It’s a deal…

There is another transfer market opened up now in January and people are talking about all the poor transfers that has been made in the Premier League recently. There has been some hideous signings since the Premier League got formed and I would like to name a few people might not have thought to much about recently. The money now of course is a bit different then it was in the 90s, but still. There was some signings that did not turn out as hoped back then as well.

Francis Jeffers

£8 million from Everton to Arsenal.

Well, Francis Jeffers is of course one of the bigger stars in this category, but he is a name I could not help but to mention. He came to Arsenal and was nicknamed “The fox in the box” by Mr Arsene Wenger. He never came close to become the great player he was predicted to be. He was going to become the new big thing. The star England needed up front. The fox in the box. He played for Arsenal for three seasons and ended up scoring four times. Before he came to Arsenal he played for Everton, and his ability to score was not that vague then. He netted 18 goals for the Scousers, and it triggered the Gunners to make a move for the youngster. He went back on loan to Everton, having lost everything. He then played 18 games and scored as many as I have for Everton. To make the story shorter he now plays for Newcastle Jets in Australia.

Thomas Brolin

£4,3 million from Parma to Leeds

The fat swede. In 1995 he came to Leeds United sure to be a huge hit. Huge was he, but no hit. With a bronze medal, and the topscorer title shared with Dennis Bergkamp, from the Euros of 1992 he was the potential goal-getter for Leeds United. He played 19 games his first season, and went out on a loan spell two years in a row, before ending up in Crystal Palace. Thomas Brolin was over the top, and became a flop everywhere. He is now a poker professional, and you could tell how much he loves his food.

Boško Balaban

£5,8 million from Dinamo Zagreb to Aston Villa

What happens in Villa, stays in Villa. Boško Balaban who was one hell of a striker in Croatia before he came to England, just didn’t get picked. He came on from the bench seven times, and started just two games for Villa, and one of these was in the League Cup. He did not manage to score any goals for the Villains from Birmingham. But what happened in Villa? He came from Dinamo Zagred after scoring 38 goals in 52 mathces. He was at Villa for one season, then went back on loan to Zagreb netting another 15 goals in 24 matches. For then to be sold to Club Brugge where he scored 47 goals in 83 matches. Why did he not even get a chance in Villa? A mysterium. They spent a lot of money for the striker who was supposed to be one of the best in Croatia, but he never turned out to be good enough for Villa.

Sergiy Rebrov

£11 million from Dynamo Kiev to Tottenham

Rebrov was the striking partner with Shevchenko at Kiev, and Sheva went on to Italy with one of the best scoring statistics in the world. Scoring almost every game. Spurs then went after his companion at Kiev, and splashed their cash to bring Rebrov to White Hart Lane. What a talent he was supposed to be. But after playing 60 games and not even scoring every fifth game he was let out in the cold. Not much to brag about, and they did never see a penny of the £11 million they spent on him. He went on a loan spell to Fenerbache, and ended up signing on a free for West Ham. Not even close to scoring goals there either. One goal in West Ham and ten in Tottenham shipped him straight back to Eastern Europe. He played in his Kiev and Rubin Kazan until he retired.

You would have thought Tottenham had learnt from this. Buying Rebrov in 2000- sending him away in 2003 without a penny back. But the next one came in as Rebrov went out.

Helder Postiga

£6,25 million from Porto to Tottenham

Helder Postiga did well in the Portuguese League. He was playing both for his club and the under-21s in Portugal. Another striker who was scoring goals, and was picked to play for the Portugal team in the build up for the Euros in 2004, which Portugal hosted. In 2003 he went to Tottenham announcing that his dream was complete. He was now playing for his favorite club. What a statement, and the great start with all the fans praising the signing turned out to be nothing more than just a joke. 19 games for Spurs, netting one goal and he probably created three chances during his spell there. (I know, harsh… But it was absolutely horrible to watch him play for the lilywhites.) He stayed there only for one year, and went back to Porto with nothing but dissapointment from his spell at his favourite club. What a letdown football can be. But still, he made himself a great career for his country, just could not settle in the Premier League. Money wasted.

Winston Bogarde

Winston Bogarde came to Chelsea for free from Barcelona.

He was signed very controversial without the manager, Vialli, knowing. He got a contract that was very big at the time. Worth £40,000 in a week. Then Chelsea appointed Ranieri, and the new manager wanted to sell him straight away. But Bogarde refused. He did not see any possible way of getting such a great deal anywhere else and said:

“Why should I throw fifteen million Euro away when it is already mine? At the moment I signed it was in fact my money, my contract.”

The funniest part was that Chelsea even won a domestic trophy one of the four seasons he had a contract there and a clause in his contract gave him a bonus, even though he did not contribute at all.

Wim Jonk

£2,5 million from PSV to Sheffield Wednesday.

