The Transfer Saga That Gives Back: Rafael van der Vaart to HSV.

By: chris | June 24th, 2009

Perhaps the most absurd transfer sagas of the last 24 months is back, but in reverse.

You may remember Rafael van der Vaart from such films as Hey, Look How Unprofessional I Am! or I Only Want To Play In Spain, So Come And Get Me Juventus. You also may remember Rafael van der Vaart for his time with Real and the Netherlands over the last 12 months, doing such things as sitting on the bench and farting while sitting on the bench.

Well after throwing a two year tirade which finally got him out of Hamburg, he might just be headed back.

Long story short: Rafael was the captain of HSV when he decided he’d like to play in Spain in front of his elderly grandparents (momma vdV is Spanish) before they passed on. That’s all fine and well, but he didn’t exactly go about it in the most professional manner. In fact, you could say he acted with the maturity of a petulant child, doing such things as posing for photos with a Valencia shirt while still wearing the captain’s band and telling of his desire to move on in the press every. single. day. But it was all fine and well because he wanted to move to Spain, hence his incessant barking for a move to Juventus. Which is most definitely in Spain.

So Rafael van der Vaart got his desired move to ~~Valencia~~ ~~Juventus~~ Real Madrid, wherehe put in a largely uninspiring season – at least one Juande came to town – and was swiftly transfer listed even before Galacticos 2.0 beta rolled into town. And now he’ll need to find a new club.

And in some karmic retribution, that new club might just be old club HSV, after things broke down with Bayern which, you may not know, is also in Spain. This rumor comes to us from L’Equipe, which means it likely has legs as they’re one of Europe’s most reputable. And in some fortunate twist of fate, guess who won’t be listening to his demands in an attempt to offload Oranje South? Real Madrid.

Throughout the Cristiano Ronaldo & Kaka hullabaloo this summer, nothing could quite reach the heights of a van der Vaart return to Hamburg. Never about his desire to move abroad – most footballers do at one point or another – but rather the incredibly disrespectful ways he went about getting his desired move. And the cynics among us would take those statements about Juventus to mean that he used his elderly grandparents as an excuse to move himself off to a big club.

For HSV and its fans, you get the feeling they might not deserve that. But for the rest of us, it’d be one sweet karmic day. At least until next spring, when he spends the tail end of the season begging for a move to Spurs in honor of a great-uncle he once bumped into at the buffet of a family gathering.