Five Real Madrid flops who shone after leaving

Martin Macdonald

19 Feb 2022 07:03 CST
4 min read

Real Madrid are recognised as one of the biggest and most successful clubs in the world.

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While some other clubs are famed for producing players through youth academies, Real Madrid are famed for paying big money to bring the best of the best to Santiago Bernabeu.

Over the years, Los Blancos have regularly broken the world transfer record to sign the likes of Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.

There is usually a huge turnover of players at Madrid, though, which means not every arrival has proved to be a success.

Though it is harsh to call some of the players on our list flops, they are players who did not have a great impact at Real Madrid but who proved after leaving how good they were.

Walter Samuel

Strangely, either side of Walter Samuel’s one unsuccessful season at Real Madrid he could be counted among the most dominant centre-backs in the world.

With Roma and Inter he enjoyed great success, including winning the treble with the latter in 2009/10.

There is no doubt that Samuel flopped at Real Madrid and was unable to translate his defensive abilities to Spain from Italy.

It may simply just be the case that Italian football suited him a lot better, but Real Marid had to pay a lot of money to find that out.

Nicolas Anelka

Nicolas Anelka was Arsenal’s top goalscorer in the 1998/99 season and was voted PFA Player of the Year. But he was unable to replicate his form thereafter in the next campaign, with fans of the club subsequently turning on him for his perceived lack of lack of enthusiasm, which earned him the nickname ‘Le Sulk’.

In the summer of 1999 he would sign for Real Madrid for just over €35m, but it would take him five months to score his first goal for the club, with his first La Liga goal not coming until February.

A falling out with head coach Vicente del Bosque soon came, and even though he would perform well in the latter stages of the Champions League, scoring in both legs of the semi against Bayern Munich and eventually gaining a winner’s medal, he returned to Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2000.

Anelka would prove his worth at a few other clubs afterwards, most notably Chelsea.

Wesley Sneijder

After starring for Ajax, Wesley Sneijder joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2007.

It is definitely harsh to call the Dutchman a flop, as he enjoyed a good first campaign in Spain as scored nine goals in La Liga to help the club retain the title.

Injury issues hampered his second season at the club, and he was deemed surplus to requirements as Madrid went on a major spending spree.

Sneijder would sign for Inter and find the best form of his career, helping the Italian giants to a treble in 2010.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar

The winter transfer market can be a bit of a minefield and Real Madrid found this out when they signed Klaas-Jan Huntelaar from Ajax in January of 2008.

The Dutchman was enjoying a developing reputation as a talented poacher in his time at Ajax and actually performed okay at Real Madrid, scoring eight goals in 20 appearances.

Though he never really had the opportunity to impress, Real Madrid jumped at the chance to cut their losses as after just a half-season in the Spanish capital, he was moved on to Milan in August of 2009.

It is clear that Huntelaar was a talented centre-forward, though, and he proved that by becoming a goal machine at Schalke.

Arjen Robben

Like the aforementioned Sneijder, Robben was a victim of Florentino Perez's massive spending spree in the summer of 2009.

The arrival of the likes of Ronaldo and Kaka led to the flying winger being sold to Bayern.

Robben was actually a key player, and definitely not a flop, in the seasons prior to his departure, but the fact he was allowed to leave without much incident shows he wasn't highly thought of.

At Bayern, he would develop into one of the most devastating wingers of the last 25 years, terrorising defenders with his signature cut inside from the right flank.