How differently would his career have progressed if the now-35-year-old midfielder had sealed a shock move to Manchester United just over a decade ago?
A 35-year-old midfielder who, after missing out on the chance to play under Sir Alex Ferguson in his ifnal season at Old Trafford, would eventually swap CSKA Moscow for Krasnodar while spending the entirety of his career in his Russian homeland?
The story of Pavel Mamaev is one of those ‘sliding doors’ tales.
And while the 15-time Russia international would still carve out a very respectable career for himself – 51 goals in over 400 appearances alongside six trophies – Zoran Tosic feels that his former teammate only scratched the surface of his potential.
Tosic, the one-time Manchester United youngster, was playing alongside Mamaev at CSKA when none other than Sir Alex himself came calling back in 2012.
And when we say Ferguson came calling, we mean that in a very literal sense.
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Pavel Mamaev nearly joined Manchester United
“There was an interesting story. The chief scout of Manchester United called me at 8 o’clock in the morning and said; ‘Go wash yourself, Ferguson will call you in half an hour,'” Tosic says, recalling those frantic events in conversation with the Comment Show.
“I had just woken up, in shock. He told me to take a pen and paper and write down everything that needed to be said so as not to mix it up, especially (with regards to) Mamaev’s important qualities.
“Ferguson called and said; ‘How are you? We’ve been following you. I know you have a good striker there, (Seydou) Doumbia’. I said; ‘Yes, we have a good team’. Then he said; ‘Tell me about Mamaev.’
“I took the paper and read everything (that I had written down).”
Mamaev would later reveal, via The Metro, that Man United would have been a ‘dream transfer’. The deal, he adds, was ‘around 80 per cent complete’ too, only for work permit issues to scupper what proved to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“It’s a pity the transfer didn’t happen. Manchester United wanted him. They were looking for a player of that type,” adds Tosic, who would play only five games for the Red Devils before moving to the Russian capital.
“Mamaev was 22-23 years old. Young. Not worth 15-20 million. I had a similar situation; I was bought for £7 million and sold for £9 million.
“When you move to England, the difference between the Serbian championship, where I played, and Manchester United is just space.
“Mamaev would need time to adapt through training, through conversations. I think he would have grown into a much better footballer than he became.”
Russia ace would never leave his homeland
A versatile footballer who could play as a deep-lying playmaker or wide on the right-hand side, it is anyone’s guess whether Mamaev would have helped solve the midfield additions that existed at Old Trafford around that time.
United infamously brought Paul Scholes out of retirement only a few months earlier, at a time in which Darren Fletcher was a long-time absentee due to illness.
The emergence of Tom Cleverley, alongside fellow youngsters Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Danny Welbeck, would help ensure Ferguson signed off with another Premier League winners’ medal but none of those progressed as expected in the post-Sir Alex era.
Perhaps Mamaev, then, was rather fortunate to avoid the churn and the misery of the dark days under David Moyes and beyond.
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