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Today’s January deadline will be more serene than when they made their bid for Lionel Messi in the frantic hours after they took power in 2008.
The manager at the time, Mark Hughes, said that when he and his team were on the golf course, bids for a signage logo were so frenzied that when the club manager pointed out to a colleague how confusing the setting was, he misinterpreted it as an instruction. to sign the Barcelona striker and an offer duly sent and rejected.
Dimitar Berbatov and Franck Ribéry were also considered before an incredulous Real Madrid president picked up the phone on the night of football’s memorable day, September 1, 2008, and was out of luck.
“It’s funny to remember. They called me after 8pm on the last night of the market and told me that someone from Man City wanted to buy Robinho,” Ramón Calderón told The Big Interview with Graham Hunter.
“I said, ‘How much?’ And they said, “€35 million,” and I said, “No, €40 million!And they said, ‘Okay!'”
“Just like that, there’s no discussion. I saw an opportunity and said, ‘But what about the five percent solidarity payment in the most sensible way?’And they said, ‘Is it okay?’ once back!
“Now I’m not a businessman anymore, but I knew I represented my club, Madrid, so I said, ‘Cash?’This time, they said, “Of course! It’s not normal, you pay in installments. “
The move came as a surprise to the entire football world, and probably Robinho himself, who shortly after the resolution made an embarrassing slip and expressed his joy at accepting the offer from Chelsea, the west London club that had won two of the last 4 Premier Leagues and everyone expected him to sign the Brazilian striker.
A reporter had to chime in: “You mean Manchester, don’t you?
“Yes, Manchester, I’m sorry,” Robinho replied.
Robinho, one of the brightest talents in world football, dubbed by some as the new Pelé, however, his big move to Real Madrid did not go as planned. Calderon claimed that the Brazilian prodigy was dissatisfied in the Spanish capital: “When he spoke about his situation, he cried and asked to leave Spain. “
When this was put to him, Robinho denied being in tears and said: “I didn’t cry. I only told him the truth, that was, if the club didn’t want me to stay there, then I didn’t want to stay at Real either.”
Such was the surprise that City managed to point out that Hughes declared on Sky Sports News his own disbelief a few hours later.
He was more serene in a comment on the club’s official website: “This is a real display of the ambitions of this club. “
When the fanfare and confusion was over, however, the signing didn’t do much for Hughes and his squad.
Although he was a superstar, Robinho was at the bottom of the list of players the control team would have selected to sign had they had a chance in the matter, and rumor of that move temporarily dissipated when it became transparent. that the 24-year-old was in no condition to fight.
The new owners were given a brutal lesson: it wasn’t worth uprooting existing local actors if they weren’t committed to the project.
“I think there was just a malaise because there were other people like Stephen Ireland, Micah Richards, Nedum Onuoha and Michael Johnson who had grown up at the club. Now they wondered if the club was still looking for them or if they would be surplus. to the needs if someone came in with a top value tag,” assistant coach Mark Bowen explained to the Blue Moon Podcast.
“So it’s important to make sure that the younger players are still involved and not disenfranchised in all of this.
“Obviously, when Robinho and Jo come in, what still happens today is that they have a tendency to come together.
“That’s okay if everyone is pulling in the same direction and we still had the mentality that whoever it was we would put up for them and embrace them if they were seen to be giving everything that was demanded.
“But what we found out was that, for all their talent, Robinho, and maybe Elano at the time, and Jo, yes, stayed together but didn’t hand over the baton. When things got tricky in some games, maybe I almost saw Robinho thinking “What am I doing here?I come from Real Madrid.
“It can cause problems on the training ground and in the locker room on days when we’re in good shape. They wanted to see that commitment and effort. “
If the moves for Robinho and others quickly fizzled out, the fire that was ignited among City fans on that crazy takeover day has only grown stronger.
After decades of gambling in the city, hopes of being able to compete with its closest and fiercest rivals for players and trophies were raised thanks to the ambition displayed without delay and surrealistically developed the day in the unmissable continuous politics in Cielo.
From the sadness of seeing a plane with Berbatov land at Manchester airport only to realise he was heading to Old Trafford, to the dizzying euphoria of the Blues breaking the British move record and buying one of the most productive players in the world from Real Madrid.
More than 1,500 enthusiasts bought a jersey with the Brazilian’s name on the back a few days after it was signed, and the owners were quick to make good on that statement.
As the general secretary of the Official Supporters’ Club, Kevin Parker, explained to M. E. N Sport in 2018, Robinho was the catalyst for a transformation within the club that temporarily made it the most productive club in England over the last decade.
“I still remember that first morning when everything happened in the office, at work, and the phone started to fail because people like you asked me if I had found out,” he said.
“I had noticed a bit more of this on the web, but when things started to happen, not only about the acquisition but also about the signing of Robinho and we were connected with Berbatov on the same day, I went down to the stadium in the afternoon and doing a lot of interviews.
“We were all positive and excited about what it could bring us in the long term, but I know it sounds crazy, but before the takeover I thought it would be great to succeed in a semi-final to play at Wembley. You would have accepted this ten years ago, because we all thought that, as fantastic as the Robinho case was, it was just an intention, but you never knew if there would be genuine money available.
“Very temporarily it has become apparent that there were intentions on the part of the owner and now we look around. It’s been an incredible ten years.
“If someone whisked the rug from under our feet today, we’d take that. I’ve never wished to go back in my life and change anything but I wish I was 20 years younger because of what’s happening in this football club. There will be a 20-year period after I pop my clogs that I will still want to be about.
“I’ll be grateful for what [Roberto] Mancini did, dragging that damn banner around Stretford End. The way we won that trophy, beating United in the semi-final and then in the final and that banner that came down, was surely fantastic. “
Mancini was an example of how quickly the owners learned. His appointment and the sacking of Hughes in 2009 may have been mangled horribly to create another extraordinary tale, but it was ultimately the right decision.
The signings of Carlos Tevez, David Silva and Yaya Toure in the first two years of ownership, coupled with the spirit instilled by the exceptional Mancini, brought down the Stretford End banner, which mocked City’s decades without winning titles, and then City’s first. The Premier League’s name comes a year later, beating United on a regular basis.
Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano have set a clear vision from which they will deviate, and their forensic plans have made the club one of the shrewdest moves in the transfer market and one of the most successful on the pitch.
Recruitment chief Begiristain has transformed City from fodder for Europe’s elites to one of the most dangerous predators with his refusal to pay more for players.
Such a hardline strategy in the transfer market has not always worked out, and there have still been expensive mistakes – Eliaquim Mangala, Wilfried Bony, or anyone signed in the 2013 window spring to mind – but they are dwarfed by the remarkable successes.
The golden age of Silva, Toure, Kompany, Agüero and Fernandinho seemed to almost replace, but signings such as Portuguese defender Ruben Dias and Rodri brought more than one could have hoped for.
The years of groundwork invested to secure Pep Guardiola have paid off impressively.