History
Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo made his debut for Manchester United on August 15 2003. He matured from a raw young talent into one of the best players in the world with Manchester United and left the club in 2009 and came back in 2021 after becoming arguably the greatest football player of all time.
Wayne Rooney
Wayne Rooney is Manchester United's all time leading scorer and the only player to score 250 goals for the Reds. He made his debut on September 27, 2004. Of course, it cannot be forgotten that it was as an exciting teenager that he burst onto the Old Trafford stage in September 2004, netting a wonderful hat-trick on his debut in a Champions League tie with Fenerbahce. Rooney has scored some of the greatest and most historic goals in United's history.
George Best
Few would argue George Best was the most naturally gifted footballer Britain has produced.
Speed, balance, vision, superb close control, the ability to create chances and score from seemingly impossible situations tells half the story. The other half was an uncontainable zest for the game as it should be played, a ceaseless trickery and joy. Pelé, for his part, dubbed United’s no.7 "the greatest player in the world."As he asked, he should be remembered for the back-page headlines, not the front. And what glorious memories they are. His 361 league appearances in Red brought 136 goals; he holds the post-War record for the most goals by a United player in a single match – six versus Northampton Town, in an 8-2 FA Cup fifth-round mauling in 1970.
Eric Cantona
No.7 shirt collar as stiffly upright as if it had been starched, that imperious look, theatrical swagger and poise, Eric Cantona was born to play for Manchester United – and, even better, he was pinched from across the Pennines to do so.The wandering ‘enfant terrible’ of French football, despite title success with Marseille in 1991 and close on a half-century of caps for his country, Cantona had famously ‘retired’ from the game at 25 when a trial with Sheffield Wednesday alerted the attentions of Leeds United boss Howard Wilkinson, eager to bolster his side’s flagging title fortunes for the 1991/92 run-in. Enough said about that…Astonishingly, given his success in Yorkshire and a Charity Shield hat-trick against Liverpool during the 1992/93 curtain raiser, Sir Alex Ferguson’s enquiry as to whether the mercurial Frenchman might be for sale was met with a nod in December. A £1.2 million deal – no, that’s not a misprint – was promptly done, and Cantona went to work. The next four-and-a-half seasons would see him stamp his name indelibly on the club’s history, his heart and soul seemingly in tandem with it: his prophetic pronouncements, his pure, well, Frenchness, finding a spiritual home on the turf where George Best had strutted his stuff so majestically two decades earlier. The missing piece in the long-awaited championship jigsaw, Cantona’s nine goals in 22 league games helped bring home the inaugural Premiership trophy of 1992/93.
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