5 of the Most Bizarre Real Madrid Signings
In recent seasons, Real Madrid's transfer-market work has been pretty good. Not every player signed can reach their full potential, and the odd one might be downright poor business, but in the main, Los Blancos have done well with their incoming deals since 2012.
It hasn't always been the case, though.
After the turn of the century and the inclination to bring in Galactico signings, huge expenditure in some areas of the team had to be balanced with boosting squad numbers with low-key, low-expectation, low-cost additions who naturally had a shorter shelf life at the Santiago Bernabeu than, say, a Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Figo or Zinedine Zidane.
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Sometimes, those balancing acts worked out well. Other times, well, let's just say even a club as big as Real Madrid isn't exempt from the mystifying thought process some clubs go through before signing certain names, especially in the anything-goes world of the January transfer window.
In reverse chronological order, then...
Hamit Altintop, 2011/12
Turkey international Hamit Altintop was a decent player in Germany, but few would put him in the elite category, even after a spell with Bayern Munich. Versatile, energetic and capable of the odd long-range scorcher, he signed for Real Madrid on a free transfer after Bayern allowed his contract to run out. It's fair to say it was never a good match or a particularly impressive capture.
The Bayern team Altintop played in was still trying to get back toward the top—one Bundesliga title in four years, a Champions League exit in the second round in Altintop's final season—not the superpower they are now. Even so, he had only played 14 times for them in the 2010/11 league campaign.
It's unclear exactly what role Altintop was supposed to play, but he ended up simply covering for whomever needed a break: full-back, midfield or wing. And even that didn't happen too often.
Altintop made five appearances in La Liga in his one and only year at the Bernabeu, not even making the bench for 15 of the last 18 league matches of the season. He was promptly offloaded to Galatasaray at the end of his first campaign, and there he has remained since.
Javi Garcia, 2008/09
Real Madrid ended the 2007/08 campaign with a midfield comprised of Fernando Gago, Mahamadou Diarra, Wesley Sneijder and Guti, with Ruben de la Red also available the following season before his enforced retirement. Rafael van der Vaart was added to that collection over the summer, giving Madrid a huge pool of talented players to pick from. And then someone decided Javi Garcia needed to be involved too.
A brawling, hulking destroyer at the base of Osasuna's midfield, he was never technically gifted enough to be suitable for the Madrid side. And even taking into account his defensive abilities, Diarra and Gago were still far better bets to protect the defence.
Unsurprisingly, Garcia was a terrible fit and looked hideously out of his depth with the requirements of Real Madrid. It's fair to say he was only added because Madrid had a buyback clause—he is a Cantera graduate—and the club was trying to boost his resale value.
He made 21 appearances in 2008/09, but there are three notable conclusions to draw from his contribution: the most time he spent on the pitch in any league victory was 37 minutes; any league game he played more than 45 minutes in, Real Madrid lost; and the move to rectify his capture was made as soon as possible, with Lassana Diarra joining in January.
Garcia left at the end of the season for Benfica and has since been at Manchester City and Zenit Saint Petersburg.
Julien Faubert, 2008/09
Yes, something certainly struck Real Madrid in 2008/09.
Lass wasn't the only winter arrival; midway through the season, Los Blancos decided to confound the football world by sealing the loan signing of Julien Faubert, a winger for West Ham United who occasionally featured at full-back.
It's fair to say while Faubert was a starter more often than not for a Hammers side that floated around the lower half of the Premier League table, he was never a player to inspire transfer rumours worth tens of millions or publicly air ambitions of joining a Champions League side. Yet there he was, suddenly in a dressing room with Raul, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Iker Casillas and Fabio Cannavaro.
No prizes for guessing what transpired over the remainder of the season.
Faubert made two sub appearances from the first six league games he was available for, then barely made the squad again and being pictured "asleep" on the bench on one of the occasions when he was named as a subtitute, something he denied in an interview with FourFourTwo.
Less than an hour of game time, and his Real Madrid career was over as suddenly as it began, with the club not taking up the permanent-deal option. Elazigspor, Girondins de Bordeaux and Kilmarnock were his latter-year clubs, and the now-33-year-old is currently without a team.
Antonio Cassano, 2005/06
As different from the Faubert situation as could be yet still ridiculous in every regard for all of Antonio Cassano's quality.
There are bizarre signings when technique is called into question, reputations transpire to be below the expected level or they eventually fail at a club. And then also when there is simply no need for the addition. That's certainly the case when Madrid brought Italian forward Antonio Cassano to the Bernabeu, halfway through 2005/06.
Even in his early 20s, as he was at the time, Cassano had already had run-ins with management at AS Roma including Fabio Capello—the manager Real Madrid had already earmarked to take over in a few months' time. Added to that, Madrid were fighting for the title (they came second) and their forwards of choice were the legendary Raul, the great Ronaldo and a high-value summer signing in Robinho—with Zinedine Zidane behind them!
It's just as well, then, that Madrid were not exactly desperate for another forward to make an impact, as the predictable soon happened: Cassano netted only one goal in La Liga, angered the hierarchy for being overweight and was fined repeatedly before finally being suspended from team duties after rowing once more with Capello.
Two goals in 19 games was his league total for the club before he moved back to Italy with Sampdoria. After stints with AC Milan, Inter Milan and Parma, he's now back to Sampdoria.
Thomas Gravesen, 2004/05
No list of Real Madrid's notable signings—at either end of the scale—is complete without Danish enforcer Thomas Gravesen.
Signed in January 2005 as midfield cover for the marginalised Albert Celades, Gravesen arrived from Everton with little reputation but lots of endeavour. To be fair to the Dane, he never hid from the huge step up in club size and quality and played his part, rampaging around midfield, making ridiculous fouls to allow Zidane, David Beckham and Figo to do the offensive work further upfield.
Eight yellow cards in just 17 league games showed Gravesen's contribution, for the most part, but even if his technique was unrefined, there's no doubt Madrid needed someone of his ilk to balance out the side—they just needed someone a bit better at the on-the-ball work to not disrupt play completely.
It wasn't a surprise when Gravesen was sidelined at the start of the following season, though he still played another 17 league games in 2005/06 before moving to Celtic, where he finished his career after a loan spell back at Goodison Park.
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