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0:54

Hi, everybody, producer Al here. It's time

0:56

for another TSFP Presents re-release here on

0:58

the Monday podcast feed, and it's episode

1:00

two of our series, A

1:02

History of Transfers. This episode originally

1:05

released for patrons back in February

1:07

2019. In this

1:09

episode, we discuss record-breaking transfers in

1:11

La Liga history. For more of

1:14

this kind of thing and access

1:16

to our entire TSFP Presents archive,

1:18

join us over at patreon.com/TSFP. If

1:21

you sign up for an annual

1:23

membership, you get 10% off. Hello

1:29

and welcome to the second episode of TSFP

1:31

Presents, A History of Transfers. In

1:33

our first episode, we look back at some of the most

1:35

controversial moves in La Liga over the last few years. Today,

1:38

we're going to be talking about record-breakers, the

1:41

biggest transfers in Spain involving Spanish clubs, either

1:46

buying or selling, and there's a

1:49

lot for us to get through. When you say

1:51

record-breakers, I just think of... Roy Castle. Roy Castle,

1:53

and then record-breaking. I think of

1:55

the record-breaking of the Spanish football team. Roy

1:57

Castle. Roy Castle, and then record-breakers theme. So

2:00

you know a lot of our listeners... A lot of our

2:02

listeners... You want to be the best and you want to

2:04

beat the rest. A lot of our listeners know what you're

2:06

talking about. Google record breakers from the 80s on British TV.

2:08

Yes. You'll see what we mean. Yeah.

2:11

Roy Castle tap dancing. Yes. All transfers.

2:13

And we're going to talk about some of the

2:16

biggest transfers. Come back to me, city. Come

2:18

back, come back, come back. Come back from the

2:20

1980s. We're... That's a long

2:22

term project, I think. We're

2:24

here to talk about some of the biggest transfers and we're going to

2:27

start with one of

2:29

the most old school transfers and we're going to

2:31

start with a player we've never really spoken

2:34

about on the podcast. He's spoken about his

2:36

namesake many, many times but Luis

2:38

Suarez, the only Spanish player to have won the

2:40

Ballon d'Or, is something

2:43

of an enigmatic figure in terms of this podcast. We've

2:45

not really mentioned him ever. I don't know if we

2:47

have, no. I think we might

2:49

have mentioned him tongue in cheek before Barfana signed

2:51

Luis Suarez when he was in the director's box

2:53

once to wind people up saying, oh, Luis Suarez

2:55

is at the Camp Nou tonight. Okay, yeah. And

2:57

watching your fans go bonkers was quite enjoyable. But

3:00

it's certainly indicative of the fact that this is

3:02

a player who, as you say, won the Ballon

3:04

d'Or, won all the greatest Spanish players of all

3:06

time, right up there in the conversation. And yet,

3:09

we're certainly outside of Spain. I don't think anyone

3:11

knows who he is. And even

3:13

within Spain, he's not necessarily talked about as

3:15

much. You might expect of the similar players

3:17

of a similar stature in other countries. Absolutely.

