The Joy of Six: inspired football transfers

Rob Smyth | blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport  | August 29, 2008 11:05 AM

As this summer's transfer deadline approaches, look back at six of the most successful deals ever done

1) Diego Maradona (Barcelona to Napoli, £6.9m, 1984)
To associate the inspired transfer exclusively with the bargain is as restrictive as the inclination to associate beauty exclusively with the aesthetic. Just as heart-bursting beauty can be found by watching a bag blowing in the wind, so you can still sniff value even when paying through the nose.

As such, it feels apt that Maradona is the only footballer to break his own world-record transfer fee. Sometimes the most important thing is simply to identify the bleedin' obvious - true greatness, slap down some notes on the table and say, "Let's have some of this, then". That's what Napoli did in 1984. While Milan, Inter and Juventus faffed (Maradona was in a hurry to move as he was completely skint), they did the necessary.

Maradona had nothing to his name when he joined Napoli, but the champagne flowed over the next few years: he heads a select list of players (Alan Shearer is another) whose signing almost single-handedly brought unimaginable joy to a small or underachieving club. Napoli had finished a point off relegation the previous season.

Those corkscrew curls might occasionally have looked in need of some L'Oreal lovin', and there were issues with social dandruff as well, but there is no question that Maradona was in genuine "Because I'm worth it" territory.

2) Lee Dixon and Steve Bould (Stoke to Arsenal, £350,000 and £390,000, 1988)
Arsenal's legendary 1990s back five were so similar that it felt like they had emerged from the same sporting womb, when in fact they were adopted from all over the place to partner the club's natural child, Tony Adams. Even when Bould and Dixon were bought from second-division Stoke, it was at different times: Dixon in January 1988 and Bould in June.

In those days you could find a proper player in the lower divisions: if talent is concentrated strictly in a pyramid these days, back then it was more like Marge Simpson's hair, only squashed a bit at the top. A staggering number of players not only made the leap to the top, but looked comfortable straight away. Dixon and Bould were good enough to play 63 of 76 league games in Arsenal's championship victory in their first season. Imagine a team winning the title this year with Cardiff's Kevin McNaughton and Roger Johnson in their defence. Presactly.

But George Graham had obviously seen something - possibly two right hands going in the air and appealing for offside 50 times a game - and it was a remarkable achievement to compile such a formidable defensive unit from such disparate parts. There have been more famous and exciting double signings in English football (Ardiles/Villa and Mühren/Thijssen, mainly), but none as remorselessly effective. In signing them, Graham ensured bread would be on the table not for today or tomorrow, but for an entire decade.

3) Peter Shilton (Stoke City to Nottingham Forest, £250,000, 1977)
Peter Taylor made so many wonderful signings during his time in the Midlands: Ade Akinbiyi, Trevor Benjamin, Juni ... Let's try that one again.

Peter Taylor made so many wonderful signings during his time in the Midlands: Dave Mackay, Roy McFarland, Kenny Burns, Larry Lloyd, Frank Clark. But his best might have been the one so obvious that even Brian Clough, a notoriously modest judge of a player, knew it was a good deal. The key with signing Shilton, 27 and with nearly 400 league games already under his jockstrap, was not the player but the fee: a goalkeeper-record £250,000 for somebody whose role was so disparaged at the time it was a bit like paying £50,000 for a cleaner.

But Clough and Taylor knew the importance of bricks and mortar. They knew that Shilton was this close to being perfect. Seriously, if you are under 35, you have no idea of how magnificent this man was. This was the signing that Taylor, a goalkeeper himself, had waited his whole life to make, like a kid who had saved up his pocket money for years. In his autobiography he wrote: "I had been obsessed with him since he was 19 and already a fixture in Leicester City's first team."

Serendipity also came into it. Shilton's Stoke City, who were relegated the previous season as Forest were promoted, had their first game of the season away to Mansfield. The full horror of what lay ahead hit Shilton right between the eyes, and after a dose of the I'm-a-celebrity-get-me-out-of-heres he was off to Forest. In his first season they won the league; in the next two they were champions of Europe.

