Jonathan Woodgate to Real Madrid, a transfer that still baffles me to this day. I think that Real had suddenly become smitten with English players and you couldn’t really blame them given the run they had.
Steve McManaman had been an overwhelming success and probably been the best of the other three English players at Real during that era despite the smallest profile, mainly because of his volley and man of the match performance in the 2000 Champions League Final, he also won two La Liga titles and another Champions League. David Beckham in my view was signed partially as a marketing exercise (I suspect the club couldn’t print those Beckham 23 shirts fast enough to begin with) but still did well for the club without being a standout and Michael Owen didn’t set the world alive because of an injury blighted 12 months there, although when you look at his goals per minute record for the limited time he had, it’s bloody good.
Back to Woodgate, he broke into a largely successful (at the time) Leeds United team and did very well; this is where his now well-known style of great technical ability and defensive solidity came to the fore, unfortunately though, so did his injury susceptibility as Woodgate was in and out of the team. Leeds went on to top 4 finishes and a Champions League semi-final. The club though had spent beyond their means and it all came crashing down, David O’Leary was long gone, Ferdinand, Kewell, Viduka and Smith were all moved on. Bowyer and Woodgate were shipped onto Newcastle.
The £9m move in January 2003 was to a club with similar stature and was another club on the periphery of the top tier of the Premier League. When he played, he was great; unfortunately, another pattern arose similar to his Leeds spell where he was injury plagued.
August 2004, incredibly Woodgate was a Real Madrid player after the clubs agreed a fee of £13m+ and he somehow passed a medical with a torn thigh muscle, he would not play for the whole of the first season.
At last, with a full pre-season behind him, Woodgate was ready to play. What went down is now written in La Liga folklore. 22nd September 2005, he started against Athletic Bilbao with the first 20 minutes being relatively uneventful. Woodgate tried to connect with a hopeful shot with a headed clearance, completely misjudged it and it fired off his head, wrong footed Iker Casillas and flew into the corner. Not the end of the world though, it couldn’t get worse at least. He picked up a daft booking just before half time with a lunge, this wouldn’t have mattered but after being tormented by Joseba Exterberria all afternoon, he decided to step across and block his run, a second and maybe slightly harsh yellow card was branded and his team mates either berated the referee or consoled a clearly disappointed Woodgate, thankfully Real won the game.
Post-match, many Spanish media stated that it was the worst debut in the history of the league. Woodgate would fail to make his mark on the team following this, but it was not due to being out of his depth, it was the same old problem, he couldn’t stay fit.
Unfortunately then for Woodgate, his career at Real Madrid, despite actually playing well when he was in the team, is remembered for injury and that debut.
He did have a small career renaissance at Spurs a few years later, I remember him being great there at the time (even with limited appearances) and he even scored the winner in a League Cup final victory over Chelsea, his venture to the Spanish giants though, regrettably unsuccessful.
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