August 16, 2022. I’m in Spain and Spanish contacts are suggesting that Casemiro will leave Real Madrid for Manchester United.“An outside chance of it happening is how I’d put it,” is the reply when I put the information to someone I trust inside United.August 18, I get a call from that same source. “We’d like you to do the first interview on Sunday if possible. He doesn’t speak English.”August 19, a press release arrives to confirm he has signed.After weeks of negotiations, a fee of £60million plus £10million of success-related adds ons has been agreed for the then 30-year-old, whose contract runs for four years with the option for a fifth.It is a deal that has been discussed a great deal since, so what was the thinking behind it?“We’d lost a lot of senior players that summer. Scott (McTominay) and Fred were not natural leaders,” explains someone who was involved with the negotiations, speaking anonymously like others in this article to discuss private matters. “We started talking to his people early… along with others.”United had spent much of that summer chasing Frenkie de Jong from Madrid’s great rivals Barcelona. Manager Erik ten Hag was confident in his ability to sign his compatriot.Barcelona were prepared to do a deal since they needed the money. Two visits to Barcelona had seen negotiations. Presentations were made to De Jong by Zoom and he said that he’d like to play in the Premier League, just not in 2022. He wanted to win trophies in a packed, post-Covid Camp Nou. Oh, and his partner was very happy living overlooking the Med.United didn’t just have one target. Casemiro had long been another and, unlike De Jong, he wanted to make the move to United.The next few days were spent fixing the details so that the Brazilian could sign.Monday August 22. Casemiro flew from Madrid to Manchester by private jet, I flew from Barcelona to Manchester by Ryanair and went straight to Old Trafford, where United were due to play Liverpool that night. After two opening league defeats at home to Brighton and a 4-0 hammering away to Brentford, big fan protests were planned against the Glazer family before the Liverpool game. The mood was febrile.Three hours before kick-off, I went into the East Stand at Old Trafford and waited to interview Casemiro. He had signed that day and was due to be presented on the pitch later.Casemiro arrives as a Manchester United player in 2022 (Photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)We were to do the interview at the back of the away end overlooking the stadium, but things were running late. So late that I feared Liverpool fans were about to be allowed into the section where we were planning to film.I’d not met Casemiro before and when I did, he looked frazzled as you might being introduced to scores of well-meaning strangers in a different language at the end of a long day. He came through with his people stressing the urgency to get on with it. I needed him to unbend and talk.I said the following to him in Spanish: “I’ve been to your city in Brazil”. That caught his attention. He wanted to know why and we began to talk. He relaxed and the cameras were rolling. As the shutters went down around the stadium amid fan protests, the Brazilian opened up. There was just one thing he didn’t want to talk about: his goal for Madrid against United in the 2017 UEFA Super Cup, he didn’t want to upset United fans, not that it would have done at all. He was just being careful.