'If I had known': Newcastle United can now add another Ballon d'Or winner to their list of players they just missed out on

Newcastle United's nearly moments are legend at this point. It's just about how we nearly won the league before we collapsed in a heap and blew a 12-point lead. Or how we nearly won the FA Cup with back-to-back finals.

We also have our 'nearly moments' when it comes to signing top-class players but for the hands of fate to deal us a different card.

Newcastle almost brought future Ballon d'Or winner Luka Modric to the Premier League, but Tony Jiminez famously dismissed him as too small to be successful in the Premier League.

He would later go on to join Tottenham Hotspur and totally dispel that myth. Nice move, Tony.

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It was also recently revealed that Newcastle were offered the chance to sign a young Zinedine Zidane but our scouts claimed that he was pap. You've got to laugh.

Now, thanks to WhatCulture, we can add another near miss to our list.

In the 90's there weren't many strikers more highly rated than George Weah, who was playing for Paris Saint-Germain when he caught the eye of Kevin Keegan, who was looking for a replacement for Andy Cole in 1995.

Newcastle missed out on George Weah by a matter of hours

Unfortunately, the Magpies were just a bit too late in declaring their interest as PSG had made an agreement with AC Milan for the striker and the rest his history.

However, Weah himself has since said that had he known Newcastle were interested, he'd probably have moved to the Premier League.

“I wanted to weigh up all possibilities and would not have signed the paper in Milan if I had known Newcastle were interested.”

Weah won the Ballon d'Or that year and went on to win two Serie A titles with Milan before he did move to the Premier League with Chelsea and Manchester City. Oh, what might have been.