Messi to Arsenal, Zidane to Blackburn and more - Eight shocking transfers that could have happened

We’ve all seen the crazy transfer rumours that have floated around the footballing world over the last few years. But what happens when those rumours have a little bit of truth to them? Or what about when young players get snubbed on a move to bigger clubs and become world class? There’s no doubt that the mangers would have kicked themselves after seeing what they passed up on but hindsight is a beautiful thing. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed that the North London based club attempted to sign a 15 year-old Lionel Messi as well as Gerrard Pique from Barcelona. This happened in 2002 when Wenger set out to bring in three young talents into the club, two being the fore mentioned Messi and Pique and the other being Robin Van Persie. Diego Maradona is widely regarded as one of the greatest to ever play the game but in is early years was offered to Sheffield United for just £300,000. The markets has changed a lot since then and back then £300,000 was considered to be a lot of money. Despite his skill, you can’t help but think the Sheffield probably feel like they dodged a bullet after some of his on-field and off-field antics. But who knows? – Maybe we would be practicing Iglesia Maradoniana if he had move to England. Blackburn were incredibly unlucky it seems on two occasions. Firstly they were offered Robert Lewandowski for just £3m. He’s now known as one of the best strikers in the world and has shown that this season. He scored five goals in nine minutes after coming on as a substitute against Wolfsburg, breaking all sorts of records in the process. They were also reportedly in talks with Bordeaux over the availability of Zinedine Zidane back in the mid-1990’s. Blackburn had just won their first and only Premiership Trophy. However it gets better when you find out that Kenny Dalglish was quoted as saying “Why do we need Zidane? We have Tim Sherwood”. Zidane was also offered to Newcastle. We all know about Newcastle’s good relationship with the French league 1 but Newcastle could really do with Zidane playing for them know, even though he’s been retired for nine years. Ronaldinho is one of the most famous names in the modern game but that could have been a very different story when he almost signed for St. Mirren in 2001 from Gremio. This happened when Arsene Wenger had tried to sign him but he couldn’t get a work permit. He had his heart set on Britain and considered joining Scottish club St. Mirren but opted to stay in Brazil and joined Paris Saint-Germian the following summer. Finally, just before Johan Cruyff retired he was in talks to sign for Leicester City. He opted go into management instead but Leicester City could have been the last club Johan Cruyff played for.

Source: DSG