Few players would have turned down a Manchester United side in their pomp but for one legendary striker, Celtic was the holy grail.
Henrik Larsson was dubbed the ‘King of Kings’ during an unforgettable seven-year spell at Celtic Park, scoring a whopping 242 goals in 315 games.
The Swede fired Celtic to four Scottish Premier League titles and crucially stopped Rangers from breaking the Bhoys’ record of nine league titles in-a-row.
But it could have all been very different for the revered striker had he taken up the opportunity to leave Celtic for Manchester United in the 1990s.
“I had an opportunity to go to Manchester United in the 1990s from Celtic,” Larsson told The Guardian. “I would have earned more, maybe £10,000 or £15,000 a week more. But I had just come off three and a half years at Feyenoord where it had been up and down.
“I had just found my feet [at Celtic] and I wanted to go on with that. We’d played in the Uefa Cup, I played for Sweden, I didn’t feel I needed to go somewhere else. I didn’t become a superstar at Barcelona, I became a superstar at Celtic.”
Luckily for Larsson the train to Old Trafford stopped for a second time in his career in 2007, joining United in a three-month loan stint.
Larsson was back in his home country with Helsingborgs but the end of the Swedish league season presented him with the opportunity to taste Premier League action.
Despite his short stay in Manchester, Larsson admits he was honoured to represent the club and singled out the hospitable welcome he received.
“I was only there for ten weeks but Sir Alex Ferguson made me feel so welcome,” he added. “I was living at the Lowry [hotel]. Louis Saha and Patrice Evra would take me to lunch, Wayne Rooney too. I thought: ‘Oh, they really care.’ So you want to do good by them. It was an honour to represent Manchester United.”
The Swede fittingly got his hands on the Champions League trophy in 2006 as Barcelona came from behind to beat Arsenal 2-1 in the final in Paris.
His introduction as a second-half substitute changed the course of the match, providing two assists to down Arsene Wenger’s men at the Stade de France.
Now 52, Larsson has adapted to a life away from football where he divides his time between being a grandfather, running his own clothing line and playing a few rounds of golf.
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