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The rise of Ronaldo & another great Man Utd team – The Broken Metatarsal

The Manchester United team which won the Premier League and Champions League in 2008 was truly special – and we remember the building of it in the latest episode of The Broken Metatarsal.

Having dominated the Premier League during the 90s, United’s success continued into the early part of the 2000s when they won three out of the first four titles of the new millennium.

However, the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo in 2003 coincided with a rare fallow period for Sir Alex Ferguson in which United finished third, third and second in consecutive seasons, only winning one FA Cup and one League Cup in that time.

Ronaldo came in for plenty of criticism during those years too, with Ruud van Nistelrooy more frustrated than most about his style of play, but Ferguson put his faith in the youngster and allowed Van Nistelrooy to leave, instead building up Ronaldo and the team around him.

The result was one of the great Fergie teams which went close to another treble in 2007-08 when Ronaldo scored an incredible 42 goals in all competitions.

Comedian Danny McLoughlin joins Rich Williams, Mark Holmes and Pete Farries to celebrate Ronaldo and that team’s achievements, while ex-United kid Eddie Johnson joins on the phone to reveal what the now-superstar was like as an 18-year-old and what his team-mates thought about him.

And, as always on The Broken Metatarsal, the episode finishes with a game of Fact or Fiction in which Rich attempts to work out which of Mark, Pete and Danny’s unlikely stories about Ronaldo are, in fact, true.

If you love 2000s football as much as we do, you can find us on Audioboom and subscribe in all the usual places on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, CastBox, Deezer and RadioPublic.

Or you can just listen to the latest episode below.

The Broken Metatarsal is brought to you in association with our sponsors, Football Index. Sign up here for an exclusive Planet Football reader offer and take advantage of their 7-day £1000 money-back guarantee. T&Cs apply, 18+, begambleaware.org.


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