10 More Shock Transfers

10 More Shock Transfers

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In commemoration of Michael Owen's shock transfer to Manchester United today, we re-publish an editorial from January looking at ten transfers that made us pause for thought.

Be it a switch from a large club to small or vice-versa, a trans-continental move or a rivalry, there is something about each of these transfers that left the football world at least mildly shocked.

In no particular order, here we go...

Julien Faubert (West Ham United to Real Madrid)

Faubert, at 25, isn't quite the 'nobody' that some have uncharitably characterised him as. In fact this right-sided Frenchman was one of the leading lights of Bordeaux right up until 2007, after which West Ham United won the race for his signature - one that was to cost them €9 million.

Yet the Hammers may feel that Julien has not returned that investment sufficiently, given that he's played well under 30 league games in two seasons, virtually all of them in 2008. What's more, he had struggled to find his niche in the West Ham line-up, being shunted all over the right flank as the situation demanded.

The fact that he is injury-prone may have had some Madridistas wondering if Faubert wasn't the next Jonathan Woodgate, who we'll look at next. Well, for one thing, it came as no surprise that Faubert made just one appearance during his loan spell at the Santiago Bernabeu between January and May of this year.

A baffling signing...

Jonathan Woodgate (Newcastle United to Real Madrid)

"Who is this guy? A Newcastle player? We've only heard of Alan Shearer..."

Thus spoke a Real Madrid fan gathered to see the unveiling of Michael Owen at the Santiago Bernabeu, where a certain Jonathan Woodgate was also to be kitted out in white.

The England international cost a cool €20m - £13.4m in an English transfer market not quite as inflated as it is today - in a move that was said by the club hierarchy to be the solution to the Blancos' defensive woes.

That 'Woody' was injured even during his arrival in the Spanish capital should have sounded warning bells; that he was sent off on his debut after scoring an own goal had them ringing backwards.

Still, he was never looked upon as the villain of the piece by the Madrid faithful - after all, his price tag and injury record were not his fault - and when he inevitably left for Middlesbrough three seasons later with barely ten games under his belt it was more as a curiousity than a failure.

Woody is now with Tottenham Hotspur, where his talent is plain to see in between trysts with the treatment table.

Thomas Gravesen (Everton to Real Madrid)

Then you have a man whose journey to Madrid was, in fact, deemed as pretty much a failure.

Five years into his Everton career, Thomas Gravesen was six months away from free agency. It was perhaps expected that he would be sold on for a quick buck; what was not foreseen was that his buyers were to be Real Madrid.

For whatever reason it was imagined by the Bernabeu powerbrokers that Gravesen was a defensive midfielder - maybe his modest goals tally - and it was into this role that he was thrust. He spent just 18 relatively unhappy months at Real Madrid, and suddenly his relatively small transfer fee looked rather expensive due to his occasionally violent ways and unhappy demeanour.

Predictably he left Madrid. From there he went to Celtic in a switch almost as surprising, albeit this time for the fact that it was thought that the 'lowly' environs of the Scottish Premier League were beneath him, even if regular Champions League entrants Celtic had sufficient prestige (and of course cash) to land him. Not so: Gravesen toiled in the SPL amidst tales of bad attitude and tactical disagreements, once again over his alleged "defensive" qualities.

After one mixed campaign he was loaned to Everton; he was then told by Bhoys manager Gordon Strachan that his performances and poor work-rate meant that he had no future at the club. He then quit the game of football after negotiating a big-money settlement for the remaining year of his contract. The man who was typecast as a battler gave up the right at the age of just 32.

Carlos Tevez & Javier Mascherano (Corinthians/MSI to West Ham United)

Two of the 'sleeper hits' of the 2006 World Cup strutted their stuff for Argentina to the delight of the globe. Tevez and Mascherano were deemed inseparable by the world media, due to their being central to most of the Albiceleste's play and their lining up for the same club, Corinthians of Brazil.

In fact their fates were to be intertwined even after the tournament as these two were subject to a major transfer drama. Being effectively owned by a third party, Media Sports Investments, the two were subject to highest-bidderism of the first order, and thus when West Ham United ponied up the most cash there was only one place they would end up.

That a mid-table, unfashionable outfit - even in the hyper-rich Premier League - landed two players who had genuine claims to be world-class was seen as a massive coup, and certainly the influence of Tevez in particular was key in keeping the Hammers in the Premier League in the year of their arrival.

But lucre and prestige is fleeting, and West Ham found themselves bereft of their top talents as Masch went to Liverpool and Carlos to Manchester United. The recriminations over their unorthodox agency ownership continue to this day, but their time at the Boleyn Ground is consigned to the history books.

Robbie Keane (Coventry City to Inter)

If his oft-rumoured move from Tottenham to Liverpool in summer was predictable, one of his early transfers was not.

The Irish international had only just settled in at Coventry City after arriving from Wolves when the phone rang once more. This time it wasn't another Midlands club, but rather European giants Internazionale. So, from Highfield Road to the San Siro in just a year, Robbie Keane became a transfer sensation at the age of just 20.

It is not fair to say that he was an unknown plucked from obscurity, though. Coventry had already paid £6m for the youngster - a massive amount on a talent with only two years in the professional game. What was amazing, though, was that he was so young when the move took place, that a side such as Inter were the ones making the bid, and that they paid more than twice Coventry's initial investment for Keane.

Still, with Marcello Lippi - his admirer and perhaps mentor - all too quickly out of the picture at the San Siro, Keane would only play a handful of matches in Italy before being sold at a small loss to Leeds.

