The fact that the twin brothers Fabio Pereira da Silva and Rafael Pereira da Silva could be taken over from Fluminense by Manchester United in 2008 is partly thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo. Rafael – currently employed by the Brazilian Botafogo – tells in the UTD Podcast that the Portuguese attacker called to convince him of a switch to England.
“Ronaldo called me, I will never forget that. All zeros appeared on my screen, because I received a call from abroad. I replied: who is this? I never get these kind of calls. I answered and I already knew him because we had trained together once. Ronaldo only greeted me in Portuguese. I ran to my bus and said it’s Ronaldo! It’s Ronaldo! He’s calling to talk to us!” says Rafael, 31, who is now 31.
“He said, ‘It’s raining here, it’s raining in Manchester. As you may know. I’m calling you to say sign for Manchester United. I know you’re going to like it.” I couldn’t believe it, it was crazy,” the fullback continues. Rafael played 170 games for Manchester United, before joining Botafogo via Olympique Lyon and Istanbul Basaksehir.
“When my brother first came back after 20 days of training with Manchester United, he was so excited,” added Fabio. He played a lot fewer games for Manchester United (56) than his twin brother, but is currently still active in Europe at FC Nantes. “He went to England alone the first time because I had obligations with Brazil Under-15.”
“He came back with great stories: about how big the training complex was, about the players he met, about meeting Sir Alex Ferguson,” continues Fabio, who went on to play in England for Queens Park Rangers, Cardiff City and Middlesbrough. “We have been on trial a number of times, to training days. Ronaldo called us, I think Sir Alex let him do that. At that moment I thought: this is really going to happen.”