Former Ligue 1 title-winning manager Rudi Garcia has revealed he spoke twice with Manchester United chiefs about becoming interim manager after the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
In the end, Man Utd opted to hire Ralf Rangnick instead, with the German tactician taking charge of the team for the second half of last season before Erik ten Hag was brought in as the new permanent successor to Solskjaer.
Garcia, meanwhile, is currently in charge of Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr and has been discussing his links with United due to the current speculation involving MUFC legend Cristiano Ronaldo.
As exclusively confirmed by Fabrizio Romano in his Daily Briefing for CaughtOffside, Ronaldo has an offer from Al Nassr and is yet to decide his future, so it will be interesting to see if he links up with Garcia.
It could have happened earlier, only for United to instead choose Rangnick over Garcia, who has had impressive stints in Europe with the likes of Lille, Lyon, Marseille and Roma.
“I think that any coach would be delighted to train a great star like Cristiano and already in November 2021 I was very close to going to United,” Garcia told AS.
“They chose Ralf Rangnick, but I met twice with John Murtough and Darren Fletcher [United’s director of football and technical director respectively]. I came very close to coaching this club and was very motivated to go, who wouldn’t be motivated to coach United? Any coach.
“United’s simple interest has allowed me to be sure of my ambitions in the future.”