This is my personal favourite. A player who had played for Internazionale Milano, Ajax, PSV. He just had to be a great signing for Sheffield Wednesday. He came to the club and it was a move that showed Sheffield Wednesday weren’t joking. At least not supposed to be. In 1998 they signed him and in 2000 the club went down with Wim Jonk on the midfield. Just walking around on the pitch. Did he want to be at Sheffield Wednesday at all? He got injured and had a clause of getting £5,ooo, on top of his wage, for every game he missed. Just sitting watching football in Sheffield made his living. He then went on to retire in 2001, and the rumours had it that this was a decision he made so that he could start focusing on writing poems. What a great story. I reckon Sheffield Wednesday fans enjoyed his presence in the last year of his contract.

The list goes on…

Before I go to bed I feel I could write and write about players who have failed to prove that they had the potential of being a good signing.

So I am just going to name some players, who was probably equal to them who I have mentioned.

Faustino Asprilla was a player signed from Parma, and he was going to be the player who made Newcastle a top team in the Premier League. The player who was the small piece missing from a big puzzle. £6 odd million he was signed for in 1996 and he never proved to be more than an unbalanced character shaking up the dressing room.

Perluigi Casiraghi came to Chelsea for a fee of £5 odd millions and he was one of the hottest topics in Italian football when he arrived. This was at a time where Chelsea almost was Italian. He netter only once for Chelsea, and then went out of football with a cruciate ligament injury. Never went on to another side.

Massimo Taibi was one of the goalkeepers Sir Alex Ferguson tried to replace Peter Schmeichel with. It turned out rather badly. £4,5 million pounds. And he lasted four games for Manchester United with a couple of horrible mistakes.

Paul Furlong became Chelsea’s record signing in 1994 with £2,3 million on his price tag, and he did not make an impact at all. Ruud Gullit and Mark Hughes then came along to make sure that this player was nothing but a flop.

Sean Dundee went from Karlsruhe to Liverpool in 1998 after relegating form the Bundesliga in Germany, and cost Liverpool £2 million. He said himself that he was even quicker than Michael Owen, but proved out to be one of the worst players ever to play for Liverpool.

While were talking about Michael Owen, he came back to England from Real Madrid to Newcastle in 2005 for the stunning amount of £16 million. The rest is history. He signed for Manchester United on a free agent in 2009, after a series of injuries and not making a great impact at Newcastle.

Who do you rate as the worst signings of the Premier League history?

I know there are a lot of names I haven’t talked about. Juan Seba Veron, Djemba Djemba, Adrian Mutu, That french forward playing for Newcastle after winning the Euros who I can’t remember the name of. Gignyach(?), Robbie Keane, Grabbi, Albert Luque, Xisco…
There are a lot of hopeless deals in the football, but one thing is certain. When the price is rising, the flops easier to find.

Hypocritical Barcelona?

The biggest club in the world. The good guys. More than a football club. A family. Every football club should be run like Barcelona. This is what I can summarise from the conversations I have had with people who love the club. (Which you have to if you like football. It is like some kind of norm.) The club that stands for more than just the football they display on the pitch. Which is amazing. Outstanding.

Picture from Flickr by dersportmanager

If you “badmouth” Barcelona you won’t get away with it. No one wants to hear a bad word about the club. It is the side that shows you how football shall be both on and off the pitch. How the fans run the club, and how the people of Barcelona is a part of a club.

The management lead by Johan Laporta underlined what he meant by the slogan «Més que un club» (More than a club) in 2006, it tells me on Wikipedia. They then signed a unique deal with UNICEF and before this they did not have any kit-sponsors. The deal was to give away a certain amount of the turnover to the organisation.

Until this season they played with the UNICEF-logo on their shirts and changed it to the back of it after getting a massive deal with Qatar Foundation. All of a sudden it all changed. Barcelona had a kit-sponsor.

Ferran Soriano, who was vice-president of FC Barcelona, wrote a book that is called Goal. This book shows us how the management of world football is really working.

Picture from Flickr by Julien Haler

“Analyzing Manchester United made it possible for us to see that had built a complex, professional marketing structure from which they had garnered extremely high profits,” Ferran Soriano writes.

Sporting Intelligence reveals that ‘in 2002-03, Barcelona’s income was less than half of Manchester United’s. That made Barcelona only the 13th highest earning club in Europe.’

This changed radically when they changed their ways of management. Barcelona changed their ways and copied Manchester United’s business methods to be one of the most beloved clubs in the world. The Football Economy writes ‘that their global strategy did not work as well as it did at United.’

Soriano details in his book, pulled out by Sporting Intelligence that ‘Barcelona rejected a €20m-a-year shirt deal with gambling company Bwin, which went on to sponsor Real Madrid instead, because an “analysis of FC Barcelona’s desired [market] positioning” concluded that working with UNICEF instead would yield better mid- to long-term financial rewards.’