Paulo Futre (Reggiana to AC Milan)

It's not like AC Milan to move for a once-great attacker who is well and truly past his best...

OK, all joking aside, eyebrows were raised almost off foreheads when the Rossoneri signed an aging Futre from Reggiana in 1995. The former Porto and Atletico Madrid legend, while still renowned as one of the top players of his day, was most certainly on the downswing of his career. His international impact had ended and his trophy days were long behind him.

The ever-injured one played a mere handful of times for Milan, and it was indeed sad to watch a man who once wowed the entire continent with his abilities end up so far past his best. Milan did their best to quietly forget him.

Maurice Johnston (Nantes to Rangers)

MoJo is a man who polarises opinion in Scotland. A striker of some repute with Partick Thistle, Watford and Celtic, the forward tried his luck on the continent with Nantes, with whom he spent two years in the late '80s.

However, Scotland was calling, and with his contract set to end he was all set for a return to Celtic.

Enter Rangers. The big-spending Ibrox club performed the ultimate piece of one-upmanship by swooping in under the noses of their hated rivals to sign the forward, who went on to enjoy two fine years there.

That he'd previously pledged allegiance to Celtic obviously made for no end of resentment on the Eastern side of the city, and there were even some of the Rangers persuasion who were upset with the fact that their club had signed an ex-Celt, and a Roman Catholic one at that.

For sheer shock value and implausibility, the Nantes-to-Rangers move takes some beating.

Allan Simonsen (Barcelona to Charlton)

Denmark's only European Footballer of the Year was once the toast of the old continent. German cracks Borussia Moenchengladbach had this tiny forward to thank for some of their top European successes, and Barcelona were just as thankful for his influence when he scored in the Cup Winners' Cup victory of 1982.

Still well within viable top-level age at 31, Simonsen was probably as surprised as anyone else when he was fast-tracked for sale in 1983. The problem did not lie with form, but with nationality: the boy from Velje in Denmark was not Spanish, and with a strict limit on imports in the league at that time, Simonsen had to make room for the incoming Diego Maradona.

Off he went, but the winning bidders were the most unlikely around. Charlton Athletic weren't even a top-flight side when they shelled out £300,000 and a massive wage packet for the Denmark international, but at least they got success out of him: a ratio of well over 0.5 goals per game saw the Addicks start the campaign in style.

But this Second Division side weren't as rich as their bid would suggest, and with cashflow a major problem Simonsen was transfer listed within months of his arrival. Eschewing numerous offers to return to the big time, Simonsen went home to Vejle, with whom he'd play for a further seven years.

Luther Blisset (Watford to AC Milan)

Football history has not been kind to Luther Blissett. Known as "Luther Missett" for his poor record in the English national side and remembered primarily as the man who failed at AC Milan, the fact that he helped guide unfashionable Watford to second place in the league behind all-conquering Liverpool, scoring a pile of goals in the process, has been forgotten by too many. Indeed, he will be remembered first and foremost as the subject of a bizarre transfer.

So poor was his time at Milan that a rumour emerged to the effect that he must have arrived by mistake, and that the Rossoneri in fact meant to land John Barnes, a more prominent Watford striker. Of course there are massive problems with this urban legend: first of all, the two look nothing like each other, although were both playing for Watford; and also Blissett was at the time one of the top scorers in the Football League, an accolade that was to evade Barnes for some time. In other words, Milan got their man.

But the transfer remains unexpected for three reasons. Firstly, the Englishman abroad (or Jamaican-Englishman, as the case may be) has very much a mixed record on the Italian peninsula; secondly, the forward played for modest Watford and was not yet a fully established international. Finally, as with virtually all of these, it went quickly.

True enough, away from the surroundings of Watford, the million-pound man failed to flourish, scoring just five times before being sold back to Watford at half price. It was as if he'd never left as he started banging the goals in again.

At AC Milan he is a figure of fun. At Watford he was, and is, a club legend.

Zico (Flamengo to Udinese)

A South American leaving for a mid-table European side: what's the big deal? Well, just the small fact that world-beating Zico left world-beating Flamengo for the decidely more modest surroundings of Udinese.

Yes, this was when the Brazilian outfit were at their peak, and there was Zico right at the centre of it. This attacking midfielder averaged over a goal every two games for O Mais Querido, cementing the status of Brazil's most popular club as South America's best and, in the great year of 1981, the world's best.

Clearly he was a man very much in demand in Europe, but that Udinese managed to snap him up was shocking. Certainly the Friuliani had to break the bank for the Rio man, but they weren't disappointed: his goalscoring record kept up, as did his assist tally, and above all else he helped to put the Bianconeri well and truly on the top-flight map.

But the lure of Flamengo and his adoring Brazilian public was too much, and two years after his European adventure began he was back at the club he loved, and who loved him back. He remains Flamengo's favourite son by a huge margin: at Udinese he is a footnote, albeit a very fondly remembered one.

Al-Saadi Qadhafi (Al Ittihad Tripoli to Perugia)

And finally, a player who inherited a famous surname. No, it's not Paul Dalglish or Jordi Cruyff: it's Colonel Gaddafi's son (or Qadhafi, to go with the preferred spelling.)

This Tripoli-born striker was a player of some repute back in his own country, although it would be foolish to imply that his connections didn't help just a little in cementing his status as a striker with Al Ahly, Al Ittihad, and the national team.

Perugia, who were at that time always on the lookout for a bit of controversy under controversial president Luciano Gaucci, signed Qadhafi in 2003.

The then-30-year-old played a league match for his side and then failed a drugs test. Later he was to show up for ten minutes for Udinese, and then spend a season on Sampdoria's squad list without playing a single match.