Luciano Moggi has once more commented on how Juventus came very close to a deal to sign Cristiano Ronaldo a decade ago.
The outspoken Italian worked as director general at Juve until 2006 and has reiterated a claim that three years prior, he was close to completing a deal for the Bianconeri to pick up the current Real Madrid man, when he was at Sporting CP.
“We agreed a swap deal with Sporting between Marcelo Salas and Cristiano Ronaldo,” Moggi commented on Sphere Sports this week.
“Salas travelled to Portugal but backed out and went to River Plate instead. At that moment, Manchester United came in and put an offer on the table that we did not have, a situation that forced us to end our interest.”
In seeing his former side travel out to Madrid to face Ronaldo and company in matchday three of the Champions League group stages, the 76-year-old was asked of the chances of Italian success in the competition.
“No, we need to mature yet. Juve and Napoli are two good teams, but considerably lower than the big clubs of today.
“Juventus and Real Madrid have completely opposite market policies especially with Florentino Perez as President.
“He wants players who have all the tricks, he wants the spectacle because in Madrid they are accustomed to that.
“We, however, had a team of architects and builders, and Marcelo Zalayeta was one of the latter. People forget that a player, sometimes, can suppress technical deficiencies with a commitment that better serves the architects, such as Zidane.
“I believe that Barcelona have been caught up a little. Obviously the players have done much over the years, but they are not the same as before.
“Their tiki-taka is slow and predictable and there are things that do not work as they did before. Real Madrid can catch them.”
