WTF was that about? Manchester United's weirdest ever signing 🤦‍♂️ | OneFootball

The story of Bebé’s journey from an orphanage to one of the biggest clubs in the world would make a compelling Hollywood film script.

But if the sequel to that film was based on the time he spent at Manchester United, it would probably be directed by Judd Apatow.

The Portuguese winger (full name Tiago Manuel Dias Correia) joined United from Vitória de Guimarães in the summer of 2010.

He was only 20 at the time and just months previously, he had still been living in the orphanage where he had resided since being abandoned by his parents at the age of 12.

But aside from a few pre-season games, he never actually made a competitive appearance for Vitória. They had snapped him up on a free transfer from a semi-professional Portuguese club and sold him to United for a reported €9m in the same summer.

It should be considered one of the best bits of transfer business a club has ever done, and quite how he ended up at United is still shrouded in mystery almost a decade later.

The media at the time reported that Bebé had been recommended to United by Sir Alex Ferguson’s former assistant Carlos Queiroz, who was coach of the Portuguese national team at the time.

But in 2014, Queiroz poured cold water on that theory when he said:

Ferguson himself referenced a mysteriously unnamed “good scout” who had alerted them to Bebé and it later emerged that, for the only time in the Scot’s 39-year managerial career, he had sanctioned the signing of a player having never actually seen them play.

What we do know for sure is that Jorge Mendes was involved.

Vitória’s accounts revealed that the Portuguese super-agent had received €3.6m of the €9m transfer fee, with the club’s president Emilio Macedo later claiming that Mendes had been “the bulwark of the transfer”.

Things only got weirder when Bebé actually stepped onto the pitch as a United player.

His debut came as a substitute in a League Cup tie away at Scunthorpe which was deemed so unimportant that Ferguson chose to go on a scouting mission to Valencia, leaving Mike Phelan in charge.

In the next round of the cup, United played Wolves at Old Trafford and Bebé opened the scoring with a deflected effort, before scoring again in a 3-0 Champions League victory over Bursaspor a week later.

So far, so good.

But the nadir of his United career came in Premier League clash with Wolves in November 2010.

In the 10th minute, Owen Hargreaves had to come off injured and Ferguson threw Bebé on in his place.

Anyone who was at the game will remember with great pain how he spent the next 64 minutes lashing an array of dreadful shots and crosses into the stands until, with 15 minutes remaining, he was hauled off for everyone’s sanity.

Later that same month he was hooked at half-time of a League Cup tie with Everton and his final appearance in a United shirt was a shocking performance against Crawley Town in the FA Cup.

He made just seven appearances, totalling 335 minutes in all, but United didn’t actually get rid of him permanently until he joined Benfica in July 2014.

Bebé later admitted that he “never took Manchester United seriously” and was guilty of “messing around too much” during his time at Old Trafford, while Ferguson hinted in his autobiography that he may have been tricked into the signing by José Mourinho.

“Our scout told us, ‘We need to watch him.’ Then Real Madrid were on his tail,” wrote Ferguson.

“I know that’s true because José Mourinho told me Real were ready to sign him and that United had jumped in front of them. We took a wee gamble on it, for about 7 million euros.

“He was not the complete player, but we were coaching him to be better. On the big pitch his concept of team play needed work. With feet like his he was capable of scoring 20 goals a season.”

Whether Real Madrid really did want him or not, United undoubtedly got Catfished and Fergie learned a valuable lesson.

Always try before you buy.