3:20

And this is the thing that in a way,

3:22

the one thing that kind of keeps him in

3:24

the conversation is that fact that he's the one

3:26

Ballon d'Or winner that Spain's had. That

3:29

kind of maintains his presence. He's got a

3:31

presence on the radio here. He's

3:34

a kind of fantastically sort of grumpy

3:36

commentator. He's very insightful. He's very

3:38

incisive. But there is sort of

3:40

an element of, look at these

3:42

boys kind of fanning around that

3:44

didn't happen when I played. When

3:47

he played, of course, he was at Barcelona for

3:49

four years, I think it was. When

3:51

he played, this was the era

3:53

when Real Madrid would win the European Cup. He

3:56

came to Barcelona in part to try and kind

3:58

of challenge that. He

4:00

is a player who was I once

4:02

asked him about this Central

4:05

midfielder nicknamed the architect. It's a great nickname. It's

4:07

a great. It's a really good nickname It's a

4:09

plaque outside of town. It says he lived the

4:11

architect So curious

4:13

the architect living in his own house Anyway, that's quite

4:15

a lot and he was he was a player of

4:17

vision who could really pass you could move the ball

4:20

very well I once into it So he sort of

4:22

explained this because he would explain in I was the

4:24

organizer I was the player who would

4:26

kind of control the game I said a bit like

4:28

chavvie then which his response was I was

4:30

much better than Because

4:34

he could pass and he could pass over over a

4:36

very long distance He would he would you know, he

4:38

would do the kind of the Glenn Hodel style pass

4:40

the 40 yard pass that puts people Cleaning through he

4:43

could shoot a bit. I mean, I really a really

4:45

brilliant player really a really truly brilliant place No, he's

4:47

lost ever go for Spain was against England at Wembley

4:49

There's a silly little factoid that I discovered today, which

4:51

I didn't didn't know before he was that

4:54

he was a brilliant player and he was fundamentally brilliant

4:56

at In

4:58

today did you say he's remembered in Italy because he

5:00

was a key member of one of the great Italian

5:02

club side since Of all time the

5:05

great interview. Yeah, and obviously what happens with

5:07

him is he comes to? Comes

5:09

to Barcelona plays it by phone from 55 to

5:11

61. Obviously, this is just as round Madrid's kind

5:13

of Champions League thing is reaching. Yeah,

5:16

I think and yet that Barcelona

5:18

team Which had been better than round Madrid

5:20

before the Stefano arrived and was

5:22

was challenging round it throughout those The five

5:24

years at round one the European Cup. They

5:26

only won two leagues Barcelona won as many and Luis

5:30

Suarez was part of that two league titles

5:32

in Spain But then it was what

5:34

happened was they then signed Eleni Eleni Odedo

5:36

as coach and the idea was Eleni Odedo

5:38

was very much a Mourinho thought figure, right?

5:40

We're gonna take we're gonna take round with

5:42

you down and Eleni Odedo had Luis Suarez

5:45

He also had call bala but call bala was

5:47

slightly declining and part the confrontation at the club

5:49

was there was was this assumption? There was a

5:51

confrontation between spark and call bala they denied it

5:53

They continued to deny it but there was certainly

5:55

some tension there and where Luis

5:58

Suarez really did it was when he went into With

6:00

a linear data and one free league

6:02

titles into European cups and also ended

6:04

these definite career He moved

6:06

to into Milan in 1961 for 250 million lira, which was

6:08

the record at the time It

6:13

was the first transfer fee to over

6:15

a hundred thousand pounds. It might be worth pointing

6:17

out at this stage But a lot of these

6:19

figures Are going to

6:21

be a little odd because obviously there's the exchange

6:23

rate fluctuates so for example There are

6:25

players that sometimes in peer on English lists of

6:27

the most expensive players ever But don't appear on

6:29

Spanish lists and vice versa Yeah, I mean you

6:31

have to sort of pick a currency and use

6:33

that as your kind of bellwether at that moment.

6:35

Yeah He was

6:38

the first world record transfer involving a Spanish player

6:40

in a Spanish club going from Basel He basically

6:42

had to leave Barcelona because because they couldn't afford

6:44

him anymore So Barcelona had overspent horribly and he

6:46

had to leave basically because they couldn't afford him.

6:49

Everista who played with him at

6:51

Basel and said he's the best player he'd ever seen

6:53

and the best player he'd ever played with and this

6:55

is Everista who Had played with the fellow

6:57

and we just definitely well again, you know, those

6:59

are players who obviously we talk about and hear about All

7:02

the time. Yes, and yet Luis Suarez It's

7:05

true. It's true. Well, it was a possibly

7:07

opportunity for us to kick off with I

7:10

suppose in a way underpinning this is you

7:12

know We're talking about the the most expensive

7:14

transfers that have involved Spanish clubs And I

7:16

think there was a list of 13 in

7:18

total is it 13 transfers involving 11 different

7:20

players Who have

7:22

been the most expensive player when it's

7:25

happened I suppose underlying this is that

7:27

question I suppose which is was it

7:29

worth it? And I guess

7:31

put in very simple terms Lewis for us case

7:33

going to Intervaland without a shadow of a doubt

7:36

Hmm We should at

7:38

this juncture perhaps just quantify a little

7:40

bit about the sort of structure and

7:42

the also the decision-making of the players

7:44

That we've decided to include in

7:47

this particular group of record breakers There is

7:50

one noticeable on notable absentee as well And

7:52

that's Cristiano Ronaldo who we're not going to

7:54

talk about in this particular podcast because we're

7:56

going to save him to think talk

7:59

about transfers with the biggest impact as

8:01

well. And then obviously there are some of

8:03

these players that we are gonna mention today

8:05

who could also be in the biggest impact.

8:07

Well, I apologize, so for example, Johan Croy,

8:09

who cost six million guilders, three

8:12

million to Ajax, three million to him, but his

8:14

impact is so much more than having just been

8:16

the most expensive player in the world at the

8:18

time. By the way, at the time, when they

8:20

lifted the ban on foreign players, Real Madrid signed

8:22

Gunther Netzer, Farsun has signed Johan Croy.

