Former Italian goalkeeper Luigi Turci has revealed he was once close to joining Manchester United, a move he still wishes had gone through.
The Italian has been speaking to TV Play’s Twitch channel about his career and the transfers that didn’t happen for him, namely Inter Milan and Manchester United.
Turci spent the entirety of his career playing in Italy, starting with Cremonese U19s before moving to Treviso in 1990.
Spells with Alessandria, Cremonese, Udinese, Sampdoria and Cesena followed before he eventually return in July 2007.
The highlight of his career was undoubtedly the UEFA Intertoto Cup success in 2000 with Udinese, the club’s only European trophy to date.
It seems things could have been very different for him, though, as he’s revealed a year earlier that Manchester United were very much in the picture for him after being rejected by Gianluigi Buffon.
It seems, though the timing wasn’t right, something Turci regrets to this day, even though he enjoyed success with Udinese a year later.
“In 1999-2000 Manchester United made an offer to Udinese to sign me, but unfortunately Udinese had already presented the UEFA list and Ferguson took Taibi in my place,” he said.
“United were looking for an Italian goalkeeper: the first to be contacted was Buffon, but he refused.
“The second was me, but the times didn’t match. To this day I regret that missed transfer, I have a copy of the fax on my phone.”
