on. We got them some
dwellings, tucked away, near Alderley Edge, and they settled in quickly.
We had returned from America, after the Sporting Lisbon game, in a plane belonging to the Dallas
Cowboys, who had rented it to us for the summer. Ferdinand, Giggs, Scholes and Neville enthused
about Ronaldo all the way home: ‘Get him signed, get him signed.’
So Ronaldo came into the training ground knowing that our players knew all about him and had a

sense of how good he was. I think that helped.
His first appearance was against Bolton at home on 16 August 2003, where he started on the bench.
The Bolton defenders ended up in knots. The right-back rattled him straight away in the centre of the
park, took the ball off him, but Cristiano got straight back up and demanded another pass. Right away.
‘He’s got the balls, anyway,’ I thought.
The next minute he was pulled down and won a penalty. Van Nistelrooy missed it. Then, of his own
volition, Ronaldo moved out to the right-hand side and hit two superb crosses in. One was met by

Scholes, who passed to Van Nistelrooy; his shot was parried by the keeper and Giggs tapped the ball
in for the second goal. The crowd on that side of the ground responded as if a Messiah had
materialised right before their eyes. The Old Trafford crowd build up heroes quickly. They see
someone who gets their rears off seats and take to them right away. Ronaldo had the biggest impact on
Manchester United fans of any player since Eric Cantona. He could never have matched the idolatry
that came with Cantona, because Eric had all this defiant charisma, but his talent was instantly

apparent.
The goal Ronaldo scored on the break in the Champions League semi-final at Arsenal in 2009