New Real Madrid signing Antonio Rudiger has insisted Los Blancos were the only club he was interested in as he considered leaving Chelsea.
Rudiger allowed his contract to expire this summer and has made the jump to the Santiago Bernabeu, despite significant interest in the German from a whole host of teams from across Europe.
Back in January, there was interest from Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham, while Rudiger had no shortage of suitors on the continent as Barcelona, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Inter all voiced a desire to sign the centre-back.
While not all of those sides made concrete offers, Rudiger stressed that Real were the only club who ever had a chance of convincing him to leave Chelsea.
"It's true that there were many conversations," he told Marca. "But if I am honest, I only considered Madrid or Chelsea.
"The first time I heard about Madrid...imagine. It was like...wow. The first time they contacted me was in September or October, I believe. A club like this doesn't call very often and it was amazing."
Rudiger went on to reveal that he did not speak with manager Carlo Ancelotti until after his move to Real was finalised, but admitted his conversation with the boss has only left him more excited to get to work.
"It was a welcome conversation after everything was already done," Rudiger continued. "He told me that everyone was very happy to have me at Madrid and that makes me very happy.
"It is clear that Ancelotti is one of the people who makes Real Madrid very strong, but it's not only him. There's [Karim] Benzema, Toni Kroos, [Luka] Modric, Casemiro...Ancelotti told me they were all very happy and that makes me feel proud.
"It also makes me see that I've done well in the last three years and it gives me a lot of motivation to do even better at Real Madrid."
Source : 90min