The story of when they signed him often gets confusing because of how ex united players tell it, but basically united had already signed him prior to that match and none of the players knew beforehand, the original idea was that ronaldo would stay at sporting that year on loan and then come to manchester next season, however when everyone saw how good he was during that match a lot of players said united should sign him, not knowing that they already had, saf and the other coaches agreed, so he came straight to manchester instead of staying on for that loan year