5 transfers that would've changed the history of football
While jaw-dropping goals, incredible comeback victories, the tension and the drama of title races often make up a large part of what we love about the beautiful game, the transfer window has become a source of great interest, lately.
Which so much money flowing into football through commercial deals and TV broadcasting rights, every team is within its rights to pull off a coup in terms of transfer dealings, with seemingly big names often on the move. Thus transfers have come to occupy a special part of footballing folklore, with each having an intriguing backstory of its own.
There have been numerous instances where it was reported that a player had definitely made the move to another club, with both sets of fans getting ready to celebrate and burn jerseys respectively, only for the player to take a complete U-turn and staying or signing for a completely different club altogether.
With the winter transfer window looming in little over a month, we thought we would reminisce about some transfers that could have possibly changed the history of football as we know it.
#5 Luis Suarez to Arsenal
After joining Liverpool in a £22.8 million deal from Ajax in January 2011, he won over Reds’ fans while absolutely incensing every rival one. Constantly involved in braindead moments such as racially abusing Patrice Evra or biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, he almost always made up for such mishaps by single-handedly winning numerous games and saving the Reds from sure embarrassment.
During the summer of 2013, after the infamous biting incident which saw him banned for 10 matches by the FA, he tried to engineer a move to Arsenal, citing that he was receiving too much negative media attention at Liverpool. When Arsene Wenger came to know of a £40 million release clause in Suarez’s contract, he made a cheeky bid of £40 million + £1. This obviously irked the Liverpool hierarchy, who doubled down and refused to do any sort of deal with the North London club.
Suarez stayed and went on to have one of the best individual seasons of his career, coming close to dragging Liverpool over the line in the title race. His 31 goals that season was the joint-highest in a 38 game season and saw him take numerous personal accolades home at the end of the season.
His form also saw him earn a £64.98 million move to Barcelona, where he was a key component in their treble wining side in his first ever season.
If he had made his move to Arsenal, he would have probably helped cement their first league title in nearly a decade, probably changing the entire landscape of English football, in the process, denying the Blaugrana the opportunity of signing him in the first place.