We are rapidly approaching the end of the transfer window in terms of Premier League teams being able to buy players, although they will still be able to sell players up until the end of the month, and business will go on as usual in other leagues throughout August. With that in mind, it seemed about time I did another transfer video, and it just so happened that the top comment on a recent video was this.
Footballers joining a club, especially young players, and being immediately loaned out is not uncommon. Players joining a team on a permanent contract and then departing on another permanent contract, all in the same transfer window, is an altogether far less frequent occurrence.
Frequent occurrences don’t tend to make for particularly interesting videos though – I mean, who’d watch ‘7 footballers who transferred once in a transfer window’, that would be astonishingly boring and rather tricky to whittle down to seven. It is the infrequent occurrences I tend to focus on at HITC Sevens, and the so-called people’s channel is taking on one of your suggestions yet again.
Here are 7 footballers who transferred twice in a single transfer window:
7. Marc Cucurella
Getting us started in seventh place is the most recent example in this seven. Young full-back Marc Cucurella came through the La Masia academy at Barcelona, but left the club to join Eibar on-loan last season. As part of the loan agreement, Eibar had the option to sign Cucurella on a permanent deal worth €2 million this summer, whilst Barcelona would have a buy-back clause of €4 million should they wish to bring the 21-year-old back to the Camp Nou one day.
Well, this summer, both clauses were activated. Following 33 appearances last season, Eibar signed Cucurella for €2 million. Sixteen days later, Barca activated their own clause to re-sign the player for €4 million. A €2 million profit in a little over two weeks wasn’t bad business by the La Liga side, but it was a bit of a strange set of circumstances all-round.
Just when you thought the whole saga was done with, Barcelona then let Cucurella go out on-loan to Getafe just two days after signing him, on a loan deal also with the option of becoming a permanent transfer, this time with €6 million being to fee required to take him away from Catalonia. I hope he was only renting.
6. Bebe
Bebe of Manchester United celebrates scoring during the MTN Football Invitational match between Ajax Cape Town and Manchester United at Cape Town Stadium on July 21, 2012 in Cape Town,…
A familiar face to Manchester United fans and followers of the Premier League in general, Portuguese wide man Bebe is often considered to be one of Sir Alex Ferguson’s worst signings as Manchester United manager. Abandoned by his mother and father as a child, Bebe was raised by his grandmother and the church, where he began playing football for amateur outfit Loures.
He joined third tier Estrela in 2009, where he spent a season as the club’s star man. He went unpaid as the Portuguese minnows faced financial struggles though, and Primeira Liga side Vitoria swooped in to pick up the youngster on a free transfer at the start of July 2010. Following a barnstorming pre-season, in which he scored 5 goals in 6 games, his buyout clause was increased from €3 million to €9 million.
After just five weeks with Vitotia, Manchester United activated that release clause, and there was talk of Bebe being the next Cristiano Ronaldo. He spent four years contracted to the Red Devils, scoring 2 goals in 7 games, and it would be fair to say he didn’t look particularly Ronaldo-esque. Now aged 29, Bebe left United for Benfica in 2014, but currently plays for Rayo Vallecano, who were relegated from La Liga last season.
5. Clive Allen
A blast from the past, taking us back almost four decades, former England international Clive Allen was one of the First Division’s most prominent centre-forwards during the 1980’s. His two transfers in one window came shortly after his 19th birthday, with Allen having scored 32 goals in 49 games for Queens Park Rangers.
Arsenal snapped up the teenager for £1.25 million in the summer of 1980, but before he’d had a chance to lace up a pair of boots at Highbury, they offered him in a swap deal with Crystal Palace for full-back Kenny Sansom. Palace obliged, and Allen had his third club of the summer. He was Crystal Palace’s top scorer in his only season at Selhurst Park, before returning to Queens Park Rangers.
Allen scored 40 goals in 87 games in his second stint with the Hoops, but is probably best remembered for his four seasons at White Hart Lane. He scored 60 goals in 105 First Division games for Spurs, as well as 49 goals in all competitions during the 1986-87 season, in which he was named both PFA and FWA Footballer of the Year.
4. Emmanuel Emenike
Emmanuel Emenike of West Ham United scores his team’s fourth goal during The Emirates FA Cup fifth round match between Blackburn Rovers and West Ham United at Ewood park on February 21,…
FIFA 13 legend Emmanuel Emenike, who I played at centre-back on Ultimate Team that year with his 90 pace and 94 strength, has had a pretty sporadic career overall. He has been a free agent for more than a year now, aged only 32, having last played for Las Palmas on-loan from Olympiacos.
Emenike played the best football of his career between 2011 and 2013 with Spartak Moscow, but Spartak were actually the second club he joined in the summer of 2011. Having impressed at Karabukspor in Turkey, Emenike was signed by Fenerbahce for €9 million in May 2011. However, having been charged with match fixing along with a handful of other players during 2011 Turkish match fixing scandal, Fenerbahce sold Emenike to Spartak for €10 million.
