Cristiano Ronaldo trained with Arsenal twice, reveals ex-Arsenal scout

If only Arsenal had more money to buy players, they would have signed one of the greatest footballers in the modern era. After Arsene Wenger admitting to having missed out on signing the likes of Eden Hazard and Antony Martial as youth prodigies, former Arsenal scout Damien Comolli revealed that Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo trained for Arsenal for a short period as a 15-year old. 

Speaking to French TV channel SFR Sport,  Comolli revealed that the former Manchester United winger came to Arsenal's training ground on two occasions.

“The first time I saw Ronaldo, it was at the Montaigu tournament(in Japan), he was 15," Comolli recalled.

“He played against Japan before and I thought: ‘Who the hell is this? At half-time, I called my contact in Portugal to which I said that I had seen a phenomenon.”

Comolli further revealed that the club tried to lure Ronaldo to sign for them by sending in Thierry Henry to train with him.

“Since Thierry Henry, I’ve never seen that. He came twice to the training centre. Nobody knows that. He met Thierry, who was his idol.”

However, Arsenal did not have the necessary funds for the transfer to materialize, and Ronaldo later signed for Manchester United from Sporting Lisbon for a fee of 17 million.

"But when it came to making the transfer, there was no money.

"Some months later, Manchester United made a partnership with Sporting, they played a friendly match in Lisbon,” he added.

Ronaldo went on to represent the Red Devils in 292 games, scoring 118 goals before moving to Real Madrid in 2009 for a record deal of 94 million Euros.