Top 5 English stars who moved to LaLiga

This week has seen a somewhat unlikely transfer, as England right-back Kieran Trippier made the move from Tottenham Hotspur to LaLiga giants Atletico Madrid for a fee of around £20m.

Trippier will be looking to impress his new boss Diego Simeone, but if he does manage to succeed in Spain he’ll join a very short list of English players to do so.

In fact, only 19 English players have ever moved to La Liga – and fewer still have made the move during the Premier League era. Will Trippier succeed in Madrid? We’ll find out in the new season, but for now he joins the following 5 players in making the move to a sunnier climate.

Here are 5 English players who made the jump to La Liga – and how they fared.

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#1 David Beckham – Real Madrid

David Beckham was considered one of Real Madrid's famous Galacticos

Probably the most famous footballer on the planet at the point that he joined Real Madrid from Manchester United, David Beckham made the move to the Bernabeu in the summer of 2003 for a surprisingly cheap-sounding fee of around €37m.

Rumours of his departure from Old Trafford had been rife throughout the preceding season after he fell out with Sir Alex Ferguson, but it was still a massive deal when Beckham became Real’s latest Galactico, following in the footsteps of Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo, who had previously joined Los Blancos.

Always a somewhat underrated player due to the sheer magnitude of his fame off the pitch, Beckham settled into life at Real almost immediately and helped the side to a victory in the Spanish Super Cup, and managed to score five times in his first 16 matches for his new side.

Despite his best efforts however, trophies were hard to come by for Beckham at the Bernabeu; outside of that initial Super Cup win, Beckham’s only triumph while at Real came in the form of a LaLiga title in 2006/07 – coincidentally his final season at the club before his move to LA Galaxy.

Beckham ended his time at Real Madrid with a total of 155 appearances, 20 goals and 48 assists, and while he didn’t win as many titles or trophies as he did during his time at Manchester United. It’d be hard to claim he wasn’t a success in general, and his move to Spain remains a somewhat iconic one simply for what it represented at the time; the peak of Real’s Galactico era.

#2 Steve McManaman

Steve McManaman had a surprisingly fruitful run at Real Madrid

When the Bosman Ruling was introduced to football in the late 1990’s, one of the first players to make a high-profile move without a transfer fee was Steve McManaman. The England international winger made the move to Real Madrid from Liverpool in the summer of 1999, and signed a contract worth £60,000 per week with a £2m signing on fee – making him the highest paid British footballer to that date.

Despite being the first player to move to LaLiga from the Premier League, McManaman immediately settled into his new surroundings at the Bernabeu and assisted the winning goal for striker Fernando Morientes on his debut against Mallorca, and then scored his first goal a week later on his home debut.

His performances stayed at that high level throughout the season, and his crowning achievement at the club came in the summer of 2000, when Los Blancos defeated Valencia 3-0 to win the Champions League, with McManaman scoring Real’s second goal.

McManaman would fall out of favour on a number of occasions at Real – largely through no fault of his own and more because he wasn’t seen as one of Real’s Galacticos.

But he continued to perform well when he was deployed, and ended up winning two La Liga titles at the club in 2000/01 and 2002/03, as well as another Champions League in 2001/02; this time McManaman scored a crucial goal in the semi-finals against Barcelona.

Overall, despite a lower profile than some of the bigger names that shared the pitch with him at the Bernabeu, McManaman had a tremendous run at Real and should probably go down as one of the most underrated English players of his era.

#3 Jermaine Pennant

Jermaine Pennant's move to Real Zaragoza did not go to plan

A classic tale of missed potential, Jermaine Pennant first came to prominence when he moved from Notts County to Arsenal in 1999 for a fee of £2m – a record for a trainee.

Despite being considered one of the best prospects in England at the time, Pennant struggled massively with the Gunners and was quickly given a series of loan moves, during one of which (at Birmingham City) he received a prison sentence for a drink-driving charge.

After a move to Liverpool largely failed too, Pennant made a surprising move to La Liga club Real Zaragoza in the summer of 2009, signing a three-year deal with the club. Unfortunately, the move didn’t exactly go as planned.

The winger did make a total of 25 league appearances in Spain, but failed to score a goal and had his attitude brought into question on numerous occasions. After being frozen out for these issues, he ended up moving back to England with Stoke in the summer of 2010.

Pennant’s legacy in Spain was not a positive one by any means; his time there is probably best remembered for an infamous incident that saw his Porsche Turbo discovered parked in a Zaragoza railway station, covered in parking tickets – five months after he’d left the club. Supposedly, Pennant had forgotten that he owned the car!

#4 Michael Owen

Michael Owen's time at Real Madrid was fleeting but relatively successful

One of the greatest English strikers of all time, Michael Owen was already a worldwide superstar – winning the Ballon d’Or in 2001 – when he moved from Liverpool to Real Madrid as their latest Galactico in the summer of 2004 for a baffling fee of just £8m.

Unfortunately, largely due to the huge amount of attacking talent at the Bernabeu during that era, Owen struggled to impose himself at the club and was sold to Newcastle just one year later.

That’s not to say that the England forward was a total flop, however. Despite starting just 20 league games in his season at Madrid, Owen still managed to score a total of 13 goals, making him Real’s second-most productive striker behind the legendary Brazilian Ronaldo, and giving him an impressive strike rate of a goal every 144 minutes.

During his time there he scored winning goals against Dynamo Kiev and Valencia, as well as a goal in a 4-2 El Clasico win over Barcelona.

Interestingly though, he failed to add to his substantial trophy haul at the Bernabeu; the side finished second to Barcelona in La Liga and were eliminated in the Champions League’s Round of 16.

#5 Jonathan Woodgate

Jonathan Woodgate's time at the Bernabeu was largely disastrous

A somewhat surprising signing for Real Madrid in the summer of 2004 – the same period that saw Michael Owen move to the Bernabeu – central defender Jonathan Woodgate moved to the club from Newcastle for a hefty transfer fee of just over £13m.

The move was always considered a risk due to Woodgate’s injury issues – he only made 18 league appearances during his last season at Newcastle – and was in fact injured at the point in which he signed for Los Blancos.

Woodgate’s first season in Spain was an absolute disaster; he didn’t make a single appearance for Real due to his injury issues, and had to wait until September 2005 to appear for his new side in a league tie against Athletic Bilbao.

When he did, things went from bad to worse. In one of the worst debuts in football history, Woodgate scored an own goal and was later sent off, although Real did go on to win the game 3-1.

Eventually Woodgate did force himself into Real’s first team, but his issues with injuries quickly rose their head again and a back problem restricted him to just 14 appearances in all competitions in 2005/06 before he was sent to Middlesbrough on loan – a move he made permanent in the following summer.

That summer saw Woodgate voted as Real’s worst signing of the 21st century, basically summing up his torrid time in Spain.