8:24

To give you an example of how expensive that

8:26

was, Croy cost three times

8:29

more than Netzer, and yet Netzer

8:31

was a proper star, and this was a proper

8:33

huge sign in for Real Madrid. We

8:35

are gonna save Johan Croy as well for

8:37

the impact. Because he was quite influential. He

8:40

was quite influential. He had a pretty big

8:42

impact. He had a pretty big impact. Let's

8:44

move on and talk about another player who

8:46

was involved with Barcelona. You'll see that in

8:48

the players that we've picked, Barcelona, Real Madrid,

8:51

and Inter Milan actually feature quite heavily. Yes,

8:53

Inter Milan, too, feature very heavily. Maradona,

8:55

who was brought to Barcelona

8:57

from Boca Juniors for around

8:59

five million pounds in 1982. That

9:03

was a record, and then he was subsequently sold

9:05

to Napoli in 1984 for around seven million pounds,

9:07

which was also a record. He was the third

9:09

player to break the record twice. Ah,

9:12

and that was his buyout clause. I

9:14

think they paid his buyout clause to

9:16

take him to Napoli. He's

9:18

often sort of a little bit forgotten that

9:20

he played at Barcelona. I totally agree with

9:23

you. He's not forgotten

9:25

in the sense that people know he did,

9:27

but when you talk about great Barcelona players,

9:29

and he is possibly the greatest player of

9:31

all time, he's not in that conversation. For

9:34

example, when I wrote Fear and

9:36

Loathing, available at all good bookshops, Maradona

9:39

appears very, very fleetingly in that book, because

9:42

his role, not only in Barcelona's history, but

9:44

obviously specifically that history that I was writing,

9:46

the rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona, his role

9:48

is actually very, very minor. So much so

9:51

that at one point, because actually this was

9:53

a part of this emergence of this huge

9:55

rivalry of Athletic Bilbao, Maradona actually said publicly

9:58

that when Athletic Bilbao played... he wants Ramadu

10:00

to win. So you

10:03

could possibly- Which brings us to- Well you could possibly have written a book

10:05

on the 1984 Copa del Rey final. It

10:08

is absolutely amazing. Go and watch the video.

10:10

It's extraordinary. Which I did this morning. It's

10:12

really a blubber. I mean- And

10:15

it's a proper karate kick as well in the

10:17

middle of it somewhere. Yeah, it's a flying karate

10:19

kick to the back of someone's head. That wasn't

10:21

Maradona, although he was

10:23

involved in a headbutt and all sorts of, I mean he

10:25

sort of sparked it, didn't he? It's a math rule. There

10:27

was also the background of course that he had had his

10:29

ankle broken by famously the

10:32

butcher of the Maradona.

10:56

Yeah, I mean it's only two seasons. 82-83-83-84. And

11:00

for example, in the league, this

11:03

is a guy who's only played 20 times in

11:05

one season, 16 in the other. He had a

11:07

couple of problems, obviously fundamentally the broken ankle was one

11:09

of them. He also had hepatitis when he was in

11:11

Barcelona. And of course most fundamentally of all, although perhaps

11:13

we didn't realize it at the time, or perhaps people

11:16

didn't realize it at the time, it was in Barcelona

11:18

where for the first time he took cocaine. There

11:21

is also, he's one of few

11:24

players who have been applauded at the Bernid Beowith. Is

11:26

that story right? By the Real Madrid fans? I think

11:28

I might be wrong about this. I think it was a

11:30

Copa de la Rey game and he does this incredible run and he

11:32

goes round the goalie and he literally walks the

11:35

ball into the net and he gets a round of applause

11:37

at that stage. And I think this is one of the

11:39

things that perhaps we sometimes

11:41

forget is that while he wasn't at

11:43

Barcelona for very long, he was really quite good. I

11:45

mean he was scoring a goal every other game in

11:47

both of his seasons. He was a

11:49

player who did things that no one else did. But bad

11:53

luck, injuries, the fact that he was part

11:55

of the Barcelona team where, you

11:57

know, this is, you know, we mentioned Corey Ferreira.

12:00

the league in his first season. Barca

12:02

have not won the league again since Christ's

12:04

first season and don't in Maradona's time and

12:06

they don't win it until Maradona leaves and

12:08

is replaced by Steve Archibald of other people.

12:10

To give you an example of the power

12:12

though of Maradona, Archibald turns up at

12:14

Barcelona, goes into dressing room and

12:20

he goes to get the number eight shirt and

12:23

Schuster won't let him have it and

12:25

Schuster's an eye at the number of others. You

12:28

take number 10, it's your natural shirt and Schuster would

12:30

not touch number 10 shirt because it was Maradona's, wouldn't

12:32

touch it. And in the end,

12:35

he was kind of almost emotional about

12:37

this and there's a moment when Archibald

12:39

says to him, you appreciate

12:41

this is important to me. You

12:43

appreciate this is the number I was told I could

12:45

have when I signed for club just now. Yes, okay

12:47

Burns you can have it. Right,

12:50

you have it, I'll take Maradona's shirt on which is quite

12:52

a lot of pressure. And Archibald was brilliant as Barcelona won

12:54

the league for the first time in 13 years. Schuster

12:57

generally quite a difficult character. Apparently

13:00

Maradona when he first turned up as well,

13:02

walked into dressing room, ball of

13:04

socks on the floor rolled into a ball, literally fished out to start

13:06

doing kick ups in the dressing

13:08

room. Everyone sort of standing there going, bloody

13:10

hell. You can imagine. Alright, let's

13:12

talk about another player who moved

13:15

to Barcelona for a world record

13:17

fee. And he did have

13:19

quite an impact. He was only there for one

13:21

season. Even less time than Maradona. Even less time

13:23

than Maradona, but everybody knows that he played for

13:25

Barcelona. His sense of place at Barcelona is greater

13:28

than Maradona's. Well

13:31

I think players kind of have a defining club

13:33

that they're associated with and for Maradona it's probably

13:35

Napoli and for Ronaldo even though he's only there

13:37

for a year, it's maybe that season at Barcelona.

