Soundoff: Which Footballers Did Your Club Let Get Away?

By: Daryl | December 28th, 2009

big fish catch Corey has a nice post on Real Madrid Offside titled The Team That Could Have Been: A Decade of Lost Prospects listing 75 players who came through the Real Madrid cantera (meaning literally “quarry” but actually “youth system”) but were somewhat rejected and went on to play elsewhere. Some quality names on that list. Names like Samuel Eto’o for example.

It’s a terrible feeling seeing a player your club rejected go on to perform well for another team, knowing your club could and should have had that talent. Obviously Corey’s post is the inspiration for this soundoff. Which footballers did your club let get away? Please let us know:

1. Who your team is,
2. Which player(s) your team let get away, and
3. Where they went on to play.

A good example might be Alan Shearer, who was rejected by Newcastle United as a schoolboy and signed with Southampton instead, and then went on to be one of the all time great English centre forwards. Newcastle eventually paid £15m for a player they could have signed for free.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be youth team players, could just be signings that then moved on and flourished elsewhere.

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football

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James

Thierry Henry
Juventus
Moved to a small club and had moderate success at Arsenal. ;)
james

i read somewhere a while back that shevchenko had a trial at west ham as a youngster, but was turned down because he wasnt quick enough or something like that.
also as a newcastle fan, its crazy the number of players we have let go who have gone on to be good elsewhere.
Andres

Free transfer at that
Andres

Real Madrid
Cambiasso
god's day off

surely it should be rennes, gourcuff, milan. at least milan got 13 million i think for him
Jonas

Roma
D'agostino/Chiellini (youth)
Udine and Juve

also, apparently Roma were close to signing Buffon from Parma before Juve did in 2001,but they chose Pellizoli...*huge facepalm*
Felix

I believe Werder Bremen had the opportunity to sign Ballack (wage demands were above Werder's youth budget), Cech and Shevchenko... they all turned out ok.
foo

Man Utd
Jaap Stam
Lazio
Richard

Marseille

Drogba

Chelsea
Joe

Tottenham
Berba, Carrick, Kanoute, etc.
Man U, Man U, Sevilla, [insert other club that Spurs sold away players to]
Ranjeet(Forza Milan)

AC Milan
Gourcuff
Bordeaux(Barca,Madrid,ManU,Inter,Chelsea...in the future?)Its going to hurt to see him at another big club.
James

Only followers of the Mexican national team or the league will recognize some of these.

1. Pumas
2. Gerardo Torrado, Braulio Luna
3. Torrado brief stint in Spain now captain of Cruz Azul, San Luis where he's developed into a complete player

Also Atlas must also be kicking themselves for giving up:
Oswaldo Sanchez to their enemies Chivas
Jose de Jesus Corona to Cruz Azul (most expensive GK in Mexican league history Mexico's #2)
Jared Borgetti (won the league with Santos)
Pavel Pardo (America's Captain)

Chivas losing Nestor Calderon to Toluca. Calderon is one of the top Mexican prospects. They said he'd never amount to anything.
Larm

1. Sounders.
2. Le Toux :(
3. Philly union
Johonna

1. Inter Milan
2. Pirlo and Cannavaro
3. AC Milan and Juventus - our two greatest rivals.

Ouch.
jots

Milan, Gourcuff, Bordoux...what a load of talent he is now
The good thing is that when Milan let a player go, they dont tend to do as well as they did there. ex. Sheva, Ronaldo, Vieri,Dhorasoo, Crespo...or maybe its because we keep them long enough to make them bad :s
richard

i'm the AS Monaco blogger and i did a post about this earlier this year.

my team could field a starting 11 of former players that might make the CL. i'm talking players that are still playing here...

henry, trez, adebayor, giuly, yaya toure, rafa marquez, etc. etc...
andersen

the funny thing is that RBNY could have a post on its own with this.
god's day off

i believe rangers turned down van nistelrooy a year or two before he went to man utd. failed a medical.

as an aberdeen fan it amuses me no end
andersen

Metrostars/RBNY
Eddie Gaven
Columbus
jamesey

LA Galaxy
let go of the following players who have punished the galaxy in some way: Robbie Findley, Brian Ching, Brian Mullan, Alejandro Moreno, Nate Jaqua, Paulo Nagamura, Marcelo Saragosa
Chris

Team - Ipswich Town
Player - Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne
Played for - Spurs, Rangers, England

We took him on trial when he was a youngster and let him go.
Thomas

PSG has a really long list. Paris produces more talent then any other city outside of Brazil, the club is notoriously bad at not picking up stars who came through the youth system early. Patrice Evra, Gabriel Obertan, and, to a certain degree, Nicolas Anelka, are prime examples.
Superlen

Roy Keane left Cobh ramblers to go too Nott Forest for more or less nothing and now we are nearly gone out of existence.
zoomtube

Atletico let go of a certain Raúl González who didn't turn out too bad...
Rob

Supporting a lower league team, in my case Bristol Rovers makes this inevitably fascinating. I can give you Nigel Martyn (Leeds and England) Ronnie Dix (Liverpool and England) Ian Hollaway (Wimbledon and National treasure) Barry Hayles (fulham) Bobby Zamora (Spurs, Fulham) Jason Roberts (Blackburn), Nathan Ellington (Wigan, West Brom), Not world beaters, but all pretty good Premier League players at least.
Samir

OMG! ARE U KIDDING ME ANDRE??!!
André

Flamengo, Ronaldo, Cruzeiro. Flamengo board members thought that it would be too expensive to pay bus tickets to Ronaldo, so they decided to let him go.
Denzil Law

1. Who your team is - Aberdeen FC
2. Which player(s) your team let get away - Denis Law, was too small and weak so Aberdeen FC didn't offer him a youth contract.
3. Where they went on to play - Huddersfield, Manchester City (2 spells there), Torino and Manchester Utd. Now regarded as a legend for Manchester Utd & Scotland.
Luke

Bayern Munich has given up the likes of Thomas Hitzlsperger (Stuttgart via Aston Villa) and Piotr Trochowski (Hamburg), but perhaps most painful recently was Zvjezdan Misimović, who left Bayern several years back and ended up conducting the Grafite-Dzeko express on the way to Wolfsburg's Bundesliga title last season.
Daryl

DM,

Clubs poaching players is a different issue. This Soundoff isn't really about clubs who've sold players for big money. In cases like Lampard and Cole going from W. Ham to Chelsea and Rooney from Everton to Man Utd the clubs weren't keen to sell.

This is more about clubs getting rid of players they shouldn't have. If Everton had sold Rooney really cheaply or just decided not to offer him a professional contract, then he'd definitely be a candidate.
Xavier

Spurs, Beckham, Man utd. becks was with spurs youth til about 15 (?)
Kanzu

Bayern Munich, Poldolski, Koln.
Samir

Milan, Paloschi, Parma.. But he'll come back, I hope.. If I was an Inter fan I will need to write a whole page on it though, Inter has lost many of that young players...
Jose61

Barca, Cesc, Arsenal, but he'll be back some day.
diana

As a Manchester United supporter, Gerard Pique for me. After he had first come through the Barcelona academy along with a certain Cesc Fabregas, I have never realised after we let Pique go back to where he began his football, we will be meeting him again during the Champions League final in May and he being part of the winning side.
DM

Well, Cheslea poached Lampard (and Joey Cole?) from West Ham, and I think ManU poached Rooney from Everton, correct?