“I seem incapable of forgetting that Dean Richards’s 2001 transfer from Southampton to Spurs was the highest fee paid for a player as yet uncapped by England (£8.1m. Don’t bother checking. Trust me). Who’s the most expensive player (now retired) to have never been capped and which active player holds that title?” writes Thom Harris. “P.S. RIP Dean Richards.”
Dean Richards did indeed move to Spurs for £8.1m, and was the leader when we had this question in 2004. Since then football/the world has gone mad and so, 20 years later, he’s well down the list. Let’s split the answer into three: players who were uncapped at the time of their transfer, active players who are still uncapped and retired players who were never capped.
Players who were uncapped when they were bought
Loads of good ones here, many involving Chelsea. They got quite the bargain when they paid £40m for Cole Palmer last summer. The jury is still out on their purchase of French defender Wesley Fofana, who cost £75m from Leicester in 2022 and has struggled with injury. He made his France debut in 2023 but remains, we think, the most expensive player to move clubs while uncapped. Here’s the top five we could find:
1) £75m: Wesley Fofana (Leicester to Chelsea, 2022)
2) £57.2m: Aymeric Laporte (Athletic Bilbao to Manchester City, 2018)
3) £40.7m: Sébastien Haller (Eintracht Frankfurt to West Ham, 2019)
4) £40m: Cole Palmer (Manchester City to Chelsea, 2023), Rodrygo (Santos to Real Madrid, 2019), Joelinton (Hoffenheim to Newcastle, 2019), Anthony Gordon (Everton to Newcastle, 2023)
5) £36m: Anthony Martial (Monaco to Manchester United, 2015)
Current players who are still uncapped
Top of the list is a player who has just come to the Premier League: Manchester United defender Leny Yoro. All things being equal, Yoro and Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise will find their way into the France team at some stage. The other players we could find who went for at least £40m are Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Maximilian Kilman. Both remain uncapped, unless you count Kilman’s futsal career.
1) £52.2m: Leny Yoro (Lille to Manchester United, 2024)
2) £45m Aaron Wan-Bissaka (Crystal Palace to Manchester United, 2019), Michael Olise (Crystal Palace to Bayern Munich, 2024)
3) £40m: Maximilian Kilman (Wolves to West Ham, 2024)
Retired players who were never capped
This was harder to research but we’ve found a few players who match or exceed Dean Richards’s fee. It’s complicated because of historical exchange rates and player-plus-cash deals but we think the Internazionale striker Robert Acquafresca was valued at about £8.1m when he reluctantly joined Genoa in the summer of 2009. Nigel Reo-Coker was worth £400,000 more when he moved to Aston Villa a year later.
Then there’s Mikel Arteta, the ghost at the feast of tiki-taka, who joined Arsenal from Everton for £10m in 2011. And the English centre-back Alfie Mawson, who retired last year aged 29 because of injury, commanded a fee of around £15m when he left Swansea to join Fulham in 2018. He was called up by Gareth Southgate the same year but didn’t make it on to the pitch.
Sooner rather than later, he’ll be blown out of the water by Brazilian attacker Alex Teixeira. Jürgen Klopp wanted to bring Teixeira to Liverpool from Shakhtar Donetsk in January 2016; instead Liverpool were outbid by the Chinese club Jiangsu FC, who paid a mighty £38m.
Teixeira never played for Brazil. He’s 34 now, back at his boyhood club Vasco da Gama, and currently in the news after having his water supply cut off because he refused to play the “exorbitant” bill. The record is his when he wants it.
1) £15m: Alfie Mawson (Swansea to Fulham, 2018)
2) £10m: Mikel Arteta (Everton to Arsenal, 2011)
3) £8.5m: Nigel Reo-Coker (West Ham to Aston Villa, 2008)
4) £8.1m: Dean Richards (Southampton to Tottenham, 2001), Robert Acquafresca (Genoa to Inter, 2009)
One club represented by all four semi-finalists
“Has there ever been a case when all four semi-finalists at a major international tournament featured at least one player from the same club?” wonders Jordi Michaël.
This almost happened at Euro 2024: had Portugal won their penalty shootout against France, the Manchester City octet of Nathan Ake, Phil Foden, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Rúben Dias, Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo and Rodri would likely have started the semi-finals.
It really, really, really did happen in the previous men’s Euros, with these Chelsea players all starting the semi-finals.