13:39

And what a season it was because you're right,

13:42

it was just one season, it was an incredible,

13:44

I mean it's one

13:46

of the best seasons of any player

13:48

ever in La Liga I mean on

13:50

an individual level. I mean

13:53

obviously we've seen Messi, we've seen Ronaldo scale incredible

13:55

heights in recent years, but what Ronaldo was doing

13:57

every single game in that season and the goals

13:59

that he scoring it was just extraordinary and

14:01

I don't think he ever got back to that

14:04

level I think his first season at Inter Milan

14:06

was pretty decent as well and he had a

14:08

relatively good goal scoring round he's got very good

14:10

goal scoring record for Real Madrid as well but

14:12

it was just never that raw

14:15

exciting thrilling and

14:17

deadly finishing that that we saw in that

14:19

season. I think as well you started by

14:21

using the right word impact now obviously I

14:23

can't speak for everybody but I can speak

14:25

for myself and 96-97 was

14:27

the the year I first lived in Spain

14:30

and I didn't know Ronaldo no I didn't I mean I

14:32

mean maybe maybe that's remiss of me but you know I

14:34

was I was a student I didn't know Ronaldo Ronaldo scored

14:37

54 and 58 games in Holland maybe I

14:39

should know a bit about him he had been a

14:41

world record signing so maybe I should know a bit

14:43

about him but I didn't watch Dutch football. A lot

14:45

of players scored a lot of goals in Holland. Well

14:47

and by in a way this idea of pierce feet

14:49

of Barcelona was it was the track that Romario had

14:51

suggested in the first place and this happens with it's

14:53

Robson's recommendation as well Bobby Robson and so this is

14:55

a guy that genuinely I don't know I

14:58

turn up in Spain and holy

15:02

shit it is just

15:04

mind-blowing and just that sense of I don't

15:07

even know who this kid is and he's only

15:09

20 I think he's only 20 and he's just

15:11

tearing up the league and he's genuinely better than

15:13

anything I've ever seen in terms of that like

15:16

crikey and I do still think this Messi's a better

15:18

player than them yes Messi's had better seasons than them

15:20

yes almost certainly but in terms of a season where

15:22

you go God

15:25

I've never seen anything like him that year and that's

15:27

partly about me and the interpretation of it and the

15:29

first year I live in Spain and all that stuff

15:31

that's what I was outraged I wanted to put

15:33

him in the impact pods but anyway I mean

15:36

it was just one thing I think there's a

15:38

slight difference between impact and I would say that

15:40

can you be one of the most influential transfers

15:42

if you're only there for one year you don't

15:45

win the league because bars have been win the league that year

15:47

by the way that and then you're on they don't win the

15:49

league is the clay article lesson he's away I come

15:51

if he's injured or if he's gone back to the Rio carnival I

15:54

mean that was one of the other kind of ongoing arguments I

15:56

think he's injured this station should be much later in the season

15:59

than the carnival And

16:01

they lose without him. I remember Pep Guardiola saying

16:03

to me, well we were without our monster. We

16:05

were without this creature that, I

16:07

mean that famous Jorge Balano line about when

16:09

he attacks is like the whole herd attacks.

16:11

It's like a stampede. You just can't stop

16:13

him. And of course that's embodied in that

16:16

goal at Compostela. If you haven't seen it,

16:18

let's go and type Ronaldo Compostela. They've seen

16:20

it surely. I mean it's, and the best

16:22

bit is Robson's reaction. I

16:24

haven't seen that. I can't remember that. So Ronaldo scores and Bobby Robson's

16:26

on the touch line. He puts his hands on his head and

16:28

he's like, what the bloody hell have I just seen? And

16:30

there's the famous ass front page the next

16:32

day, which is Pele's back, Pele returns. Yeah,

16:34

and I remember another front page I remember,

16:36

and maybe this is kind of, things

16:39

have changed. I don't think it would happen now that a Barcelona player

16:41

would get a marker or ass front page in quite the same way.

16:43

But I remember front page with a picture of him, and

16:46

it was just a picture of him, and nothing else.