4) Sol Campbell (Tottenham to Arsenal, Bosman, 2001)
This article could have dealt solely with Arsène Wenger's signings and still omitted some gems; in English football, only Peter Taylor has had a keener eye for a player in the last 50 years. Yet for all the obscenely accomplished unknowns he has unearthed, Wenger's best signing, like Taylor's, might have been somebody we all knew intimately: Sol Campbell.

The deal wasn't quite the banker that it looks in hindsight. It's important to remember that Campbell was 26 and still a little erratic. And of course it took courage to strip Tottenham of their finest, however obvious the schadenfreudian trip. Yet Wenger saw in him the monster who would totally dominate the next few years at club and international level: astonishingly, in Campbell's first three seasons at Arsenal, they only lost one away game in the league when he was on the pitch (at Everton in 2002-03).

It's difficult enough replacing one great player - Kenny Dalglish famously managed it at Liverpool - but Campbell almost single-handedly replaced a great back four. Never mind Lauren, Keown and Cole: when Campbell was on one, as he frequently was in that period, Wenger could have played Lauren Laverne, Martin Amis and Ashley from Coronation Street and still kept a clean sheet. Without him, Wenger would have not won a league title for more than a decade.

5) Mickey Evans (Plymouth to Southampton, £750,000, 1997)
There is a flawed but potent discourse in football about strikers whose mid-season signing has cost their new side the title: Rodney Marsh, Tony Cascarino and Faustino Asprilla are the principal examples. At the other end of the table, there are loads of examples of forwards whose mid-season purchase has saved their new side from relegation. Kevin Campbell's nine goals in eight games at Everton in 1998-99 stand out, as does Christophe Dugarry's holiday romance at Birmingham in 2002-03, when he even made a silk purse out of Geoff Horsfield.

In the 1996-97 season, there were instances at three different clubs, starting with John Hartson and Paul Kitson at West Ham, and Darren Huckerby at Coventry. The other was the unknown striker Mickey Evans, picked up from Plymouth by Graeme Souness in March to help Southampton in their annual relegation dogfight. He did that and more: at the start of April, with Southampton bottom and five points away from safety, he scored four goals in as many games, including two in a massive win at Nottingham Forest. Evans became the most unlikely winner of the Premier League Player of the Month award (the silver medal goes to Alex Manninger). Those were the only league goals he scored for Southampton - Souness departed in the summer, and new manager Dave Jones didn't fancy him - but his place in history was secure.

6) Dwight Yorke (Aston Villa to Manchester United, £12.6m, 1998)
We all know Eric Cantona was Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest signing, but at £1.2m it wasn't that much of a risk. Signing Cantona's eventual replacement, Dwight Yorke, was a different matter; it took stones of granite. Partly because Ferguson was loosening the purse strings for the first time in nine years, and possibly the last if he got it wrong; partly because most observers, neutral and partisan, thought Yorke, scorer of a modest 73 goals in 232 league games for Villa, was hideously overpriced; but mainly because Ferguson had absolutely no support for the purchase within his own club.

Yorke had barely scored a goal against United (just one, a penalty) but the loose-limbed mischief of his performances against them had wowed Ferguson. Yet Ferguson's assistant, Brian Kidd, wanted John Hartson - no, you don't need to adjust your screen - and thought Yorke didn't have the "remarkable range of exceptional abilities", particularly dribbling, that so interested Ferguson. Staggeringly, most of the directors took Kidd's side, to the extent that Ferguson asked the board if they wanted to "call it a day". Having called their bluff, he got his man - and in his first season Yorke delivered 29 goals, more than 20 assists, the partnership from heaven with Andy Cole, the treble and a knighthood.

War principles serve Deans well

By SPIRO ZAVOS - SMH | Tuesday, 26 August 2008

The opening minutes of Saturday's test in Durban provided clues that the Wallabies were going to break their overseas hoodoo after 14 unsuccessful Tri-Nations matches in South Africa and New Zealand.

The Springboks smashed away at the Wallabies' tryline. Each phase was met by vigorous and disciplined resistance. Then, an attacker was isolated after the Springboks had been pushed back to the 22. The nearest Wallabies, backs and forwards, poured into the ruck. The Boks lined up for the next attack, which never came, because a turnover had been forced - one of 16 against them in the test.

