The Most Confusing and Weirdest Transfers in Football History

During the long history of football, we as fans have been treated with all kinds of strange and crazy things. From interesting situations on and off the field, there are a lot of moments that are cemented in the annals of football that we come back every year to talk about. But what we often fail to mention are some of the weirdest transfers in football.

While you may think that football is a very serious thing and that today’s teams take very careful consideration about the players they are bringing on, the truth is sometimes completely the opposite, as there have been a lot of examples of crazy transfers happening here or there.

Even though the scouting system evolved, and we see them much less happening today than some 20 years ago, there are still baffling examples that leave us completely confused. Today, we are going to talk about a few of those examples and mention some of the craziest football transfers that have been allowed to go through in the history of football.

Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano to West Ham

In 2006, news broke that the Argentinian duo featuring Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano would move to West Ham United. The two players were some of the best that Argentine football offered at the moment. The Hammers, on the other hand, were a team tipped for relegation. Speculation soon came about as we saw one of the strangest football transfers unravel in front of our eyes.

In the end, both Tevez and Mascherano didn’t make a big impact on the team. In fact, they rarely played. However, Tevez did help the team by scoring the only goal in a win against Manchester Utd in the last game of the season, keeping the Hammers away from relegation. The goal did earn Tevez a move to Old Trafford for the next season.

Julien Faubert to Real Madrid

The case of Julien Faubert moving to Real Madrid ended up being one of the worst transfers in football history. After landing the biggest stars in football, Los Galacticos went on to recruit Faubert from West Ham after he only played eight games for the club. A lot of people thought that Real executives were mad for doing so. While the others had the impression that they knew something about Faubert that we don’t.

In the end, it turned into a complete bottle job. As talented as he was, Faubert was nowhere near the pedigree of a Real player. He made only two appearances for the club. He was cut from the team after he missed a training session because he mistakenly thought he had a day off.

Martin Braithwaite to Barcelona

Martin Braithwaite’s move to Barcelona was definitely a bizarre one. First of all, the Danish forward is nowhere near the calibre of player that Barca usually signs. However, they had no choice in the matter as they were out of attacking options. Both Ousmane Dembele and Luis Suarez are both going down with long-term injuries.

Blaugrana was the first team that took advantage of the rule that allowed them to sign a player outside the transfer window. But they needed to provide evidence that Dembele would be out for longer than six months. Before coming to Barcelona, Braithwaite scored only six La Liga goals.

In the end, he scored only 10 goals for the club in 53 appearances. He was not able to replace the scoring output of Barca’s star player. Everything ended with an even more bizarre twist. The Dane had his contract terminated but with a hefty haul on his part.

Ben Davies to Liverpool

Ben Davies is not really a household football name in England. Actually, he is not a player who has the potential of regularly featuring in the Premier League. Nevertheless, in 2021 Davies made a career move from the Championship side Preston North End to Liverpool. Many crazy football transfers have happened, but this one was not so much of a head scratcher that you would think.

That season, the Reds were hit by an injury bug like no time before. Their defence was hit the hardest, with both Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez being out for the season. The best that Klopp could master was bringing in the seasoned defender Ben Davies from Preston. In the end, Davies failed to make a single Premier League appearance for the club and only earned a loan to Sheffield United. 

He actually helped the Blades achieve promotion but ended up with the Rangers at the end of the season. In the end, Ben Davies showed that he is a good defender but not one cut out for the Premier League.

Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting to PSG

If you want to make a career-changing transfer, you should definitely sign with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting’s agent. Choupo-Moting was a decent striker for Stoke, but not one who attracted so much attention from massive clubs. He eventually ended up playing alongside Neymar and Mbappe in Ligue 1 after scoring only five goals for Stoke City.

Choupo-Moting became one of the weirdest transfers in football, but he did score 9 goals for PSG. He then made things even weirder after moving to Bayern Munich in an attempt to replace Robert Lewandowski, which he actually did. He scored 10 goals in 19 games during the 2022/23 Bundesliga season, proving a lot of the doubters wrong.

Christian Eriksen to Brentford

The story of Christian Eriksen may not belong so much on the list of weird football transfers. Perhaps it is more suitable for an incredible comeback list. Nevertheless, it was strange how things ended up and him featuring for Brentford.

It all started during the 2020 Euro when Eriksen collapsed during a match between Denmark and Finland. It was later revealed that he suffered a cardiac arrest but managed to recover with the help of a cardioverter-defibrillator implanted in his chest. 

Since he was playing for Inter at the moment, Serie A rules banned him from playing in Italy. So, he ended his contract with Inter and took a six-month hiatus. Since the Premier League doesn’t have such rules, he got a chance to make a return with Brentford. Which he took and immediately became a star for the team. He played only one season for the club after transferring to Manchester United.

Nicklas Bendtner to Juventus

The self-proclaimed King, Nicklas Bendtner, is a peculiar football figure who deserves an article of his own. One of the reasons is his unexpected move to Juventus, which will forever go down in the history of weird football transfers. He was a prospect player for the Gunners but never really reached the potential expected of him. He went to Sunderland on loan, where he didn’t make an impact as well.

Then Juve came calling. For no particular reason, Bendtner soon became part of the attack that included the likes of Fabio Quagliarella, Nicolas Anelka and Sebastian Giovinco. There, you can see why his move failed. With the competition up front, he failed to score for Juve and, more so, failed to sell any shirts, and none of the Juve supporters wanted one.

Jesse Lingard to FC Seoul  

Jesse Lingard is actually the latest addition to the strangest football transfers list with his move to South Korea. The Man Utd graduate and former English international slowly progressed through the Red Devils rank, eventually becoming a first-team regular. He even earned a call for the English national side, for which he made 32 appearances and scored 6 goals.

However, it soon became apparent that he was pushed up front too quickly. Jesse is a great player but was not able to cut it on the biggest stage. He did show glimpses of greatness with his loan move to West Ham where he scored 9 goals in half a season. Unfortunately, he failed to make the same impact after joining up with Nottingham Forest.

His career path eventually took him to FC Seoul. He decided against taking the path to Saudi Arabia like so many before him and opted for a less exotic league. Jesse is definitely the most high-profile player that ever featured in the K-League. However, we shall see if it helps him earn back a call-up to Europe at any time.