Manchester City chiefs were convinced of a deal for Isco before he took a call from Real Madrid.

The Manchester Evening News says reports in Spain have revealed exactly how close the 23-year-old international came to joining the Blues two years ago, after his former Malaga boss Manuel Pellegrini made him the number one target.

City were confident they had the deal tied up, having agreed a fee with Malaga and agreed a contract with the player in principle.

Isco seemed perfectly happy to join the Blues, especially as Pellegrini had just taken charge at the Etihad Stadium.

But he decided to wait until after the European Under-21 Championships to complete the deal, and that is where it started to go wrong for the Blues.

Real president Florentino Perez put in a direct call to Alvaro Morata and told him to persuade Spain teammate Isco to scrap his City deal and head to Bernabeu instead.