Mason Mount (England)
Andreas Christensen (Denmark)
Jorginho and Emerson Palmieri (Italy)
César Azpilicueta (Spain)
We don’t know when it first happened; probably in the 1990s, when globalisation kicked in. One possibility is the men’s World Cup of 1998, which included these Real Madrid funsters in the last four.
Roberto Carlos (Brazil)
Clarence Seedorf (Netherlands)
Christian Karembeu (France)
Davor Suker (Croatia)
Comeback kings and queens (2)
Last week we looked at some of the best streaks – qualitative and quantitative – of comeback wins at major tournaments. And we were justly pulled up for forgetting a team who made Euro 2008 much fun.
Let’s have a quick recap. After losing their first game 2-0 to a fancied Portugal side, Turkey were 1-0 down to Switzerland in their second match. They recovered to win that game 2-1, with Arda Turan scoring in the 92nd minute. It was the start of a fortnight of memorable defiance.
In the third game they trailed the Czech Republic 2-0 after 74 minutes and their passports were being stamped. Turan pulled one back before Nihat Kahveci secured a win for the ages with goals in the 87th and 89th minutes. Kahveci’s first goal came after a rare howler from Petr Cech; his spectacular winner denied us the even rarer sight of a penalty shootout during the group stage, as both teams would have had identical records. The craziest of matches ended with the Middlesbrough forward Tuncay Sanli in goal after the Turkey goalkeeper Volkan Demirel was sent off for shoving Jan Koller. We encourage you in the strongest possible terms to relive the highlights.
Turkey’s luck ran out in the quarter-finals when, after 119 goalless minutes, Ivan Klasnic scored a devastating winner for Croatia, whose manager Slaven Bilic charged on to the pitch to join the celebrations. Wrong! Semih Senturk battered a 122nd-minute equaliser and Turkey won on penalties. It’s well worth reading Scott Murray’s account of that goal.
As Turkey celebrated wildly, an irate Bilic was spotted wagging his finger impotently in the face of the assistant referee. Penalties were still to come, but each wag of his digit betrayed the fact that Bilic knew the SS Hubris had already set sail, and he was the only poor bugger who had boarded the boat.
Senturk equalised again in the semi-final against Germany, making it 2-2 after 86 minutes. But fate had one last twist: Philipp Lahm scored a brilliant winner for Germany in the 90th.
Knowledge archive
“Has a footballer ever been arrested on the field of play?” asked Phillip Brown in 2008.
The Botafogo defender André Luis was dragged off the field by riot police during a Brazilian championship match at Nautico in June 2008. Luis, sent off for a second booking, reacted furiously to the decision, antagonising opposition fans and sparking a free-for-all among the players. Officers eventually arrested the defender, but not before pepper-spraying his brawling teammates and opponents. You can see the highlights (sic) from 38m50s of this video.
“Footballers are not bandits, and are not to be kicked and punched. This has to stop,” raged the Botafogo president Bebeto de Freitas, who was also arrested. “The player was wrong, he will be punished and suspended. What is not acceptable is for him to have pepper in his face or be prodded in the back with a truncheon.” Both Luis and De Freitas were released after questioning, although the player was subsequently handed a 12-match ban by the Court of Sports Justice.
Back in England, the Droylsden FC forward Paddi Wilson also felt the long arm of the law while he was warming up ahead of an FA Trophy tie against Ashton in 2002. Greater Manchester police arrived on the scene and was accompanied to the changing rooms for questioning, before being taken to the local nick. “Patrick Wilson was arrested on failing to appear in court in connection with outstanding road traffic offences,” confirmed a spokesman for the force. Droylsden went on to win the game 2-1.
Can you help?
“Ajax and Panathinaikos are likely to meet in the Champions League third qualifying round,” notes Richard Wilson. “This would be a replay of the 1971 European Cup final. It is the earliest in a Uefa competition that there has been a repeat of a major final?”
“With 10 games remaining in the Chinese Super League, both Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai Port are unbeaten and running away with the league. If it stays that way will this be the first time two teams from the same city have completed unbeaten seasons?” asks despondent Beijing Guoan fan Cameron McGlone.
Which player has taken part in the most penalty shoot outs (club and internationals)?
— Dan Almond (@ferrarahuman) July 16, 2024
“Chester FC’s National League North fixture away at Peterborough Sports has been swapped with the home fixture. This is because arch rivals Wrexham play at Peterborough United on the same weekend. Has this sort of scenario ever happened before, and what were the consequences when it didn’t?” asks Jack Hayward.
“Has a men’s or women’s national team ever been world champions, continental champions and Olympic champions at the same time,” asks George Jones.
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