Cristiano Ronaldo's legendary Sporting CP performance against Man Utd revisited by the man who marked him - and how Arsenal 'thought they had a deal' for future superstar before Sir Alex Ferguson intervened

United were invited to play Sporting in the first ever game at the Estadio Jose Alvalade in 2003 and O'Shea, who had just returned from the club's pre-season tour of the United States, was tasked with marking an 18-year-old Ronaldo. The teenager ran United ragged in a 3-1 win and six days later United signed Ronaldo for just £12.2 million. Six years later, he would move to Real Madrid for a then world record £80 million fee after firing United to three Premier League titles, the 2008 Champions League and winning the Ballon d'Or for the first time.

Ronaldo was already on the radar of several top clubs at that stage and O'Shea has revealed that Arsenal were close to bringing him over before United struck a deal. He said: "Obviously Arsene Wenger and Arsenal were very interested, they really thought they had a deal nearly done. When we saw his display that night it was straightforward, the deal was going to be done very quickly. The two-three years before he left you knew that consistency was going to be there. He was showing a level of consistency that not many other players were showing and it was brilliant to share the pitch with him as long as I did."

O'Shea told GOAL: "I'll always remember. That was the one time players were delighted they weren't playing, not because of Ronaldo but because everyone was jet-lagged coming back from America. But when we saw what Cristiano could do it was straightforward that we needed him. Trust me I always take it as a compliment that he played well against me and the manager thought: 'He’s done well against John so we’ll have to sign him straightaway.' He must have thought I was doing good."

O'Shea, who was speaking on behalf of the United We Playprogramme - which seeks to empower players from untapped communities - recalled the off-the-pitch work Ronaldo did to bulk up while he was at United and develop into the unbelievable athlete he still is at the age of 39.

"Nearly everyone in the first team squad would have been doing little extra training drills but Ronaldo was doing it right from day one," he added. "One pre-season he came back and it looked like he’d been doing a lot of extra weights, power lifting etc. His leap, his jump, aerially he increased, he was working on injury prevention, working on his ankle ligaments with core bands, it was a constant improvement."

O'Shea admitted he is surprised that Ronaldo is still playing international football at the age of 39 but he believes he has plenty still to offer and has backed him to emulate Pele and score 1000 career goals. He said: "If you’d have told me he would have been doing what he’s doing now I’d have been slightly surprised, I would have thought that he would have had enough but it just shows you what he’s like, he has targets in his head, winning leagues, doing stuff for Portugal, he seems to have that 1000 goal mark in his head as well. He said something along the lines of all his goals will be on video. It tells you everything about him, the sacrifice he’s still willing to make, he’s still playing for Portugal. It’s incredible to see, I witnessed to my cost in the summer when he scored a couple of goals against Ireland, he’s still going strong."