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Loan deals are a very common thing in football today. Many clubs use it to bring players they need in for a small period of time and the best part about the deal is the losses are minimal if a player comes in and doesn’t do well.There are mainly two types of players whom we see go out on loan, the first are the players the club have huge hopes for, and need to secure regular first team action for them and the second are players who are deemed surplus to requirements and are therefore sent out on loan.In either case the pressure on players to do well to impress their parent club or their future club is huge and that can weigh them down. However, many stars of recent times made their mark after going out on loan initially.So here are ten stars who emerged through loan deals.
#10 Ashley Cole
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Ashley Cole has to be the best left-back England has produced in recent times and he enjoyed highly successful spells with two of London’s best clubs, Arsenal and Chelsea.
Cole started his career with Arsenal and at the age of 18 he made his first team debut in a league cup match against Middlesbrough in 1999/2000 season. He spent a part of the same season on loan to another London Club, Crystal Palace. The left-back played 14 games when he was on loan at Palace while they were in the first division and he scored a brilliant long-range half volley against Blackburn to remember his time at the club.
After his good loan spell at Palace, he returned to Arsenal, signed his first professional contract and made his Premier League debut against Newcastle late into the season. Cole broke into Arsenal’s first team following an injury to Sylvinho and continued to be the first choice up until he left the club in 2006 to join Chelsea. By then he had already written himself into Arsenal history as a part of their invincibles squad of 2004.
#9 Jordi Alba
Jordi Alba’s incredible rise to prominence has been credited to Barcelona because he was at the club’s academy, but his former club Valencia deserves more credit for bringing out the quality in Alba.
Alba was released by Barcelona in 2005 and he joined Cornella before moving to Valencia in 2007. After helping Valencia’s reserve team gain promotion in 2007-08, the Spaniard made his professional debut in the following season while on loan at Segunda Division club Gimnastic de Tarragona. Alba was a consistent starter and performer for Gimnastic and ended the season with 36 appearances and four goals to his name.
Upon returning to Valencia he was made a part of the first team and his successful conversion from a winger to a full back happened at Valencia under the guidance of Unai Emery, who used the competition for places between Alba and his present teammate Jeremy Mahieu to good effect, so that it would bring out the best in both.
His success as a left-back prompted Barcelona to make a move for Alba and the Spaniard moved to the Catalan club following his impressive performances for Spain at the 2012 Euro.
#8 Giorgio Chiellini
The tall and strong Italian has been a part of Juventus defense for a decade now and he showed why the Turin club has so much faith in him last year with his memorable performances in the UEFA Champions league.
Before Chiellini became a star at Juventus, he was a Fiorentina player and a Roma player before that. Roma signed Chiellini from Livorno and loaned him back to Livorno for two seasons. In his first season on loan at Livorno he made only six appearances, but in his second season he broke into the first team and even scored four goals from the left-back position.
The Italian was quite impressive during his time on loan at Livorno and was sure to be a part of Roma’s squad in the subsequent season. However, Roma never used Chiellini’s services and he was sold to Fiorentina in 2004, where he played his first season in Serie A before moving to Juventus in the following season.
Chiellini was one of the few players who stayed with Juventus after the club got relegated to Serie B in 2006 and he reaped the benefits of staying with the Old Lady as he has now won several titles with the club.
#7 Joe Hart
When England took the field with players like Gerrard, Scholes, Lampard, Beckham, Owen, Ferdinand and Terry from their golden generation, they lacked a player who was equally reliable and they had to use keepers like David James, Paul Robinson and Robert Green after David Seaman’s retirement. So when Joe Hart emerged as a candidate to play in goal for England it was welcome news.
Hart started his career with lower league club Shrewsbury Town before moving to the Premier League with Manchester City in 2006 and it was a big leap for him as he had previously played in League Two.
At City, Hart was not the number 1 and was loaned to League One clubs Tranmere Rovers and Blackpool during the 2006/07 season. His performance for Birmingham in the 2009-10 season, however was what caught the eye, he played 36 games for the club before returning to City and etching his name in their first team.
Upon returning to Man City in 2007, he was immediately made the club’s first choice keeper ahead of Andreas Isaksson. To date, Hart has remained City’s first choice keeper and he recently broke the record for the most Premier League golden gloves.
#6 David Silva
The little magician of Manchester City is a youth product of Valencia’s famous academy. Silva, who fashions his game around his idol Michael Laudrup, joined Valencia at the age of 14 and stayed with the club’s youth setup till the age of 17.
Prior to the 2004/05 season, he moved to Segunda Division side SD Eibar on loan in a quest to gain valuable first team experience and it was with Eibar that he made his professional debut. During his season on loan, he played 35 games and scored four goals for the club.
After his successful loan spell at Eibar, he was loaned out again by Valencia and this time to La Liga club Celta Vigo, with whom he played 34 games and scored four goals. His performance was instrumental in helping the newly promoted club secure a Europa league spot.
