Manchester City came really close to signing iconic winger Hulk from Porto back in 2011.
At €60m (£51.9m), that would have been a huge transfer at the time. Porto, however, had already sold Radamel Falcao and simply decided they didn’t need the money.
Hulk didn’t even know Manchester City had made the offer. He only discovered what had happened around a year later, and that played a part in his eventual exit.
Speaking to legendary Brazilian striker Romário, Hulk has looked back at the episode.
And, just in case you’re wondering what Hulk is up to these days, he’s somehow still smashing it at 40 years old. He recently swapped Atlético Mineiro for Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro and continues to play at the highest level in Brazil.
Since returning to his home country at the age of 35, Hulk has played 331 matches. He’s scored a ridiculous 142 goals and provided another 57 assists.
Manchester City were told no
Hulk spent four years at Porto and says opportunities to move to England regularly came his way. The Portuguese club kept shutting the door.
“I spent four years at Porto and, in every transfer window, I had the possibility of moving to England,” he said. “But they always kept me and stressed that they didn’t want to sell me.”
“In 2011, we won the Europa League, we were unbeaten national champions, we had that spectacular year and Porto sold Falcao to Atlético Madrid.”
“Straight after that, they received an offer of €60m (£51.9m) from Manchester City to sell me and they didn’t want to sell me.”
“The club said no because they’d just sold Falcao and didn’t need to make any more money. I only found out about it later.”
It’s quite a decision when viewed 15 years later. Porto had already collected a huge fee for Falcao and apparently felt keeping Hulk was worth more than another €60m (£51.9m) in the bank.
For Manchester City, it meant missing out on one of European football’s most exciting attackers at the time.
Finding out helped push Hulk towards the exit
Hulk remained at Porto for another season before joining Zenit Saint Petersburg in 2012. He says he had a renewal proposal from Porto on the table when the Russian opportunity arrived.
By then, though, he had finally discovered what had happened with Manchester City.
“I think Villas-Boas went to Tottenham or Chelsea and tried to take João Moutinho and Álvaro Pereira, but couldn’t sign them, and the transfer window in Europe closed,” Hulk explained.
“The market in Russia was still open for another week and I was the only player who had an offer from Zenit. And I thought about it a lot because I also had an offer to renew with Porto.”
“It was then that I found out about Manchester City’s offer from the previous year and discovered they hadn’t sold me to England.”
“So I thought it was time to leave. I was going to play in the Champions League and decided to try a different kind of football.”
Hulk appears to mix up some of the dates around André Villas-Boas there. The manager left Porto for Chelsea in 2011 and took charge of Tottenham a year later.
In the end, the important part of Hulk’s story is that Manchester City wanted him, Porto rejected €60m (£51.9m), and nobody bothered to tell the player at the time. When he eventually found out, staying around for even longer suddenly looked a lot less attractive.