The UNICEF deal is fair to say have had an influence of how the club has become what it is today. The “risky” business of appointing such a deal makes the club either bankrupt, as they were in huge debts (and still are at this  date), or it would brand the club all around the world.

As they were the 13^th highest earning club in 2003 and now in 2011 they are the second on the list, it shows you the growth of the club in this period. They have won trophies after Soriano took over in 2003 and have won the Champions League three times since then.

I am not writing this to say that Barcelona are any worse than their opponents around the world, I’m just trying to point to the fact that they are not something special when it comes to the business around promoting a football club, and how it is run for a whole.

The youth academy that has players from a very young age, even from South America (which not many clubs are able to do), is still probably the greatest in the world. They are able to drill their kind of football in the youth players in a very young age.

But you need to have promoted your team to be able to do stuff like that, and get recognition for it. And as Soriano writes, “It is fair to think that the UNICEF / Barcelona brand synergy was one of the key factors in the spectacular growth of the fan base and the club’s earnings during 2006 to 2010.”

What is right and what is wrong? The fact that Manchester United was known as the best football club in the world, was truly just because English football was the only football that would reach the largest amount of countries on the planet earth. And when they were the best club in the league, they automatically became the biggest club in the world.

So United has done it, Real Madrid has done it, Barcelona copied it. And this is the story of modern football. To become the greatest you must take the club to the world. Because the world does not just come your way without you telling them you are around.

Is the only reason why Barcelona would sign the UNICEF deal is to promote their club? A certainty is, that there is no better promotion than helping world hunger and poverty. But are they more than a club? Or just like everyone else?

The Influence of European Football

While the big teams aiming for Champions League spots are slaughtering the Europa League it actually means something to others. What about those who care and achieve from it?

With teams like Manchester United and Manchester City both failing to reach the knockout-stages in the Champions League this year, they got “relegated” to play in the Europa League. This puts more spotlight on the Europa League, at least in England this year.

I am not going to put a lot of effort and time into explaining to you how the bigger teams wants to avoid playing in the second division of European tournaments. You have got so many examples. Aston Villa, Tottenham, United… etc.

What I find interesting is how these teams, even they want to win it or not, are affecting the European football. I watched Odense to win a draw against Fulham last night, and to be fair they were lucky. But the fact that Odense had nothing to play for shows that it meant something to them. They drew 2-2 against Fulham because of sloppy defending in the dying minutes. But who cares. They beat a top 7- side from England. That’s all that matters. That’s all that will be remembered in the future. The scoreboard showed you two goals against two. You could see how much it meant to them, and the fans coming all the way from Denmark, when they put the equaliser in the back of the net. The dream the small club Odense has is to play these kinds of matches. To play against the famous clubs from England, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc.

Picture from Flickr by Giåm

And what about the money it brings to the lesser clubs in the league. Shamrock Rovers hosting Tottenham this year. Stadium will be packed. Atmosphere will be all well and good. They know they won’t beat them, but they are hosting Tottenham in Dublin.

Birmingham is now playing in the Championship, but they qualified for the tournament through winning the League Cup in England last year. Even though people might think that this says it all about the tournament, and the quality will never be any good if teams like that are in the competition. I think that is wrong. They fully deserved their spot in the tournament with winning a trophy, beating Arsenal in the final.

Tonight this team might win a place in the last-32. Firstly they will have to beat Maribor at home, probably with a sold out- stand behind them. And then if they are lucky, Braga will win over Club Brugge in the other fixture in their group. There is a hope there. If they qualify, they might play teams like Porto, Schalke, Lazio or maybe Premier League leaders Manchester City. It is an opportunity for Birmingham to play for a full house at home, and for their fans to go on trips all across Europe to see their heroes perform on a platform that are bringing back good memories from the history. The first English club to participate in a European tournament in the 50s are now back to play on foreign grounds.

With Manchester United calling the European competition for a punishment, it is a different story in Birmingham. Chris Hughton went out and said that the profile of the club has been raised since playing in Europe.

picture from Flickr by Giåm

“Every single one of these players wants to play in Europe. There’s possibly another game on the horizon that would lift everyone. Do we want to go through? Yes. It’s been enjoyable to pit our wits against the best in Europe.” – Chris Hughton (from guardian.co.uk)

They are not playing against the best in Europe of course, but they might feel they are. And this is the charming character Europe has for teams like Odense, Shamrock Rovers and Birmingham.

5400 people went to see Birmingham play Club Brugge away in Belgium. The influence of European football is huge. And the experience the lesser teams get from it is irreplaceable. So when teams like Manchester United do not care about the cup, it brings even a bigger hope in the changing rooms of Salzburg or Steaua to actually be able to achieve something if they come up against them. Could they beat Man Utd at Old Trafford?

They could make internal history. It is not the line-up that makes history, it is the score. And history is football.