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The history of football is replete with player transfers, ranging from surprising to downright bizarre.
Players usually change football clubs for a plethora of reasons like incompatibility with a team's style of play, falling out with the manager, reduced game-time, low wages and better chances of winning trophies elsewhere, to name a few.
Five worst transfers in football history
While astute signings can be beneficial for football clubs both on the field and off it, certain player transfers simply do not make sense from a footballing or financial perspective.
On that note, let us have a look at five of the most perplexing transfers in football history.
#5 Jonathan Woodgate to Real Madrid (2004)
To say that Jonathan Woodgate had a nightmare stint at Real Madrid would be an understatement.
Woodgate wasn't a bad player by any stretch of the imagination. He made his name at Leeds United as a no-nonsense centre-back and also enjoyed success at Manchester United and Newcastle United to catch the attention of Spanish football giants Real Madrid.
Despite Woodgate's penchant to get injured, Real Madrid deemed the player good enough to join their ranks in the summer of 2004. Woodgate was actually injured when he arrived in the Spanish capital and did not make his full debut for the football club till exactly a year later.
When he did, it was a memorable one, but for all the wrong reasons. Woodgate scored a brilliant diving header in his first game against Athletic Bilbao, but it was past his own goalkeeper Iker Casillas.
Woodgate almost made amends by narrowly failing to connect with a David Beckham cross at the other end, but his enthusiasm to win over the sceptical Madrid faithful got the better of him.
Already on a yellow card for a foul on Carlos Gerpegui, Woodgate needlessly felled Joseba Etxeberria to receive his marching orders on the night. Nevertheless, Real Madrid won the game despite Woodgate's errors.
In his next game, Woodgate scored at the right end, but injuries severely restricted his appearances to just 14 all season before the centre-back left the Spanish football club to return to England.
#4 Sol Campbell to Notts County (2009)
Sol Campbell had a fairly successful playing career, winning two Premier League titles and scoring in the Champions League final for Arsenal.
However, the player decided to wind down his career down a route less traversed. The then 30-something Campbell apparently rejected a bevy of Premier League clubs and opted for a move that simply beggared belief.
At the end of the 2008-09 season, Campbell, who had mostly played in the Premier League, signed up with fourth division Notts County on a lucrative £40,000 a week wage - more than any League Two player earned in a year.
That was because Notts County were recently taken over by a wealthy consortium and had the financial muscle to land the likes of David Beckham and Roberto Carlos.
Even though the player claimed that the move was not for financial reasons, the club's jersey and merchandise sales skyrocketed because of the arrival of Campbell. However, the football player would take at least a month to make his much-awaited debut.
And when he did that, it turned out to be a brutal reality check. Campbell appeared woefully short of fitness and didn't play another game for the fourth division football club.
A month later, the player left the club by mutual consent.
#3 Alexis Sanchez to Manchester United (2018)
After a successful spell at Arsenal, Alexis Sanchez arrived at Manchester United in January 2018 with much fanfare.
However, the Chilean striker had a torrid time at the club. He apparently left behind his scoring boots in London and looked like a pale shadow of the player who lit up the Emirates Stadium with his energetic displays.
Sanchez conjured a meagre five goals and nine assists in 45 games in all competitions as he struggled to adjust to his new surroundings. The player's gargantuan wages did not endear himself to the Old Trafford faithful as it was perceived that Sanchez was not giving his all on the pitch despite earning the big bucks.
The strained relationship between the football club and the beleaguered player ended after the 2018-19 campaign, with Sanchez joining Inter Milan on loan for the season before the move became permanent this summer.
Nevertheless, for Sanchez, from being Arsenal's Player of the Year to being an outcast at Old Trafford in the space of 18 months was quite the fall.
#2 Samuel Eto'o to Anzhi Makhachkala (2011)
Samuel Eto'o had the world at his feet when he played alongside the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez under the tutelage of a certain Pep Guardiola at an all-conquering FC Barcelona.
The Cameroon striker easily enjoyed the most prolific spell of his career at Camp Nou, scoring a plethora of goals and winning titles galore - which included the continental treble in 2009.
Eto'o then moved to Italy where he won another treble, this time with Inter Milan, in the process becoming the only player to do so in consecutive seasons for two different clubs.
However, in the summer of 2011, the former Barcelona man inexplicably decided to leave Italian shores and landed at the little-known Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala, which made him the world's best-paid player. The Cameroonian earned a reported €10 million per year at Anzhi.
He scored 36 goals in 73 appearances for the ambitious Dagestan-based club but did not stay there for too long as a drastic cut in the club's budget forced a mass exodus of star players, including Eto'o, at the end of the 2012-13 season.
To this day, Eto'o's move to Anzhi Makhachkala remains one of the most baffling transfers in football history.
#1 Bebe to Manchester United (2011)
Football transfers rarely come more bizarre than the one of little-known Bebe from Vitoria de Guimaraes, a modest club in Portugal, to Manchester United, one of the giants of the game.
Interestingly, the then 20-year-old winger arrived at Old Trafford after Sir Alex Ferguson made the only 'blind' signing of his career in 2011. The legendary Scottish manager apparently took Bebe on the recommendation of his former assistant Carlos Queiroz.
In a classic rags-to-riches story, Bebe, who grew up in a homeless shelter, went from an overnight €300/week to a £17,000/week player, with the English football club dishing out a staggering €500,000 for the services of a completely unknown entity.
Unsurprisingly, the Cinderella story unravelled pretty quickly. Bebe failed to start a game for Manchester United despite scoring twice in seven matches.
Almost a decade after his Old Trafford adventure, the winger currently plies his trade at Spanish second division football club Rayo Vallecano.