16:48

No words on the front page at all. And then

16:50

just in tiny brackets at the bottom, it just said,

16:52

Simpa Lábales. And there's no words to

16:54

describe this guy, because he was just amazing. So how

16:56

on earth did they manage to lose him after just

16:58

a year now? Because they cocked up very, very,

17:01

very badly. First of all, they set

17:03

a buyout clause, which was reachable. A

17:05

lot of money. 4 billion pesetas. Yeah,

17:08

$27 million. I don't know what that would have

17:10

been in pounds at the time. He'd

17:12

had contract negotiations with the club. He'd said

17:14

he wanted to stay. The club had said

17:16

it's basically gonna happen. His

17:19

agents would kind of keep going backwards

17:21

and forwards. It seems a little, frankly,

17:23

it seems like one of those where

17:25

it's in agents' hands, and agents make a lot of money out of

17:27

it. It's just such a pity. Because

17:30

you looked at him that year and you think, well, I'll

17:32

give him a continuity. He could be, what, something else? I

17:34

mean, he still was. Oh, he still was, absolutely. He wasn't.

17:37

And I feel very guilty about this. And

17:40

I'm gonna hold up my hands and say I feel

17:42

horrible about something I said once. There

17:45

was a TV documentary. One

17:47

of the characters on it was Ronaldo, and they asked me to

17:49

be a talking head. And we were talking

17:51

about Ronaldo and his impact and stuff. And of course, we

17:53

talked about the fact that by the end of his career,

17:57

you're out of shape, you're in bad condition. train

18:00

hard, you're not committed to this and so on.

18:03

And in fact, in that documentary, I can't remember who it

18:05

is, but one of his Brazilian teammates says exactly that, which

18:07

kind of makes me slightly better. But there's a line where

18:09

I say something like, you watched him and he was so

18:11

good, and you sort of think, God, imagine if you'd tried.

18:15

And I felt really guilty after, I said, well, of

18:17

course you bloody tried, he came back from terrible knee

18:19

injury, he did try. But of course

18:21

he wasn't kind of this committed athlete, and I suppose if

18:23

he had been, he might have been off the scale, or

18:25

maybe he wouldn't have been happy. Maybe he had

18:27

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Rules and restrictions may apply Moving

20:22

on, we can talk about, shall we move to

20:24

Real Madrid now and discuss Zinedine Zidane's transfer? Yeah,

20:26

because we're skipping the likes of Van Ilsen and

20:28

Figo, because they were also world records, but we've

20:30

talked about them. We've talked about them quite a

20:32

lot. Zidane joining

20:35

from Juventus for a

20:38

world record fee of 77.5 million euros in 2001. 150

20:42

billion lira, apparently. And

20:44

that wasn't just a world record fee, because we

20:46

talked about Figo before, this is the season after

20:48

Figo, it almost doubles what Figo cost. It's

20:50

a massive world record, it's a complete,

20:53

you know, it completely blows the market apart. And

20:57

that's how difficult it was to get him

20:59

out of Juventus. Getting him out was easy,

21:01

convincing Juventus was difficult. The way he was

21:03

convinced was, this was at Monte Carlo, before

21:06

the European Super Cup, I think there's a sort of a

21:08

banquet. Florentino writes on a napkin, do you want to play

21:11

for Real Madrid? It gets passed around the table to Zidane,

21:13

Zidane opens it. For some reason this is written in English,

21:15

for some reason his response is in English. He writes yes

21:17

and it gets passed back. And the

21:19

rest is history. Yeah, I mean, it's quite a lot of history, but the rest

21:21

is history, yeah. I

21:23

was actually, wanted to

21:25

put this in the impact pod as well, because I

21:28

feel that the impact that you

21:30

have as Zidane signing isn't so

21:32

much as a player, but the legacy that he

21:34

leaves for the next 15 years, isn't it? Because he's there, he's in

21:36

the backroom. Yeah, you can take it all the way through. You can

21:39

take it all the way through here, yeah. And that comes from this

21:41

signing, doesn't it? Because if he hadn't joined

21:43

Real Madrid, he wouldn't have been linked with them for 15

21:45

years, he wouldn't have been Carlo Ancelotti's assistant in 2014, and

21:47

then he wouldn't have won three successive Champions League titles as

21:49

manager as well. You make a good case, Kinshara. No, no,

21:51

it's a very good case. The curious

21:54

thing is, I'm going to go back and put

21:56

my tin hat on here, alright, as a player,

21:58

his influence on the club is enormous. wasn't that great.

