It wouldn’t be a World Cup year if at least a couple of clubs didn’t get as carried away as the rest of us and make an outlandish bid for one of the many stars who shone brightly for just a few weeks back in the summer.
Except come the dark, dank days of December the player who looked to be a real world beater just a few months earlier has usually faded as quickly as the July sun and is now harder to offload than a batch of “England World Cup Winners 2018” t-shirts.
You’ve probably already forgotten most of them so this look at five all-time classic silly season signings should bring back a few memories.
Alberto Tarantini to Birmingham City
The 1978 World Cup was a pivotal moment for English football and after one of the most colourful and exciting tournaments ever held came to an end it heralded the arrival in England of two World Cup winners in the form of Osvaldo Ardiles and Ricardo Villa; yet one man who is rarely mentioned is Alberto Tarantini who was signed by Birmingham City on the back of his performances on home soil that summer.
After making just 23 starts and scoring once for the Blues, Tarantini's career in England was all but over, not necessarily due to his lack of ability but because of a temper which often saw him on the wrong side of the law. On one occasion he famously dived into the crowd at St Andrew's and punching a heckler, while on another occasion he flattened Manchester United's Brian Greenhoff during on on-field bust-up before leaving the Blues to return to Argentina after only a year at the club.
Oleg Salenko to Rangers
Following the 1994 World Cup in the USA Russian striker Oleg Salenko was hot property. He’d set a tournament record when he bagged all five goals for his country against Cameroon and added another in the group stage that ensured he would eventually share the Golden Boot with Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov.
Such a performance unsurprisingly attracted the attention of a number of high spending European clubs one of which was Glasgow Rangers who paid £2.5 million for his services in 1995. But his performances the previous summer proved to be something of a false dawn and Salenko lasted just a few months at Ibrox before leaving for Istanbulspor in a swap deal. Not one to hold a grudge Solenko later claimed: "I signed only because I believed they had a chance of winning the Champions League. But it [the Scottish League] was very boring. The standard of play was very low, especially compared with Spain.
Kleberson to Manchester United
When Brazil won the World Cup back in 2002 one man in particular was singled out for high praise by then manager Luiz Felipe Scolari who would go on to secure a life-changing move to the Premier League - Kleberson. The midfielder was credited with being the driving force behind the side that lifted the World Cup in Korea and Japan; a view which Alex Ferguson obviously agreed with, bringing him to Old Trafford from Atletico Paranaense the following year.
Kleberson would make just 20 appearances over two injury-hit seasons before joining Besiktas in 2005. And how the words of the greatest manager in British football history have come back to haunt him in the years since. “One of the reasons we sold Juan Sebastian Veron was because we knew we were getting Kleberson - that shows how highly we regard his talent,” Ferguson claimed at the time.
El Hadji Diouf to Liverpool
Shortly after Senegal had shocked holders France in the opening game of the 2002 World Cup Liverpool announced the signing of one of the more prominent members in that side - El Hadji Diouf from French club Lens. Not entirely signed on a whim as he’d been on the club’s radar for some time his performances that summer appeared to justify the Reds’ decision though things would quickly turn sour for both parties.
Diouf failed to live-up to his promise and ultimately struggled to win over the Anfield fans particularly after several controversial incidents, not least spitting at a Celtic fan during a UEFA Cup match in Glasgow. Two goals in his second appearance for Liverpool were followed by just one more strike that season and he eventually moved-on to Bolton Wanderers having made 69 appearances for Liverpool.
Milenko Acimovic to Tottenham Hotspur
Slovenia hardly set the world alight during the summer of 2002 but one player who did shine was their attacking midfielder Milenko Acimovic who scored in their opening match against Paraguay as well as putting in a couple of decent performances which attracted the attention of none other than Spurs manager Glenn Hoddle who brought him to White Hart Lane later that year.
Not for the first time it was a case of one swallow not making a summer and Acimovic made only 17 appearances for Tottenham without finding the net or doing anything of note in all honesty in almost two years in North London before eventually leaving to join French side Lille in 2004 and then moving on to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia before finishing his playing career at FK Austria Wien.