Coaches forget - at their peril - that rugby is primarily a war game. To paraphrase George Orwell, it is war without the bullets and the killings. The game is described in militaristic terms: attacks are launched down the flanks; halfbacks snipe; there are breakouts from a defensive position; kicks can be torpedoes or bombs.

Tackles are the equivalent of body counts. There are the set-piece confrontations of the scrums and the line-outs, rather like set-piece battles in tactical terms. Phase plays are the equivalent of skirmishes with the troops/players trying to force gaps in the enemy defence.

Rod Macqueen, the last Wallabies coach to win in South Africa before Robbie Deans's triumph on Saturday, understood that war-game tactics could be applied to devising successful game plans. He was devoted to the aphorisms of Sun-Tzu, the fourth-century BC military strategist and author of The Art of War. It is fascinating to see how Sun-Tzu's principles to win battles came into play at Durban:

"Invincibility lies in defence." Although the Wallabies conceded two tries, they were not scored until the game was lost by the Springboks. The home side was kept scoreless well into the second half.

"Opportunities multiply when they are seized." Matt Giteau converted his first penalty kick to give the Wallabies a psychologically important lead. The crowd, always a factor in South Africa, was taken out of the contest - especially when Lote Tuqiri scored his breakaway try following a kick-and-chase that started when an aimless Springboks punt was fielded by Drew Mitchell, who pressed forward with an attack.

The final Wallabies try came when Percy Montgomery, not noted for his tackling ability, was moved into five-eighth in place of the injured Francois Steyn. Stirling Mortlock thundered through the gap like an unstoppable tank.

"Know your enemy." The mentality of the Springboks is that they resort to thuggery when they are under pressure, to induce a free-for-all. In the first half, CJ van der Linde, infuriated at his team's inability to clear its rucks, dived across the piled bodies to head-butt Sam Cordingley. Late in the Test, Schalk Burger (out of frustration?) attacked George Smith in the nether regions. Smith, like Cordingley, did not retaliate, but shouted out to the referee: "He's having a go at my nuts."

"The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes few calculations before." It is clear that the embattled Springboks coach, Peter de Villiers, does not understand the complexities involved in the expansive game he is trying to impose on his team. He doesn't select a "fetcher," a loose forward such as Smith who plays on the ball at every ruck and maul. The instinct of South African players is to smash into opponents rather than create space for players outside them to stretch the defence. The expansive game, in other words, is at variance with the skills (or lack of them) and the instincts of the selected players.

The Springboks haven't lost to the Wallabies at Johannesburg since 1963. Defeat on Saturday would bring with it the likelihood of the sack for de Villiers.

"When the army is restless and distrustful, trouble is sure to come from other princes."

It's The Dash wrap-up, and our documents are real

By Pat Forde ESPN.com

BEIJING -- Forty names, games, countries and minutiae that made news at the Beijing Olympics (forged birth certificates sold separately):

Douse the flame. The Metric Dash has ridden in the last lost taxi, slept on the last concrete mattress and imbibed the last watery beer for these Games. No more noodles for a while. No more rushing to catch the 3 a.m. bus from the Main Press Center that never, ever departed at 3:01 -- that would be late.

You know it's time to go when even the supernaturally enthusiastic volunteers are losing their hospitality. Time to trade in Georgia (No. 32 in the medals standings) for Georgia (No. 1 in the AP and USA Today polls).

But the 958 medals doled out by the International Olympic Committee weren't quite enough. Time now for a few more gold, silver and bronze to be distributed by Baron Pierre de Metric Dash.

Mark Renders/Getty Images

Belgians couldn't win more than two medals in Beijing, but they still can make damn good beer.

Overachievers
Forget figuring out which countries had the most medals -- that's easy. Which countries won the most medals per competitor brought to Beijing? (Medal counts as of 8 p.m. Saturday, Beijing time.)

Gold: Zimbabwe (1). Thirteen athletes, four medals; one medal for every 3.3 athletes.

Silver: Kenya (2). Forty-six athletes, 13 medals; one medal for every 3.5 athletes.

Bronze: Armenia (3). Twenty-five athletes, six medals; one medal for every 4.2 athletes.

