Who remembers 2009?
Michael Jackson died, the country was rife with swine flu, Peter and Katie got divorced and AC Milan’s Kaka was the world’s most sought-after player.
The Brazilian was at the height of his powers with the Serie A giants back then, having helped them win the Champions League in 2007 on his way to picking up the prestigious Ballon d’Or award.
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That’s right, he was the last guy to pick up the gong who wasn’t Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.
As you’d probably expect, the world’s biggest and richest clubs were interested in signing the Brazil star at the time.
Real Madrid were obviously top of the pile, but newly-rich Manchester City were also pretty keen, having just been bought up by Sheikh Mansour.
In fact, the Citizens were reportedly willing to part with an eye-watering £100million to make Kaka their star man.
But he famously snubbed the lucrative offer from City to join Madrid instead, leaving fans to wonder what might’ve been.
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And in a tell-all interview with FourFourTwo, Kaka has revealed his reasoning for the snub.
He said: “I was sat at home when the telephone rang – I can still remember it clearly.
“It was my father and he seemed nervously excited.
“He told me a team in England, Manchester City, had made Milan a huge offer for me.”
“Before I could even react, he added that Milan were prepared to accept the bid.
“I had absolutely no idea that Manchester City were interested in signing me until they’d actually made their official offer to Milan.
“The process had been really different to how these things often work.
“City didn’t talk to my father – who also acted as my agent – first.”
It seems the suddenness and sheer size of the offer had startled Kaka, who admitted feeling stressed about the negotiations.
He added: “It looked like a new, exciting challenge and a new chapter for me, but it had all come out of nowhere, and very quickly.
“Soon I started to feel confused and anxious – the situation messed me up.”
“The negotiations between City and I went very far indeed.
“It came to the point where all of the numbers and the finer details had been discussed – the offer was on the table.
“The only thing separating City and I was my final word.”
“The wages I had been offered were much, much higher than what I was earning with Milan.
“In moments like those, you begin to picture how your future will look – It’s only natural.
“I’d finally come to the conclusion that it wasn’t quite the right time for me to go to City, and the main reason was the uncertainty over the squad-building process that they were about to undertake.
“It wasn’t clear to me how the squad would be reshaped and I wasn’t too convinced it would work.”