Cristiano Ronaldo's transfer from Real Madrid to Juventus in 2018 was up there with the biggest deals of the summer.  

The forward left Los Blancos after nine spectacular years and during that time, he scored a record-breaking 450 goals and picked up a ridiculous amount of silverware.

Ronaldo helped Madrid win two La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey trophies and most impressively, he ended his spell at the Bernabeu as a four-time Champions League winner. 

Arguably after breaking records and winning every trophy on offer, there was nothing left for the Portuguese to do in Spain, so he moved on to Italy last July. 

It's fair to say that Ronaldo's transfer has worked out well, both for him and Juventus. 

A SOLID FIRST SEASON

So far, the five-time Ballon d'Or winner has scored an impressive 18 goals in 23 Serie A games, and also assisted his teammates on eight occasions. 

Juve are running away at the top of the league and are currently 11 points clear - having not lost a game yet. 

The Old Lady are also going strong in Europe and are one of the favourites to win the competition. 

Ronaldo has undoubtedly helped Juventus this season, so his £105 million fee looks like money well spent.

But, according to the club's sporting director Fabio Paratici, CR7 wasn't actually their first-choice signing last summer. 

OTHER TARGETS

Paratici has recently admitted that Juventus wanted a shake-up last season after once again failing in the Champions League - they were dumped out by Ronaldo's Madrid in the quarter-finals. 

"I had a thought about [Gianluigi] Buffon leaving, the team having won seven championships, and having had a tough Champions League exit," he told Gazzetta dello Sport, per FourFourTwo.

"So something had to be done to motivate the squad." 

And apparently, Paratici wanted that motivation to come in the form of a huge signing - but it wasn't originally supposed to be Ronaldo, but Mauro Icardi instead. 

SIGNING A RIVAL

"I met with [chairman] Andrea [Agnelli], [vice chairman] Pavel [Nedved], and we all agreed. We must give the entire environment a shock. A positive shock that can project Juventus over certain limits.

"There are two ways to motivate the team. The first way? It was to buy Icardi and unleash an incredible fiasco, or we can sign Cristiano Ronaldo."

Signing Icardi from Rivals Inter Milan proved not to be feasible, so Juve settled for Ronaldo instead. He's certainly not a bad backup, is he?