22:01

Which is a stupid thing to say so let me try

22:03

and explain. The

22:06

most elegant player I've seen, the most

22:08

enjoyable player to watch for two or

22:10

three seasons. Ask his teammates who

22:13

was the best player on that team and apart from Ronaldo who

22:15

will say Ronaldo and grin at you and giggle and then Zidane

22:17

will say yeah he's right it was Ronaldo. And

22:19

even Zidane even saying actually he didn't have to train he

22:21

was just too good the rest of us had to work

22:24

at this. Ask the teammates who's

22:26

the best player, Zizou by Miles. There was

22:28

a dignity and elegance in the way that

22:30

he played everybody loved him wins

22:32

the European Cup of course that extraordinary goal in

22:34

his first season wins the league in his second

22:37

but he goes without winning anything else

22:39

after that and he has admitted to

22:42

me I don't know if he's admitted it anywhere else that

22:44

one of the reasons why he goes when he went and

22:46

people thought he'd gone a bit early and of course he

22:49

went out in 2006 then went to the World Cup final in 2006. One of

22:51

the reasons he

22:53

went was because he felt responsible for the fact

22:55

that Madrid had just gone through the worst drought

22:57

in their entire history and

23:00

so Zidane was a failure the last

23:02

three years he thinks that. And I know he had that

23:04

renaissance at the World Cup but you remember watching him in

23:06

those last couple of seasons 2005-2006 and he was a little

23:08

bit sort of heavier so he wasn't

23:12

quite he still had the touch and everything but he

23:14

wasn't the same player that he had before. Absolutely and

23:16

I think that's absolutely true and obviously when you know

23:18

when when they played Spain in the 2006 World Cup

23:20

there was that headline that said we're gonna retire you

23:22

today and I was going to an on-front out and

23:24

that's the end of your career and he didn't like

23:26

that at all and then after the World Cup when

23:28

he'd been so brilliant a lot of people said don't

23:30

retire, don't retire, come back this proves that you're

23:32

still great but in a way it doesn't because

23:35

that was Zidane focusing on the

23:37

last moment everything poured into that and for that

23:39

last season apart from the final day where his

23:41

last game against Villarreal and he bowed out in

23:43

a classic Zidane way very very understated very

23:45

calm very you know and it was genuinely sad

23:48

seeing him go but actually he'd missed something like

23:50

three of the last four months of the season

23:52

and it was a very clear sense that

23:55

that three months he knew was the build-up towards

23:57

the World Cup and the World Cup was the

23:59

goodbye. The World Cup was quite literally, well not quite

24:01

literally, that's very bad use of literally,

24:03

was to be like that's the Swan song, you know,

24:05

this is my last performance and then I'm going, this

24:08

is my last, my last, not my last song and

24:10

then I'm going. So convinced was he that he had

24:12

to leave, that he actually gave up a year of

24:14

contract to me at Real Madrid, he renounced them. He

24:16

said so much about him as well. The

24:18

money wasn't important, he was just like, right, I'm

24:21

off. As he sort of left on a high

24:23

as well after winning three Champions Leagues in a

24:25

row as well, he just thought, right, he knows

24:27

when to go. He knows many things and

24:29

when to go is one of them. So

24:31

there we go. Another Real Madrid

24:34

record breaker, there's a few on the

24:36

list, Kakar. Yeah, for only about a

24:38

week though. Because didn't Ronaldo come like three or

24:40

four days later, maybe even less in a week

24:42

then? Yeah. It was

24:44

certainly the same summer, the same winter and yeah, we were

24:46

debating this, Kakar is only a world record transfer if you

24:48

do it in pound sterling apparently. Not in

24:51

euros. Yeah. Not in euros.

24:54

Because of the exchange rate. Because of the exchange

24:56

rate, yes. So Zidane cost 77.5 million and at

24:58

the time apparently Kakar cost 65 million euros.

25:01

So he's not a world record but

25:03

in pounds because of

25:05

the fluctuating pounds. And because

25:07

actually Zidane wasn't measured

25:09

in euros, he was measured in, so if you do it

25:12

against the liri, exactly anyway. Yeah, we get that. This is

25:14

where we get silly but anyway. I mean, there's also a

25:16

debate about whether we should include Kakar in this port or

25:18

we are going to do a port on sort of transfers

25:20

gone wrong. Yes. And flops.

25:22

Is that unfair because I like to say that he... I

25:24

think it is. No, it's not. I think

25:27

he failed but I don't mean he flopped if you

25:29

see what I mean. To find where's

25:31

the line? 23 goals in 85

25:33

games is really not that bad. Sorry, 29 goals in

25:35

total. 32 assists is

25:38

not that bad. He had

25:40

groin injuries, he had knee injuries, he

25:42

had hip injuries, he had

25:44

a manager in Marina who... All

25:47

of those aren't reasons that he wasn't... No, no, no,

25:49

no. Being injury prone. They're

25:51

excuses I suppose rather than reasons or explanations rather

25:53

than knee reasons. I don't think he was in

25:55

terrible pain by any means. I don't think he was

25:57

anything... I don't think he was ever... I think he was in terrible pain by any means.

