Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson admits they signed Cristiano Ronaldo only after missing out on Ronaldinho.
He told the Telegraph: "I thought we'd clinched the deal (for Ronaldinho), but when I flew to Paris to speak with him, the goalposts seemed to have moved somehow.
"His people complained that to me that it didn't seem as though they were getting the same deal we'd previously agreed. The next thing I know, he was at Barcelona the following day.
"It was a big disappointment at the time, but we signed Cristiano Ronaldo that very same summer and perhaps we wouldn't have ended up with Ronaldo had we got Ronaldinho.
"We probably would have kept tabs on Ronaldo, though, because we had a precontract agreement with Sporting.
"However, maybe we wouldn't have accelerated the Ronaldo deal in the way we did."
