Sportskeeda's Top 6 transfer collapses

#3 Robinho – Chelsea

Robinho had a less than fruitful time in England

When he was ripping apart opposition defences in Brazil, Pele did the thing he does best: call him the next Pele. The narcissism of Pele once again played against the once-talented Brazilian as he could never really reach his potential.

Robinho made his Madrid debut just 24 hours after landing in the city. And his debut was one of the best by any Real Madrid player of this era. At his best, it felt like his feet was in love with the ball – every dribble by him felt like his feet were making love with the ball. And like lovers promise each other to never let go of each other, the ball and Robinho shared the same feelings.

But, well, this is the 21st century and true love is a dying sight. Robinho didn’t keep his promise and wanted to leave Real Madrid after being irked by the club’s constant flirting with Cristiano Ronaldo. The Blancos were in advance talks with Chelsea in 2008, but the London club jumped the gun and started selling replica jerseys of Robinho on their website even before the deal was agreed.

According to Robinho, this didn’t go down well with the Blancos and they started negotiating with Manchester City, where he ultimately went.

“My main goal was to move to Chelsea – Big Phil had said I could make the difference for him as his squad, according to him, was not creative enough,” Robinho said to

“But Real Madrid had fallen out with Chelsea – they didn’t like them selling shirts with my name on before the deal had been done. I'm pretty sure that this error was one of the main reasons why the transfer failed, as it was a matter of pride for Real Madrid.

“They were also reluctant to let me move to a club that was playing in the Champions League the same season – Chelsea were, but City weren’t.”

In his first conference as a City player, Robinho actually said that he was happy to be at Chelsea, before being corrected that he is actually at Manchester City. Hilarious stuff.