Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi together was Real Madrid's biggest dream but the former president says it was always going to be impossible

Ramon Calderon, the man who brought Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for a then-world record £80 million in 2009 (nearly $107 million), says he desperately wanted Lionel Messi too, but knew from the outset it was never going to happen. The former Los Blancos president opened up to A BOLA about one of football's great what-ifs, the two greatest players of their generation coexisting at the same club, and why geography, loyalty, and club politics made it a fantasy rather than a plan.Calderon does not dress it up. Messi was Barcelona's, and Barcelona had no interest in negotiating. The Argentine was not seeking a move, and no amount of money or ambition from Madrid would have changed that reality."I would have loved it, but it was impossible because Messi was at Barcelona and they would never have let him leave unless he took the initiative, like Cristiano did at Manchester United," Calderon told A BOLA. "But he was happy at Barca and therefore there was no possibility. It was a shame because bringing together the two best players in the world on the same team would have been fantastic."The key word there is initiative. Ronaldo made his desire to join Madrid known and sustained it over two years of quiet pressure. Messi never had that itch. He was home. And without that push from the player's side, no transfer was ever getting off the ground.Calderon is notably modest about his own role in securing Ronaldo. He does not claim it as a personal coup. His reading of the situation is simple: a player of Ronaldo's stature goes where he wants, and nothing Sir Alex Ferguson could do was going to stop him."We were in negotiations for two years. Manchester United, naturally, didn't want him to leave, but the player wanted to go," Calderon explained. "It's well known that footballers like Cristiano end up going where they really want to go; it's impossible to hold them against their will. I insist, I was there and, as anyone else would have done, I seized the opportunity. At that moment, he was the best player in the world alongside Messi, and therefore, the most logical thing to do was to seize the opportunity to sign him with both hands."Ferguson's resistance was real but ultimately irrelevant. Once Ronaldo decided, the outcome was settled.Calderon thinks so, and he is not particularly diplomatic about it. The relationship between Ronaldo and president Florentino Perez had been strained for years, and when Juventus came with a reported €100 million bid, Madrid accepted rather than fight for a player they perhaps undervalued."I believe it was a mistake on both sides," Calderon said. "Certainly the relationship wasn't good from the beginning, then, over time, it deteriorated towards the end of his time here. I believe the president didn't think anyone would be able to pay 100 million euros, but yes, there was a club willing to do it, and then he had no other option but to accept the player's departure. The player never fully adapted to any club outside of Real Madrid, and Real Madrid was difficult because it's impossible to find someone like Cristiano."Juventus never recaptured what Ronaldo produced in Madrid. Neither side, Calderon implies, came out of it well.