Real Madrid have an enormously successful pantheon of star signing and star forwards, often dominating Spanish and European football ever since the late 1950s. However there are no shortage of mistakes and mishaps. Poor performance is not necessarily always a reflection on the footballer alone, but Diario AS have named the ten worst forwards in the history of Los Blancos.
A flurry of options from the late 1990s tells you that it was not Real Madrid’s finest hour in terms of finding strikers, although out of the ashes emerged Raul Gonzalez.
Peter Dubovsky of Real Oviedo, Federico Magallanes of Atalanta, Manolo Canabal of Merida, Elvir Baljic of Fenerbahce and Perica Ognjenovic from Red Star were all signed within a six-year spell between 1993 and 1999, with none of them particularly successful.
Somewhat larger in profile, but also making the list is Nicolas Anelka, who was bought from Arsenal for €35m in 1999. He was sold exactly a year later to Paris Saint-Germain for €34.5m, in spite of refusing to train for 45 days.
Edwin Congo was signed from Once Caldas in Colombia, reportedly because President at the time Lorenzo Sanz was shown a video of him performing miracles. Congo joined in 1999, taking the total of the top ten signed in the 1990s to seven.
Making up the list are Antonio Cassano in 2006, and Javier Saviola in 2007, neither of whom proved successful. The only player in the last 15 years to make the list is Luka Jovic. The Serbian, now on loan at Fiorentina, who arrived for €64m from Eintracht Frankfurt.
It can either be taken as a quirk, or a sign of his good management, but curiously, Jovic is the only one of the list to have been signed by Florentino Perez. Having signed for €25m, Mariano Diaz will be grateful for his sparing, after just 12 goals in four and a half years.
Jovic was mismanaged by Zidane, whenever he got in good rythm with a scored goal or linked up nicely with teammates and built some chemistry, he was subsequently stapled to the bench for weeks. And then was thrown in sticky situations with pressure on him to score. You see, when we cruised with 3 – 4 goals scored, it would be natural to throw in a sub, let him score, and build some confidence.
But apparently, Benzemas pichichi race was more important.
The saddest part?
Zidane himself requested Jovic.