Gaizka Mendieta: People couldn’t believe I was joining Middlesbrough

While most modern footballers try and finish their careers with one last big payday in America or China, Gaizka Mendieta took a more surprising route in 2003. 

A Champions League runner-up on two occasions with Valencia, Mendieta scored in both finals, becoming a two-time winner of the UEFA Best Midfielder of the Year award.

The former Spain international completed a £29million move to Lazio in 2001 but couldn’t recapture the form he had shown at the Mestalla and spent 2002-03 on loan at Barcelona.

Despite being linked with the likes of Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao, he took everybody by surprise by making a fresh start at Steve McClaren’s Middlesbrough.

“I’d been at Valencia, Barca, Lazio, always looking for the big clubs so I thought why not go to not such a big club and do something different,” Mendieta says, appearing on The Broken Metatarsal Podcast.

“Try a different approach, go to a club where it’s actually trying to make history, trying to change their history, trying to achieve big things for a club at that level and become part of that although I didn’t give it much thought at the first meeting we had, it grew on me as I waited on all the options that I had.

“In England, there was a couple of clubs but the one that really caught my eye was Boro so that’s when I decided okay let’s do this new project.”

After spending the previous season at the Nou Camp, his move to the Riverside certainly raised eyebrows as Middlesbrough had just finished 11th in the Premier League.

“I knew there was a lot of people saying, ‘Why would you go to Middlesbrough? You’ve been to Valencia, Barcelona, Rome, why go to Middlesbrough? You’ve been playing Champions League games.’

Speaking courtesy of Player 4 Player, he adds: “It was