He could've joined Man Utd for $100m, chose Saudi Arabia and now regrets it

The world soccer map changed last year, when Cristiano Ronaldo decided to accept a multi-million dollar offer from Al-Nassr and leave Europe for the first time in his professional career. This opened the door for other stars, who last summer followed the same path and chose the Pro League over the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A. Examples include Karim Benzema, Sadio Mane, Neymar Junior and Riyad Mahrez.

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However, for some of them the experience in Saudi Arabia was disappointing. The lack of fan enthusiasm, with an average stadium attendance of 2,000, and the cultural differences with Europe were some of the factors that made many players regret their decision and look to leave. Jordan Henderson was the first, giving up a fortune to leave Al-Ettifaq and join Ajax in the January transfer window.

And he is probably not the only one. Rumors indicate that other players such as Roberto Firmino and Karim Benzema are considering similar moves. The same goes for Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. The Serbian midfielder was one of Lazio's stars in Serie A, but surprisingly decided to join Al-Hilal last summer in exchange for $43 million. Since then he has played 27 games there, with 11 goals and 6 assists.

However, apparently this has not been enough for him, as reports indicate that he spoke to his former teammates on the Italian side and told them, "I miss you guys a lot. I would like to return to Lazio". What is surprising is that the midfielder had the opportunity to leave for an English giant before accepting the transfer to Saudi Arabia: Manchester United.

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What happened?

This was confirmed by Lazio's sporting director, Igli Tare, in an interview with TV Play: "Many things have been said about Milinkovic-Savic that are not true, from losing him as a free agent to the idea he didn't want to stay," he began. And then he explained: "The only true thing is that President Claudio Lotito rejected a very important offer, worth over €100 million ($108.6 million), from AC Milan and Manchester United. I don't want to get into why the sale did not go through, as Lotito wanted to maintain a strong squad and keep the promises he had made to the coach".