Dimitar Berbatov has revealed it was the chance to play with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez that prompted him to join Manchester United over Manchester City in 2008, explaining there was ‘no comparison’ between the teams.
Berbatov had made his name at Bayer Leverkusen, for whom he played in the 2002 UEFA Champions League final against Real Madrid, before joining Tottenham in 2006 and quickly establishing himself as one of the best strikers in the Premier League.
By 2008, United were looking to add to the squad that had just won the Champions League and Sir Alex Ferguson saw Berbatov as the perfect player to complement the existing stars, playing a club record fee of more than £30m on summer transfer deadline day.
But that was also the summer that Manchester City were taken over by Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour, who has since ploughed billions into the club. Berbatov was offered the chance to join City, who had only re-established themselves as a Premier League side in 2002, hadn’t finished higher than eighth in the top flight since 1992 and hadn’t won a major trophy since 1976.
“Look at the shirt: the red, the gold, the badge. The history, the manager, the players, the trophies,” Berbatov said as the latest guest to feature on BT Sport’s What I Wore.
“Back in the day, there was no comparison [between Man Utd and Man City]. There was no second guessing or choice to be made. Just one [team]. In my mind, this was the moment to make, maybe, the last step on my mountain…my personal top.
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“One of the reasons I wanted to be part of this team is because of the players. Who doesn’t want to play with players like [Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez]? You want to be there and be part of that team. You want to test yourself against the best players.
“It was challenging, it was fun – of course, you need to have fun along the way. And you need to hold your own – if somebody yells at you, yell back. Otherwise, they’re going to walk all over you. You need to show how strong you are.
“The mentality was different because we are talking about a winning team. You fight between each other…scream, yell and curse…but everything is about the win. You stop…the training session or the game, and it stays on the pitch.”
Berbatov went on to win two Premier League titles in four seasons with United, narrowly missing out on two others – the later to City in 2011/12. He scored 56 times in 149 appearances in all competitions and shared the Premier League Golden Boot in 2010/11.
The Bulgarian also helped United reach Champions League finals in 2009 and 2011, both of which they lost to an all-time great Barcelona team. He was a substitute in the first but strangely didn’t even it make it onto the bench in the latter, despite his individual achievements that season.
“The first Champions League final where we lost against Barcelona, I was on the bench and came on late in the game. Some shirts pull a bad memory out of you…obviously, we lost. There was nothing we could do because we played Barcelona.
“[2011] was more painful because I wasn’t on the bench…I wasn’t in the squad. I didn’t play and, that year, I was a [Premier League] champion, [top] goalscorer and golden boot.
“What happened is that when you’re a manager, you make choices. In that particular moment, Sir Alex decided not to count on me. I was confident, thinking I could shoot from the halfway line and it would go in the back of the net because of how good my season was.”
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Credit: 90min.com
