- Jan 15, 2017
- 1,739
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I went to my first game at least 18 months before he signed, but Klinsmann was the first player I really idolised as a kid. I was too young to have known a huge amount about him before he joined, but older family members were trying to explain to me what a coup it was that he'd signed for us and you could tell that he was a class above.
Ironically though, his signing probably set the club back a long way because of the way he left. There were hardly any foreign players in the early days of the Premier League, but when people like him and Cantona made such a big impact and the Sky money started to come in, clubs started looking overseas to find the next hotbed of talent. However, instead of us kicking on from his signing, Sugar took his decision to go back to Germany extremely personally and went on TV with his old shirt and said "I wouldn't wash my car with this", then refused to sign any more "Carlos Kickaballs" foreigners. So instead of riding that wave and getting in players like Bergkamp, Zola and Juninho, all of which who joined teams that had come below us the year before signing, we were bringing in Chris Armstrong, Andy Sinton and Ruel Fox. By the time Sugar realised what a mistake he was making, our squad had been decimated and there was a clear financial gap opening up between us and the teams at the top of the league, which only got worse when the Champions League started expanding the number of teams involved.
Ironically though, his signing probably set the club back a long way because of the way he left. There were hardly any foreign players in the early days of the Premier League, but when people like him and Cantona made such a big impact and the Sky money started to come in, clubs started looking overseas to find the next hotbed of talent. However, instead of us kicking on from his signing, Sugar took his decision to go back to Germany extremely personally and went on TV with his old shirt and said "I wouldn't wash my car with this", then refused to sign any more "Carlos Kickaballs" foreigners. So instead of riding that wave and getting in players like Bergkamp, Zola and Juninho, all of which who joined teams that had come below us the year before signing, we were bringing in Chris Armstrong, Andy Sinton and Ruel Fox. By the time Sugar realised what a mistake he was making, our squad had been decimated and there was a clear financial gap opening up between us and the teams at the top of the league, which only got worse when the Champions League started expanding the number of teams involved.