MADRID, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Real Madrid coach Bernd Schuster told Spanish newspaper Marca on Sunday that he expects his club to complete the signing of Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldonext summer.

    Madridspent all of this summer in a fruitless attempt to sign the Portuguese international star. As a result of that obsession, their only arrival was that if Dutch international Rafael Van red Vaart.

    However, although Madrid totally failed in their ambitions for this year, Schuster said he expected the club to get its man next season.

    "Everything was ready, but Cristiano became more distant and in August it was much harder to then look for other players. Maybe it would have been better to have got the players we had been talking about in May or June, before the European Championships. It was all a lot harder at the last minute," he said, before admitted that Ronaldo had been close to committing himself to Madrid.

    "The information that I had was that the meetings were all positive, but as the weeks went by, I began to have bigger and bigger doubts. The day after he spoke to (Manchester United coach)Sir Alex Ferguson and made some declarations in which he took a step back, was when I knew it was over," explained Schuster.

    However, when asked about the future, Schuster was optimistic that Cristiano would play for Real Madrid in the 2009-2010 campaign.

    "I think he will do, he wants to do so and I think it will be quite hard for his club to retain him. There is the hope that next year, he can be with us," he said.