Ballon d'Or winner got offered £200,000 to play for Al Nassr before Cristiano Ronaldo transfer
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Cristiano Ronaldo is easily the biggest star to ever play for Al Nassr but he isn't the first Ballon d'Or winner to represent the club.
Ronaldo was the catalyst for a wave of elite players moving to the Saudi Pro League when he signed a whopping £175 million-a-year contract with Al Nassr back in December.
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The league, particularly clubs backed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, splashed on a wealth of talent - with some of the high-profile signings including Karim Benzema, Neymar, N'Golo Kante, Ruben Neves, Kalidou Koulibaly, Roberto Firmino, Fabinho, Marcelo Brozovic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Jordan Henderson and Riyad Mahrez.
But Al Nassr had one of the world's best players in their ranks 25 years ago.
Bulgarian Hristo Stoichkov won the Ballon d'Or back in 1994 while playing under Johan Cruyff at Barcelona, where he won four La Liga titles and one European Cup.
Nicknamed 'El Pistolero', Stoichkov had a second spell with Barca between 1996 and 1998.
There a short stint back at his beloved CSKA Sofia but he had an even briefer spell in Saudi.
He joined Al Nassr in 1998 but the contract was anything but long-term. Incredibly, it was just a two-match deal for the five-time Bulgarian Player of the Year.
The Saudi side brought him solely to win the Asian Cup Winners' Cup for the first time.
Al Nassr got byes in the first two rounds before beating Al Ittihad 3-2 in an all-Saudi clash in the quarter-finals.
Stoichkov was then drafted in for the semi-final and finals, which Al Nassr went on to win.
As per The Sun, it's claimed he was paid £165,000 for two games but it was worth it for Al Nassr as Stoichkov scored the winner against Korean side Suwon Samsung Bluewings at the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh.
He went on to play in Japan with Kashiwa Reysol and the MLS with both Chicago Fire and D.C United before he retired in 2003.
Featured Image Credit: Getty & Al Nassr
Topics: Ballon d'Or, Cristiano Ronaldo, Al Nassr
