Former Brazil international Sandro believes he made the “biggest mistake of his career” when leaving Tottenham Hotspur for Queens Park Rangers in summer 2014, speaking to Goal.
QPR’s 2014/15 Premier League squad was certainly a strange one – a mishmash of Championship specialists, including Charlie Austin and Adel Taarabt, and underperforming veterans such as Mauro Zarate and Rio Ferdinand.
Sandro, however, was supposed to be a player on the rise, an up-and-coming Premier League star who had established himself as one of the division’s most promising midfielders in north London.
And if Sandro could turn back the clock, he would have had second thoughts about leaving an exciting, up-and-coming Spurs side for one that eventually finished rock bottom of the Premier League.
Sandro was ‘feeling angry’ when he left Tottenham
“The biggest mistake of my career was leaving Tottenham,” explains Sandro, who cost QPR what looked at the time to be a bargain £6 million fee (Standard).
“I had two years left on my contract (at Tottenham). I loved everybody. In this situation, I made a bad decision because I didn’t think about the move. I just said: ‘I want to go. I want to move.’ I didn’t think about it.
“When I moved to QPR, I was feeling a little bit angry. You can’t make a decision when you’re angry with something. You have to let it go, think, and be very calm to make a big decision.”
Sandro was only 25 when his time at Tottenham came to a premature conclusion.
Who knows what he might have achieved had he stuck around to fight for his place under Mauricio Pochettino, a coach famed for his ability to coax every ounce of potential out of players at his disposal?
Sandro eventually spent three injury-hit years at Loftus Road – taking in a forgettable loan spell at West Brom – before embarking on a nomadic career that took him to Turkey, Italy and back to Brazil.
Now 32, the tough-tackling midfielder is plying his trade with Belenenses in Portugal, a spell once again littered with fitness problems.
Would it have turned out differently had Sandro stayed at Spurs? Without a time machine we’ll never know.
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