Tottenham have done plenty of business with Real Madrid over the years.

Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Rafael van der Vaart and Sergio Reguilon have all swapped one white shirt for the other in recent years, and according to Danny Rose, Spurs almost signed another player from Madrid.

Indeed, speaking on The Spurs Show, Rose spoke about his relationship with Franco Baldini during his time at the club, and he says that he really wasn’t a fan of the Italian Director.

Rose stated that Baldini didn’t like English players, and after Rose’s loan spell with Sunderland, Baldini actually tried to sign Fabio Coentrao from Real Madrid to replace Rose.

Tottenham almost sign Fabio Coentrao

Rose spoke about Baldini and how he almost signed the £27m Real Madrid man.

“Many people won’t know there was a Director there called Franco Baldini. He hated English, and I had a vendetta with him.

“When I came back from Sunderland the club was flirting with the idea of signing Fabio Coentrao from Real Madrid and he was instrumental in that, if there was a rise in my level of performance it’s because I despised him.”

Tottenham had a lucky escape

Tottenham’s deal to sign Fabio Coentrao didn’t go through, and, to be honest, Spurs probably had a bit of a lucky escape here.

Make no mistake about it, Coentrao was a fantastic player on his day – as he showed many a time for Portugal, but staying fit was a big issue for the left-back.

The fact he only played 58 league games in seven years at Real Madrid tells you all you need to know, this was a player that struggled so much with his fitness, and Spurs could easily have lived to regret signing him.

Fortunately, Baldini’s plan didn’t come off and Rose was able to establish himself as one of the Premier League’s better left-backs during his time at Spurs.