Underachievers

Which countries won the least medals per competitor?

Gold: South Africa (4). One medal, 142 athletes.

Silver: Egypt (5). One medal, 104 athletes.

Bronze: Belgium (6). It brought 103 athletes to Beijing but won only two medals. Time to drink even more of that excellent Belgian beer.

Biggest studs in Beijing: Male Division
Gold: Michael Phelps (7), United States. His was simply the best athletic performance The Metric Dash has ever seen. If Phelps were a country, he'd have finished 22nd in the medals standings.

Silver: Usain Bolt (8), Jamaica. Ran three finals, set three world records. You'll hear a lot of talk in the upcoming football season about speed, but you won't see anyone nearly as fleet as Bolt was in the Bird's Nest. No human has ever moved faster.

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Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images

Maarten van der Weijden is one of The Dash's heroes. The Dutch swimmer won the open-water gold, seven years after being diagnosed with leukemia.

Bronze: Maarten van der Weijden (9), Netherlands. The open-water swimmer was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001 and at one point was given a slim chance to live. He spent two years out of his sport combating the disease, at times simply hoping to survive it. Last week, he won the 10k open-water swim gold medal.

Biggest studs in Beijing: Female Division
Gold: Yukiko Ueno (10), Japan. The bionic softball pitcher threw the final 28 innings of the tournament for the Japanese over two days -- 21 of them in a single day. The final seven came in what might have been the biggest upset of the entire Olympics, a 3-1 win over the United States in the gold-medal game.

Silver: Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh (11), United States. John Wooden once won 88 straight basketball games. Sounds impressive until you compare it to this beach volleyball tandem, which leaves Beijing with a 108-match winning streak.

Bronze: Olga Kharlan (12), Ukraine. In the most exciting Olympic event nobody saw -- except The Metric Dash, who was pulled in watching on TV one afternoon in the Main Press Center -- Kharlan led a ridiculous comeback to give Ukraine the team saber gold medal over China. The Chinese led 25-15 until Kharlan started swashbuckling like Zorro on amphetamines. Kharlan single-handedly outscored the entire Chinese team the rest of the way, 21-20, and scored 21 of Ukraine's final 30 points. She entered the final match against Tan Xue down four points and ended up winning to give her team a 45-44 victory. The final touch came after the judges deliberated for a long time and declared no point just moments earlier.

Biggest duds in Beijing: Male Division
Gold: Tyson Gay (13), United States. When the summer began, a lot of people thought Gay could win both the 100- and 200-meter dashes. But since injuring himself while running in a 200 prelim at the U.S. trials, it's been all downhill. He failed to make the 100 final in Beijing, then was a co-conspirator in a dropped baton that disqualified the American 4x100 relay. Brutal.

Silver: U.S. boxing (14). Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard and other former gold medalists must be aghast. The Americans won one medal -- a bronze by heavyweight Deontay Wilder -- in their worst performance in Olympic boxing history.

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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Tyson Gay was shut out of medal contention in Beijing, failing to make the 100 final and being a co-conspirator in a dropped baton that disqualified the U.S. 4x100 relay.

Bronze: Grant Hackett (15), Australia. The swimming legend was picked by USA Today and Sports Illustrated to sweep the 400 and 1,500 freestyle events. He finished sixth in the 400 and second in the 1,500, beaten by a Tunisian in the latter. Competing in his third Olympics, the 28-year-old Hackett suddenly looked old.

Biggest duds in Beijing: Female Division
Gold: France (16). The French men won 30 medals in these Games. The women? Seven. Biggest fall from grace goes to swimmer Laure Manaudou, who failed to medal in three individual events after winning five individual medals (three gold) at the 2007 world championships.

Silver: Lyudmila Blonska (17), Ukraine. The heptathlete won the silver medal -- then had it stripped after testing positive for drugs. She'd previously tested positive at an international competition in 2003. Welcome to Banned for Lifeville, sister.

Bronze: Katie Hoff and Kate Ziegler (18), United States. The American swimmers were expected to win up to eight medals, with three or four of them gold. They won three medals -- all by Hoff, none of them gold. Ziegler didn't even make a final in either the 400 or 800 freestyle.