The Spaniard’s performances were convincing enough for Valencia to put him straight into their starting eleven despite being a 20-year-old and he was also called up to represent Spain’s senior side in the same year.
Silva became a World Cup and Euro winner by the time he was 24 and earned a move to Manchester City with whom he has already won several honours.
#5 Thibaut Courtois
Chelsea has a reputation for buying promising youngsters at a very young age and loaning them out to gain valuable first team experience. However among the dozens of players they have loaned out in recent years only one player has been able to come back and cement their place in the starting lineup and that’s Thibaut Courtois.
The big Belgian came through the ranks of Genk in Belgium before joining Chelsea in 2011 and he immediately went on loan to Atletico Madrid to replace David De Gea who had moved to Manchester United. Upon joining the Madrid club, he was made the first choice keeper and kept four clean sheets in his first six La Liga games.
Courtois took giant steps forward as a player during his time at Atletico over the next season. He put a man of the match performance in the 2013 Copa del Rey final as Atletico beat their city rivals for the first time in 14 years. In his final season with the Madrid club he was on top of his game as Atletico conceded the fewest goals in the league, won the La Liga title and stopped the Real Madrid-Barcelona juggernaut.
The Belgian impressed Jose Mourinho so much that he was immediately made Chelsea’s first choice keeper ahead of Petr Cech and it eventually led to Cech’s departure.
#4 Mats Hummels
Football fans know Mats Hummels as a Borussia Dortmund player who captains the club, but what very few people know is that Hummels is a player who made a switch from Bayern Munich to Borussia Dortmund unlike some of his teammates who went the opposite way in recent years.
The current Dortmund captain joined Bayern academy in 1995 and went on to make his first team debut on the opening day of the 2007/08 season. However he didn’t get enough first team opportunities and signed for Dortmund on loan in January 2008.
The German quickly formed a good partnership with Neven Subotic and after almost a year on loan, he was signed by Dortmund on a permanent deal for just €4m.
Hummels rose to fame at Dortmund and won several honours including two league titles on the trot. He also became an integral member of the German National team and was nominated for the Golden Ball as Germany lifted the FIFA World Cup.
There is no doubt that Hummels is a player who was let go by the Bavarians before realizing his true potential.
#3 Toni Kroos
Kroos made headlines in the 2007/08 season when he became Bayern’s youngest debutant (a record later broken by Alaba) and assisted Miroslav Klose twice within the first 18 minutes of his debut. He made 20 appearances (six starts) in his first season with the senior side, but in the following season he found opportunities hard to come by. In January 2009, Bayern allowed Kroos to join Leverkusen on an 18-month loan deal to gain first team experience.
The German’s first six months were rather uneventful as a majority of his appearances were as a substitute, but in the subsequent season he became an indispensable member of the Leverkusen side as he started all but one games for the club. The German ended the season with 9 goals and 12 assists in 33 league games putting in some notable performances and winning a couple of ‘Player of the Month’ awards.
Kroos was called up to Germany’s senior team while he was on loan at Leverkusen and later was also named in the squad for the 2010 World Cup and he made several appearances as a substitute in the tournament.
Upon returning to Bayern he became an integral member of the Bayern side and later made a big a move to Champions League winners Real Madrid.
#2 Philipp Lahm
Philipp Lahm is a name synonymous with Bayern Munich, however his rise to stardom was not completely down to Bayern Munich. The former German captain made his first team debut for the Bavarians in the 2002/03 season, but he was far from making it to the first team and was loaned to Stuttgart for two seasons, so that he could get some experience playing in the Bundesliga.
Lahm was signed as a backup for right back Andreas Hinkel, but Felix Magath moved him to the left-back position where he took over from German International Heiko Gerber. He started the season with a couple of substitute appearances before making his first start in a game against Borussia Dortmund. Eventually Lahm finished the season with 40 appearances in all competitions and was second in the running for German footballer of the year.
Lahm’s second season at Stuttgart was not as effective as the first one because of a fracture and later a torn cruciate ligament. However he returned to Bayern for the next season and the rest as they say ‘is history’.
#1 David Beckham
In 1995, David Beckham was concerned when he heard Sir AlexFerguson was sending him away because he was concerned about his future. "I was shocked," he wrote in his autobiography, My World. "I thought it was a sign that a club was trying to get rid of a player," he said. However, Ferguson reassured him that it wasn’t the case and Beckham signed for Preston North End in the Third Division.
Although he just spent one month with Preston, he made a significant impact and was immediately handed the responsibility of taking their set-pieces, which left the club’s senior player Paul Raynor embarrassed. He played five games for Preston and showed flashes of his set-piece brilliance with a curling corner kick into the net and another from a brilliantly executed free kick.
Alex Ferguson saw enough from Beckham in just one month to warrant him a place with United’s first team and in the very next season he helped the club to a league and FA Cup double.