26:00

that really you should look at him on. Because

26:02

he'd won the Ballon d'Or for Milan, that once

26:04

he's moved to... And for Milan, he was so

26:06

beautiful and graceful for Milan that maybe, I don't

26:08

know, certainly he didn't meet expectations

26:10

when he came here. No, he absolutely didn't. And

26:12

you know what, you know the reason why

26:15

Florentin and Pérez signed him? Right. Because

26:17

Ramon Calderon didn't. Uh-huh. It really is

26:19

that simple. Calderon, I remember Calderon once

26:21

saying, my tombstone will say,

26:23

here lies the man who didn't sign Caca. Because of

26:25

course he comes to the presidency saying he's going to

26:27

buy, sign Caca, Robin and Cesc. He

26:29

only got Robin and Cesc. He'd

26:32

been tracing Caca, couldn't do it, couldn't do it, couldn't do

26:34

it. And when Florentino came back, who inherited

26:36

Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo, and actually tried to get

26:38

out of it, turned out it

26:40

was very good that he couldn't, but I think part

26:42

of this was his way of saying, I'm

26:45

going to show what a, you know, what a muppet

26:47

this guy was by signing Caca. I don't think it

26:49

was ever the right signing. And you're right, he failed.

26:51

I wouldn't call him a flop. I think flops perhaps

26:54

have had hearts, but he's saying failed. So flops, harsh,

26:56

but failure is... Yeah, I know. I

26:58

admit there's no real logic to what I'm saying, isn't there? No.

27:01

I mean, there are definitely worse transfers. Nothing new. We'll

27:03

get to some of them. I think there's more

27:06

amusingly bad transfers, which is why we put it

27:08

here. There's lots of amusingly bad transfers, but that's

27:10

why we've kept Caca, sort of a brief mention

27:12

here on this record-breaking front. There's a lovely line

27:15

from Caca in a very recent interview actually, he

27:17

said, I had two problems. One was my injuries,

27:19

the other was Mourinho. But then he

27:21

goes on to say, I didn't have any problem with Mourinho. It

27:24

was all very, very polite.

27:26

The relationship was good. I had a

27:28

fundamental problem, which was that I thought I

27:30

had to play. He thought I didn't.

27:32

Yes. There you go. That was

27:34

a crux of the problem, wasn't it? For poor old

27:36

Caca. Gareth Bale. Record

27:39

breaker as well for Real Madrid, joining Los

27:41

Blancos from Spurs for 100 million euros. Although

27:43

they sort of tried to say that

27:46

it wasn't a record at the time, maybe

27:48

to keep Cristiano happy. Absolutely. They claimed that

27:51

the fee, Ronaldo was 96, they

27:53

claimed it was 94. They were trying

27:55

to balance that. It

27:57

turned out that Spurs were telling Spurs. The

28:00

first were telling us that it was 103. I

28:02

think when football leaks came out, I

28:05

think they had it down as 107.8 or something like that. Sorry,

28:08

101.8. But anyway, it was over 100. First

28:11

player to ever go over 100. And it was the first player to

28:13

go over 100 million. I mean,

28:16

he's still here, he's still scoring goals. He's

28:18

still trying to win European Cup. 99 goals

28:20

he's scored for Real Madrid. Yes.

28:22

It's quite a lot. It's almost as many as millions of pounds

28:24

that they paid for him. He scored it.

28:27

That's what I'm looking at. Every million

28:29

pounds. Yes. Yeah, every

28:31

million pounds. There's the goal. Yes. Which

28:34

maybe puts it into context. But

28:36

it was a curious one, wasn't it? Well, absolutely.

28:38

But the actual story of his transfer is

28:40

quite the saga of his transfer. Because I

28:42

remember there was quite a lot of British

28:45

press out here for, ended

28:47

up being for about a couple of weeks because

28:49

they were expecting it to be announced day after

28:51

day edit. Didn't get announced. He was down in

28:53

some luxury resort in Madavea, wasn't he, for a

28:56

while. He's in Spain, a step closer to the

28:58

burn about. It's like, well, quite literally a step

29:00

closer to the burn about. But it doesn't mean

29:02

it's actually done yet. I mean, basically they were

29:04

fighting with Levi. They were always

29:06

confident that they would get Levi to

29:08

agree. And I think this is,

29:10

you come to the ego thing. So the

29:12

ego thing of pretending his fee

29:15

was less than Ronaldo. But the ego thing from Levi's point

29:17

of view, which is this has to go over 100. Do

29:20

you, I mean, was that a big thing? Was that a

29:22

big thing in the negotiations? I genuinely think it was. Really?