The Nigerian was later cleared of all charges, and having never played a game for Fenerbahce, he went on to score 24 goals in 51 games in Russia. In 2013, Emenike returned to Fenerbahce for €13 million, where he scored 25 goals in 93 games. The 2013 African Cup of Nations winner has been without a club for more than a year, but he has been linked with Belgian outfit Westerlo this summer.
3. Dietmar Hamann
A little-known but interesting example of a player who transferred twice during a single transfer window, Dietmar Hamann signed permanent deals with both Bolton Wanderers and Manchester City in the summer of 2006. The experienced defensive midfielder had just brought the curtain down on a seven year stay at Liverpool, and with no contract offer on the table, he was free to leave the Reds as a free agent.
He did so in June 2006, linking up with Bolton Wanderers, but a day later he had a change of heart. Manchester City came in for him, and Bolton allowed Hamann to join the Citizens and pocketed £400,000 off the back of Hamann’s 24-hour stay in Lancashire.
The former German international made 71 appearances for Man City, departing after the first season of Sheikh Mansour’s ownership. Hamann’s professional career ended in 2011 at MK Dons, and he now works predominantly as a pundit and football writer.
2. Benik Afobe
Stoke City’s Benik Afobe during the Sky Bet Championship match between Stoke City and Queens Park Rangers at Bet365 Stadium on August 3, 2019 in Stoke on Trent, England.
An example that will be fresh in a lot of people’s memories, Benik Afobe’s double-transfer window came in the summer of 2018. The Congo international looked a real danger man in League One and in the Championship with MK Dons and Wolverhampton Wanderers, before Eddie Howe offered him a crack at the Premier League with Bournemouth in January 2016.
£10 million was the fee, but after a disappointing start to the 2017-18 campaign, the Cherries made Afobe available in the January transfer window. He returned to Wolves, on-loan, but with the option to make the deal a permanent one for the same £10 million fee he had been sold for. Afobe scored 6 goals in 16 games to help his former club win promotion to the Premier League, and they took up the option to make the deal a permanent one in the summer.
They seemingly had little intention of playing him in the top flight though, and just 11 days later Wolves turned a £2 million profit on the 26-year-old who joined recently-relegated Stoke City. It looked like a smart piece of business by the Potters, but Afobe managed only 8 league goals last season, and Stoke were the most underwhelming side in the division.
0. Honourable Mentions
There were a few players who made my initial shortlist but not the seven proper, so I’ll just rattle them off quickly here. Former Arsenal trainee and current Millwall assistant manager David Livermore joined Leeds United and Hull City, both for £500,000, in the summer of 2006, with Leeds signing two midfielders within weeks of Livermore’s arrival which rendered him surplus to requirements.
Once-capped England international and former caretaker boss at Everton David Unsworth signed for both Aston Villa and Everton in the summer of 1998. Unsworth lasted just a month at Villa, as his family failed to settle, and both transfers were for £3 million. Even more of a left-field shout is uncapped Turkish midfielder Erman Kilic, who joined Galatasaray in 2013, but departed that same summer after just two appearances to join Eskisehirspor.
Argentine-born Paraguayan international Juan Iturbe, once dubbed the new Lionel Messi, was signed twice in the summer of 2014. The first move was a €15 million transfer to Hellas Verona, where Iturbe had been on-loan the previous season, but less than two months later he was on the move again, this time in a €22 million deal to Roma. Lastly, and most contentiously, there is the case of John Obi Mikel and his Manchester United vs Chelsea transfer saga. It’s still unclear how official Mikel’s move to Old Trafford really was, and with plenty of alternatives, I thought it better to leave it out of the seven proper.
Right, that’s it for the honourable mentions, here is your top spot…
1. Martin Demichelis
Dwight Yorke of Manchester United ’99 Legends and Martin Demichelis of Bayern Munich Legends during the Manchester United ’99 Legends v FC Bayern Legends match at Old Trafford on May 26,…
Naturally this seven is in no particular order, but the man I’ve saved until last is former Argentine international Martin Demichelis. An aggressive and uncompromising centre-back who had seven solid seasons at Bayern Munich, Demichelis joined Malaga in 2010. Following two good seasons with the La Liga outfit, he was snapped up by Atletico Madrid when his Malaga contract expired.
However, after just two months, and not a single appearance for the Mattress Makers, Demichelis was signed by his former Malaga boss Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City. Atletico pocketed a cool £4.2 million for just a couple of months work, whilst Demichelis spent the next three seasons at the Etihad. He won the League Cup twice and the Premier League once in Manchester, but did look like he was running through treacle at times.
Capped 51 times by Argentina, Demichelis went on to play for Espanyol and returned to Malaga after leaving Man City, but neither lasted long, and the centre-back called it a day in 2017.
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