(great)Signing you couldn't believe your team made

[SuperBacon]

11 minutes ago, TibBo said:

I'm pretty sure everyone was Irish for those 2 weeks mate

German, Irish and Argentinian me

[TibBo]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

German, Irish and Argentinian me

Some all-time GOAT kits between those 3 at that tournament!

 

 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

Paolo Di Canio at Celtic.

(Obviously he is a mentalist and truly vile human, lets get that out of the way)

I was going to Celtic games regularly at the time and he was an absolute sensation to childhood me. 

[I Bent My Wookie]

Looking back, I wish I was a bit older or more in the know when Steve Bull randomly started playing for Hereford United post retirement from Wolves as a favour to our manager at the time Graham Turner.

Former England international rocking up at Edgar Street in the Conference was quite a big deal to the old guys in the local pubs I'd pop into with my Dad on a Sunday, even if it was only for a few games.

[Carbomb]

41 minutes ago, Ironic Indie Lad said:

Paolo Di Canio at Celtic.

(Obviously he is a mentalist and truly vile human, lets get that out of the way)

I was going to Celtic games regularly at the time and he was an absolute sensation to childhood me. 

I would have thought Henrik Larsson was the top Celtic signing.

[Frankie Crisp]

Attillio Lombardo in 1997.

Whilst he wasn’t a Baggio or a Vialli, he was still an established Italian international with a good few years left in the tank, so to sign him from Juventus when we’d just won the play-off final was a bit ‘wait, what?’.

I was 18 and apart from the glory years of 1989-1991, all I’d ever known was mediocrity and players they’d found in the back of the Sainsbury’s car park.

He scored on his debut in an away win at Everton and it was only then we realised this was actually happening and our star man was going to help us stay up with ease. We didn’t, of course, but to make things even more mental he ended up as Player/Manager for the last few months of the season. He couldn’t speak English, so who was his interpreter? Thomas Brolin, who is the other name who qualifies for this thread.

Darren Ambrose is the real answer, mind, but only in a retrospective manner because I still can’t believe what that lad did for us on the back of a free transfer. An absolute revelation and the most important player in our history.

 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

27 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I would have thought Henrik Larsson was the top Celtic signing.

Henrik is my favourite Celtic player of all time. Wonderful player and we were lucky to have someone of that quality at any point much less for 7 years.

At the time he signed though it didn't really feel like that big a deal. 

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, Ironic Indie Lad said:

At the time he signed though it didn't really feel like that big a deal. 

Yeah, he'd had a mixed time at Feyenoord, which was probably why Celtic were able to get him rather than him moving to England, Italy or Spain.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

There’s a few I could list for Everton, for better or worse

Andrei Kanchelskis signing from United was somewhat of a coup for Big Joe Royle back in 95 and he still remains one of my favourite players to this day, post shoulder injury he was untouchable in a season we just missed out on Europe on thanks to a late Bolton own goal for Arsenal. 96/97 was more of the same and I generally feel our season, and Royle’s reign, went over the cliff once we criminally sold him for just £8m to Fiorentina 

On the downside Walter Smith signing both Gazza and David Ginola for his dad’s army was one of the reasons we struggled so much in the late 90s- early 00s. The former was barely fit or in a good place to play cos of his off field demons but there was one game I will talk about forever as watching a close to prime which was against Leyton Orient in the cup when he ran the show and set up 2. Ginola on the other hand was one of Walter’s desperation deadline day signings just weeks before he got sacked, he had a sparkling debut against Arsenal but that was it and Moyes got rid not long after he took over

Samuel Eto’o was a proper wtf signing under Martinez, and for the 6 months he was at the club he did have some impact, scoring on his debut in a mad 6-3 defeat to Chelsea, getting an equaliser against Krasnodar in the Europa League and a brilliant double in a win at Burnley but he didn’t get along with Martinez

Hiring Carlo Ancelotti as Marco Silva’s replacement was a real ‘is this happening?’ moment, especially as Arsenal were linked at the same time, they famously ended up giving Mikel Arteta the job, even more so when the next summer we signed James Rodriguez who was an utter delight in seeing, just criminal that that whole season was ruined by being behind closed doors due to COVID, and that when fans were allowed by the last home game, James didn’t play so he could prepare to play for Colombia. 
 

 

[TheHighlightReel]

Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano to West Ham. Was a real bizarre moment switching on Sky Sports News in the morning and seeing them travelling to London on that little yellow ticker along the bottom. I don’t think I switched it off all day waiting for confirmation.

 

As is always the case with West Ham it all ended in tears with Pardew leaving Mascherano out of the side for Hayden Mullins and then all the money we had to pay Sheffield Utd.
 

Still, that final third of the season where Tevez really got going was glorious.

[Ironic Indie Lad]

14 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Yeah, he'd had a mixed time at Feyenoord, which was probably why Celtic were able to get him rather than him moving to England, Italy or Spain.

Strange bit of history between Celtic and Feyenoord.

They met in the European Cup Final in 1970. Wim Jansen played for Feyenoord in that game.

Fast forward a couple of Decades and Jansen comes to manage Celtic and prevents Rangers winning a 10th consecutive league title. He also signs Henrik who went on to be one of the best, most important and most beloved players we would ever have. 

Whats even stranger is that Wim Jansen looked identical to my Auntie!

[Gooner]

Sol Campbell to Arsenal. It caught me and friends  completely off guard at the time as we sat playing Championship Manager on the computer, Sky Sports News in the background and seeing Wenger & Campbell coming out bowling next to one another in suits outside to announce  the signing and having one friend next to me who is a Spurs fans and Campbell being  his favorite player just made the whole thing that extra bit more sweeter and hilarious. Taking him off them for a free, knowing what he meant to them, the shock of it with no one expecting, how fantastic a defender he was and helping us with the Premier League/FA Cup double just put the final sealing on what was a fantastic, incredible signing from us. To think that happened over 23 years ago feels crazy looking back but one of those moments, memories that I will never forget where I was the day we signed Sol Campbell.

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, TheHighlightReel said:

Still, that final third of the season where Tevez really got going was glorious.

Very much enjoyed the 3-4 at Upton Park that season Paul Stalteri is forever a cult hero at Spurs for that.

 

[RedTwoster]

I’m a huge Scottish football fan, but I don’t have a team as such (I guess I’m a dedicated neutral?) but there’s one signing that I still find hard-to-believe actually happened.

Claudio Caniggia to Dundee (2000)

The Ivano Bonnetti era at Dundee was exciting and mad, with nothing more indicative of that than Claudio fucking Caniggia joining the club. Round about the same time, a fake story did the rounds suggesting Gabriel Batistuta had signed for Aberdeen. When I first heard the Caniggia news, I thought that’s exactly what this was, it seemed so unlikely. But it happened, and it sparked a resurgence in his career that even led to Caniggia earning a recall to the Argentina squad (albeit after he moved to Rangers) - at one point there was even talk that Claudio’s pal Maradonna would line up for Dundee for a friendly match. It never happened of course, but nothing seemed impossible during the Bonetti era.

[TheHighlightReel]

7 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Very much enjoyed the 3-4 at Upton Park that season Paul Stalteri is forever a cult hero at Spurs for that.

 

Was a real whirlwind of emotions that 90 minutes. Think that was probably the game that helped us get our act together that season funnily enough.