29:25

Wow. I don't know

29:27

why I'm surprised, but yeah. No. Given

29:30

all parties in the final. I mean, in a way, you

29:32

know, Spurs got a great deal. I suppose on one level,

29:34

except that, you know, they've not had a player as good

29:36

at, well, Harry Kane is perhaps there now. As good as

29:38

him since. The thing that we all forget

29:40

in all this is they sold Modric for 30 million. That was a

29:42

much worse sale. Which might

29:44

be in the bargain. Yeah, I love

29:46

it. Yeah. But there we

29:49

go. So Gareth Bale joining. Finally. Four Champions League,

29:51

by the way. Four Champions League. And yet people

29:53

still think it's a failure. Yes. Which

29:55

he sort of is. Any sort of isn't. Any sort of

29:58

isn't. No, he's not a failure. He's not a failure. No,

30:00

okay, but he's a... He's

30:02

not a failure. He came and in his first season

30:05

he won the first champion. Absolutely not, but there is

30:07

still this thing, isn't there, in Spain? In

30:09

Spain, maybe. In Spain, maybe. Yes. And

30:12

they're wrong. And they're wrong. Again, it's about

30:14

expectations. And it's also about the fact that he

30:16

doesn't speak Spanish. Yeah. Yeah. Because I

30:18

think not speaking Spanish was an enormous

30:20

impediment to him scoring possibly the greatest

30:22

European Cup final goal ever. Yes. I

30:25

mean, if he'd spoken Spanish... God knows. You know, he

30:27

wouldn't have been... God knows what he could have done.

30:30

Will end with the biggest transfer

30:33

of all time, which is obviously

30:35

Neymar being sold to Paris Saint-Germain.

30:37

Sequeira, the famous phrase from

30:40

Piquet, the tweet suggesting that. He was

30:42

staying, he wasn't, he was off. He

30:45

might be back. Can I just say something about

30:47

Piquet? Yep. I like

30:49

Piquet. Okay. And I like the fact

30:51

that he says things and I like the fact that he's

30:53

intelligent and he's articulate. But

30:56

he also quite

30:58

often plays this game of having a go at the media. And

31:00

by the way, most of the time, absolutely justified.

31:04

But if the one time you break a

31:06

news story from inside the camp, it's not

31:08

true. Yes. Cherry, mate, media,

31:11

maybe not. Well, obviously it

31:13

came out that he was just trying to influence

31:16

him, wasn't he? It wasn't really a birthday game. Actually claimed.

31:18

Yes. I reckon he thought so. Really? I reckon he thought

31:20

so. Yeah. I reckon Neymar sold him,

31:22

yeah, I'll stay. Yeah, yeah, all right, Jerry. I'll stay.

31:25

I'll stay. And then he was off. And then at

31:27

that point, Jerry undid the handcuffs, the Neymar ran to

31:29

Paris- Look

31:52

how rubbish Irish man is. There's

31:56

loads of emojis, there's crying emojis. Yeah,

32:00

and also his dad's been on the phone apparently,

32:02

non-stop to Barcelona, trying to get him to come

32:04

back. They're like a block cooler. Piedema,

32:08

no. How

32:11

about? This was

32:13

a really, really massive transfer though, for

32:15

so many reasons, and we

32:17

expected it to have an adverse

32:19

effect on Barcelona. I think at the start

32:22

of last season everybody was expecting this to

32:24

usher in perhaps an era

32:26

of Real Madrid dominance, domestically, and Barcelona

32:28

go and win the double. Particularly

32:30

because of course Real Madrid won 5-1 in

32:32

that Super Cup, and J.R.R.P.K. admitted,

32:34

for the first time in nine years I feel inferior

32:37

to them, by the end of the season they've got

32:39

a double. Yes, but I think that inferiority was inextricably

32:41

linked to Neymar going, wasn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. And the

32:43

sense of decline. The sense not only that they've lost

32:45

their best player, but that they had not been able

32:47

to do anything about it, that they've been totally lacking

32:51

in control. You know, you get a board director,

32:53

a direct member of the board coming out and

32:55

saying, 200% sure he's going, he's not going. Yeah.

32:58

200%, that's a pretty high percentage. Yeah, you

33:00

can't get over 100%. No, you've doubled it.

33:02

Yeah, well done. Yeah, he's gone. He's

33:05

a dickhead. I mean, that's it, a nice shot, isn't

33:07

it? Yeah, but also just

33:09

don't believe anything anyone says anymore, that's it. I mean

33:11

also bear in mind in all of this, the other

33:13

thing about Neymar, is his price

33:15

or alleged price when he first came to

33:17

Barcelona, and the damage that did, I mean that

33:20

basically... That was the end

33:22

for Sandra Orsay. on

33:25

his in how much he'd cost. Yeah, very

33:27

honest. But in a way they were honest,

33:29

in that the bits that were actually transferred

33:31

fee, which was 17 million plus 40 for

33:33

the dad, that was true. It's just they

33:35

didn't include all the many, many, many, many

33:37

add-ons that were there. Yeah, probably

33:39

should have. Yeah, probably should have. Sandra.

33:42

Right, we're going to leave it there. There is lots more

33:44

for us to talk about in this series. We've got the

33:47

bargains, we've got the... Lots

33:50

of people said the most influential... Exactly

33:53

the influence, the players who have really

33:55

changed their clubs and made it. And

33:57

some funny stories along the way. anything

34:00

today, it might well be if you're

34:03

going to set a buyout course, set

34:05

it very very very high. Yes, we'll leave

34:07

it on that very educational point. Yes, if

34:09

you are ever going to set a buyout

34:12

course, see a listener, make it really high.

34:14

We'll see you next time. Cheerio. Cheerio.