The Manchester United side of the late-2000s was one of Sir Alex Ferguson’s most exciting creations.
This was a side defined by a swaggering front line that contained one of the best attacking corps in Europe, with opponents having to pick their poison when the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney were bearing down on them.
Even for a player with the talents of Portuguese winger Nani, sharing a pitch with three such mecurial talents would often feel like a fever dream.
Nani on playing alongside Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo
“It was like a PlayStation game,” Nani says to FourFourTwo when recalling that Red Devils vintage.
“When all of us were on the pitch together, everything became easier because you knew any one of them could produce a moment of genius to change the game.
“Around those stars, football felt simple – all you had to do was give them a good pass and they’d take care of the rest.”
The Ronaldo-Rooney-Tevez axis was in operation during the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons, with that side winning two Premier League titles, plus the 2008 Champions League and the League Cup in 2009.
It was broken up when Ronaldo left Old Trafford for Real Madrid for a world record fee of £80 million in the summer of 2009. Nani, who had arrived at the club in 2007, was seen as the heir apparent for his compatriot. Did he feel pressure to fill Ronaldo’s boots?
“No,” he insists. “Pressure, when you understand it properly, becomes responsibility. I was confident I could be a player capable of helping to compensate for Cristiano’s absence.
“I think that belief, together with the commitment I showed, was what allowed me to have such strong seasons at United. Unfortunately, some injuries limited my performances, but overall I consider my time at the club to have been very good.
“The trust of my team-mates and the coaching staff was also key in making the post-Cristiano era a positive one.”