Best supporting actors
Gold: Jason Lezak (19), United States. What Lezak did to pull out the 400 freestyle relay will go down as one of the greatest clutch performances in Olympic history. Overhauling the former world-record holder, smack-talking Frenchman Alain Bernard, was a feat of such adrenal force that it was reminiscent of those stories you hear about women lifting cars to free their trapped children. Lezak couldn't swim back to that level in the individual 100 freestyle (he took home bronze), but nobody will forget the relay swim that kept Phelps' great eight quest alive.

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AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan

Olympic rookie Carli Lloyd played an important role in the Americans' road to gold, scoring the lone goals in a key match against Japan and in the final against Brazil.

Silver: Milorad Cavic (20), Serbia. The Californian swimming for his parents' home country was on nobody's radar coming into these Games. But he earned his niche in history, first for suggesting that Phelps needed to lose for the good of the sport, then for very nearly making it happen. Cavic lost gold in the 100 butterfly by one-hundredth of a second in a race that somehow eclipsed the aforementioned relay as the most memorable of the Olympics.

Bronze: Carli Lloyd (21), United States. The face of the women's soccer team was goalkeeper Hope Solo. She had the backstory -- her public blasting of former U.S. coach Greg Ryan and goalie Briana Scurry at last year's Women's World Cup. She had the front story -- her shutout of the powerful Brazilians cinched the gold medal. But it was Olympic rookie Lloyd who scored the only goal in a key Olympic match against Japan, and it was Lloyd who scored the goal that won it against Brazil.

American Olympians
Three Yanks who ennobled the Games by their actions:

Gold: David Neville (22). His headfirst dive to the finish line for bronze in the 400-meter track final was the living symbol of how badly someone can want a medal. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, and it completed an American sweep of the event -- a rare triumphant moment for the U.S. at the track venue.

Silver: Brendan Hansen (23). America's best breaststroker had a brutal summer -- he failed to make the Olympic team in the 200 breast and failed to win a medal in the 100, an event in which he held the world record. After finishing fourth and watching bitter rival Kosuke Kitajima of Japan win the gold and take his world record, Hansen could have quickly exited the pool and left the painful scene. Instead, he crossed two lanes to congratulate Kitajima. That's class.

Bronze: Jessica Mendoza (24). The softball left fielder was crushed when the U.S. was stunned by Japan in the gold-medal game, but she overcame it for the greater cause of Olympic softball. She quickly organized the Japanese and bronze medalist Australia to place softballs in the shape of the numbers "2016" in the infield, then had the teams pose behind them. The point: to bring back softball, which is being booted from the Olympics in part because of -- oops -- American dominance.

Biggest buffoon of the Games
Gold: Jacques Rogge (25), IOC president. The fool who runs these Games has generally feigned powerlessness in response to Chinese clampdowns on free speech and human rights -- but the peacock crowed in dismay when Usain Bolt dared enjoy himself after winning the 100-meter gold. Rogge clucked his tongue at Bolt's lavish celebration -- which, it should be noted, was not done in a demeaning way toward any of his competitors. It was, if anything, a re-enactment of Muhammad Ali's shortest poem: "Me, Whee!" For Rogge to finally find a conscience about something so harmless and trivial speaks volumes about the lack of perspective in the IOC ivory tower.

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Jeff Gross/Getty Images

IOC president Jacques Rogge? Not a fan of Usain Bolt's postrace celebrations.

Silver: Spanish basketball team (26). For some reason, the Spaniards thought it would be a great idea to pose for an advertising picture pulling their eyelids to the sides, approximating the "slant-eyed" look of Asians. They also saw nothing to apologize for, after the ad launched a small firestorm in the United States. The Chinese didn't take offense, which should perhaps be the final word on the matter -- but it still seems like a wildly insensitive stunt to The Metric Dash.

Bronze: Ara Abrahamian (27), Swedish wrestler. Abrahamian was so displeased with his bronze medal after a controversial loss in the 84-kilogram Greco-Roman event that he took it off, dropped it to the mat and walked off during the ceremony. The IOC correctly kept it. No bronze for that baby.

