Grégory Sertic at OM a few years ago. It was so so odd.

Griezmann to barca.

Ousmane Dembele to Paris Saint Germain. PSG, good luck with the bills.

Thomas Gravesen to Real Madrid.

Cruzeiro fan here. I have 3 names

Duvier Riascos, or, as I like to call him, Fiascos. He missed a penalty for Tijuana against Atlético in 2013 that would knock them out of the Libertadores, which they eventually won, with the penalty being the peak moment. Now, Riascos wasn’t a great player, but you could see a club signing him if there weren’t many options available. But you wouldn’t expect Atlético’s greatest rivals signing a player so decisive in their continental run less than 2 years later. The only way for Riascos to be a good signing would be if he became one of Cruzeiro’s all-time greats, which he clearly wouldn’t be. And I’m only talking about the signing here. He was terrible for the club, left with only 1 goal (ironically, against Atlético), and eventually even cursed the team on a live interview.

Fast forward to 2023

After 3 years of struggle in the 2nd tier, Cruzeiro finally returned to the Brazilian First Division, but are struggling to keep their place in the elite, now occupying the first spot in the league relegation zone. The problem is simple: the team can’t score. Really, it’s been almost the full season and the team probably has more matches played than goals scored, not to mention not winning at home, but that’s a different story. The defense is solid, the team creates many opportunities every match (like 15 attempts or more) and misses 2 or 3 unbelievable goals. That’s not an exaggeration, that happens every single match.

The board (now led by Fat Ronaldo, the Brazilian legend) signed Henrique Dourado. Now, this guy has been incredibly bad for years. If I’m not mistaken, he had a good amount of goals in the 2015 League for Palmeiras, but most were penalties (he’s a world class penalty taker, I’ll give him that). Even Palmeiras’s fans didn’t like him much. Now, his numbers granted him a spot in major clubs in Brazil and eventually in China, but he failed to make a kind of name for himself at every single step. The guy can’t score if the ball isn’t on the 11-meter spot. And, as you can imagine, having had chances to play where he did, he isn’t cheap. So his signing was tragic. Everybody knew it, particularly when the team needed urgently someone with a positive record of scoring. “Hey, maybe the club will do him good”. Well… Thing is, he had already played for Cruzeiro a few years prior, and scored like 1 goal. He also didn’t do anything special that made him a character to the club or a dear figure to the fans. His peak with Cruzeiro was in like his 2nd match this year: there was a penalty and he wanted to take it so bad that he got into a heated argument with the team’s official taker, Bruno Rodrigues. They had to be kept apart by their teammates. Eventually, a destabilized Bruno missed the shot and Cruzeiro lost

But wait, there’s more! As you’ve read here, Cruzeiro consistently creates chances. Creative and skillful players aren’t the major problem and there are already many names for these roles. So what does Ronaldo do? Well, he also owns Real Valladolid. Valladolid has been kind of a yo-yo club in Spain and are trying to get a firmer grip at a La Liga place. They’re currently in the Spanish 2nd division. Some time ago, Valladolid signed Paulo Vitor, an unimpressive winger who failed to start for the club’s main squad and only played for the B team. He eventually was loaned out to Portuguese sides. In Portugal, PV amassed an impressive 1 goal in 25 matches. In his 6th year as a pro, he has enviable 5 goals for main squads plus 9 for Valladolid B. So Ronaldo didn’t think twice and brought him to Cruzeiro to continue on his glorious path and save the team from relegation.

The combo of not re-signing De Gea and then signing Onana. Everyone kept talking about how we need a goalie who can play with the ball at his feet more. Look where that has gotten us now. Not that our defense has been particularly great but De Gea kept us in games we should have lost.

Maurice Johnson’s double whammy of signing for Graeme Souness’s Rangers having been paraded at Celtic Park as a returning Celtic hero and in doing so, he became the first high-profile Roman Catholic footballer to sign for the staunchly Protestant Rangers Football Club.

May not sound much of a big deal now but at the time it was an enormous story. https://www.football365.com/news/mo-johnston-rangers-scottish-football-jfk

Mariano Diaz to Sevilla. Always imagined the guy would end up in second division after Real Madrid, but somehow he is getting minutes, even starts, for Sevilla now.

Bouna Sarr To Bayern.

Mariano To Real Madrid

Messi and Miami, Ronaldo and Saudi. Wtf are the greatest players in history thinking

Kim Kallstrom

Andre Santos

Igor Stepanovs

Not sure what the scouting system at Arsenal was thinking when they signed off on these!

Sanchez, Mount, Antony, Maguire. What the fuck are they doing? That’s about 1.5 mil a week on wages for 4 players.

Gravenberch to Bayern. Why buy a good youngster everyone wanted when you give him basically zero minutes?

All Ajax players