Mark Hughes has revealed that Manchester City tried to sign Lionel Messi after their takeover.
The former Bradford boss gave an insight on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast into City’s astounding ambition in the transfer market after being taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008.
The 60-year-old notably stated during the same episode that the club tried to sign Dimitar Berbatov before he joined Manchester United as well.
Mark Hughes says Manchester City tried to sign Lionel Messi
While Messi was far from his best at the time, just a year before the Sky Blues’ takeover, he did still finish in third place in the 2007 Ballon d’Or rankings.
Of course, over time, the Argentine managed to get better and better before he was widely considered to be the greatest footballer of all time.
But it seems like Manchester City were interested in getting any and every big name in football at the time, according to Mark Hughes, which included Lionel Messi.
“I was getting phone calls from Garry Cook and everyone involved at the club, saying, ‘The takeover’s happening. They want a key signing to mark the owning of the club.’ So they go, ‘Who do you want?’ I go, ‘What do you mean, who do you want? Well, we got all these bids out for every top player in the world basically. We put all these bids out and we’re going to see if any come back.’
“There were bids going out for Lionel Messi and all sorts”, Hughes told the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast.
Lionel Messi would have transformed the club in every single way
In 2015, Manuel Pellegrini claimed (via beIN SPORTS) that barring the Barcelona icon and Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Aguero was better than every other player in the world.
From when Lionel Messi became an integral member of the Spanish giants’ side, it was widely acknowledged that he was set to become one of, if not the greatest player in history and if Manchester City signed him under Mark Hughes, he would have transformed the club in unprecedented fashion.
While City have won it all and are a massive club globally, their domination in both respects would have perhaps even occurred faster and at a bigger scale.
But of course, the World Cup winner’s heart seemed to be set on becoming a Barcelona hero from day one.
The prospect of Lionel Messi donning sky blue is one that perhaps every Manchester City fan wishes became a reality at some point, especially during Pep Guardiola’s time in charge.