Biggest breakthroughs
Gold: Iceland (28). As the name suggests, this is not a Summer Olympics power. But there it was Sunday, playing in the men's team handball final, gunning for the first Summer gold medal in the nation's history. France won, but Iceland took home the silver. That should melt a few hearts up around the Arctic Circle.

Silver: American volleyball (29). Gold medals in men's and women's beach volleyball. Berths in the indoors gold-medal games, with the men winning gold and the women taking silver. The bumping, setting and spiking have never been better in the U.S. than right now.

Bronze: Asian swimming (30). China's six medals tied for third-most at the Water Cube. Japan's five tied for sixth-most. South Korea chipped in with two. The three combined for four golds. The sport is more than just the U.S., Australia and an assortment of Europeans these days.

Most overrated Chinese story lines
Gold: Smog (31). Yeah, it was sci-fi horrible the first few days. And everyone obsessed on it, because there were no competitions yet and there was nothing else to do. But then it cleared, and pretty much never came back. We had a ton of blue sky the past two weeks, and the heat was overrated, too.

Silver: Liu Xiang (32). The country's hero never cleared a single hurdle in competition here, pulling out with an injury in the prelims. Talk about a letdown.

Bronze: Project 119 (33). China's stated goal was a record 119 medals. It had a smashing Games, racking up a world-best 51 golds. But it didn't get close to 119 overall, finishing second to the United States' 110 medals with 100.

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OLIVIER MORIN/Getty Images

Wherever you are Mr. Taxi Cab Driver Who Saved My BlackBerry ... The Dash thanks you!

Most notable Chinese traits
Gold: Seriousness (34). The folks here don't exactly cut up like, say, the Aussies in Sydney in 2000. The Olympic pastime among them was taking their picture in front of the venues, and 80 percent of them weren't smiling for the camera. There was one moment of humor Saturday, when Jeff Duncan of the New Orleans Times-Picayune went to the Main Press Center help desk to get his going-away media gift: a genuine bronze medal. Jeff's playing question, "Why not a gold?" was met with a surprisingly playful response from a volunteer: "Work harder next time." That prompted The Metric Dash to chuckle and hold up a hand for a high five from the volunteer. She looked at the hand as if it were radioactive. End of high jinks.

Silver: Helpfulness (35). The Chinese service industry generally bent over backward to please. Of course, when you have volunteers on every street corner, in every hotel lobby and crawling around every venue, things tend to work well. One thing China never runs out of is manpower. One night at the patio bar of The Metric Dash's hotel, there were 17 patrons and 15 workers. Not too difficult to get a waiter's attention with a ratio like that.

Bronze: Diligence (36). One night, The Metric Dash left his BlackBerry in the back of a cab, and figured it was lost forever. Yet, 24 hours later, a note was in the hotel room inquiring about ownership of said BlackBerry. How the cabbie and the hotel managed to track down The Metric Dash remains a mystery. Regardless, it's not the kind of thing you see happening in Manhattan every lunar eclipse. (The flip side of that anecdote was the dozen cab drivers who meandered around Beijing, hopelessly lost. The Metric Dash has never seen so many cabbies with no idea where anything is.)

Best Chinese things to experience
Gold: The Great Wall (37). Nothing else like it, anywhere.

Silver: The Silk Market (38). This is full-contact shopping like nothing in the Western world. It's five stories of booths manned by astonishingly aggressive shopgirls, who literally will grab you and drag you into their micro-store in an attempt to sell you everything from shirts to jeans to shoes to luggage to, yes, silk dresses. Once you're in, expect a hard-core bartering battle conducted on a calculator -- you pressing buttons, them countering -- with prices starting at roughly 10 times what you might end up paying if you play hardball. The saleswomen alternate between flirtation and anger, depending on how the negotiations are going.

Bronze: Opening Ceremony (39). They sure seemed great, back before we heard how much was fake and how badly some of the participants were treated. But the flame-lighting remains an all-time show stopper.

Point after ...
When hungry in Beijing, The Metric Dash has one place not to recommend, on name alone: Country Ass (40). In general, there is a lot of food not to recommend there. The Metric Dash is ready for some barbecued ribs, please.

Information from ESPN The Magazine senior writer Luke Cyphers was used in this report. Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.