It’s hard to tell what the plan was at Juventus last summer, because everything pointed to Andrea Pirlo taking radical steps to reduce the age of the squad.
That did happen as he managed to get rid of several veteran players, but there are some serious suggestions that they were also trying to find a way to pair Cristiano Ronaldo with Lionel Messi when the Argentine looked set to leave Barcelona.
It’s a partnership that could only ever happen in the land of FIFA or Football Manager, but Spanish outlet Don Balon have indicated that Juve were looking to make a proper run at signing Messi.
They suggest that Juve made an enquiry to see how much he would cost and they had started to prepare a giant offer to lure him to Italy, but Ronaldo wasn’t happy at all and did enough to stop that going any further.
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Juventus are desperate to win the Champions League and the report indicates that signing Messi was seen as a way of finally making that happen, but it’s also not clear if he would’ve accepted the offer.
If this is true then it’s a shame for the fans because the partnership would either be a disaster or the greatest thing of all time, but it now looks impossible.
Perhaps Ronaldo was worried that Messi would come in and overshadow him and that could ruin his legacy, but it would’ve been amazing to see.