One that got away 🤦‍♂️: Luís Figo to Manchester City | OneFootball

Luís Figo had a mesmerising career.

The Portuguese maestro won the LaLiga title with Barcelona, the Scudetto with Inter and the Champions League with Real Madrid.

But if he’s honest with himself, we’d bet the former Ballon d’Or winner still wishes he’d been part of Manchester City’s unsuccessful sides of the 1990s.

Because Figo really did come very close to swapping the sunshine of Lisbon for the back streets of Moss Side when he was still just a youngster.

The future Portugal captain began his career at Sporting Lisbon and according to former manager Brian Horton, City rejected the chance to bring Figo to Maine Road in the mid-90s because they didn’t think he was worth £2m!

“It was Malcolm Allison who alerted us to a kid called Luis Figo who was getting rave reviews for his performances with Sporting Lisbon,” Horton told the Manchester Evening News in 2004.

“Malcolm also told us that Figo wanted to join a bigger club and fancied playing in England.

“Figo had just got into the Portugal national side so myself and Tony Book went to watch him play in a match against Northern Ireland.

“He was very young and inexperienced, but it was obvious from watching him in that match that he was a little bit special so we decided to take our interest in him onto the next stage.

“We made contact with his agent and invited him over to Manchester. We took him to Stanneylands Hotel in Wilmslow to find out what it would take to bring Figo to Maine Road.

“In a nutshell, we couldn’t afford him.

“The fee alone was more than £2m, which was a great deal of money in those days.

“But the entire package would have cost a lot more than that so reluctantly we had to abandon our interest in signing Figo.

“It wasn’t long after that when Figo got his wish to join a bigger club.

“He signed for Barcelona and what’s happened to him since – as they say – is history.

“Do I regret not signing him? Of course I do. It would have been a major coup for Manchester City.

“Can you imagine how the Maine Road supporters would have reacted to having a player like that to watch every week? They would have loved him.

“But as a manager, you win some and you lose some – and that one I lost.”

Figo may have won titles in Spain and Italy, lifted the Champions League and captained his country at the World Cup, but has he ever won the Division Two play-off final?

Has he fuck.