When Thai business tycoon turned politician Thaksin Shinawatra turned his attentions to English football he looked to Manchester as his destination. As the Glazer family had already tied up the red side of the city, Shinawatra invested his money heavily into the poor relation at the time, City to attempt to guide them to success.
The subplot, which I won’t elaborate on too much was that the Thai president was a very shady man. Manager at the time Sven Goran Eriksson said didn’t understand about football and latterly we found out he was ‘on the run’ from Thai authorities for violating stock-trading and land sale laws.
However, he did bring a host of new faces to the blue side of Manchester including three enigmatic Brazilian’s that were ready to break out onto the international stage. Nevertheless the trifecta had quite contrasting periods at City which has been replicated throughout their careers.
Geovanni came in on a free from Brazilian club Cruzeiro as a diminutive 27 year old midfielder, he stayed for one season before moving to Hull City, this seemed to define his career. The second was bought a year later with Mark Hughes in charge. CSKA’s potent striker Jo, helped the Moscow based club win multiple honours but couldn’t replicate this success in the Premier League. After spending time with Everton and Galatasary in Europe he found his feet again with a fruitful spell at Atletico Mineiro and now at 28 has joined Dubai club Al Shabab.
Nonetheless the player I want to focus on, did considerably better in his two years, between 2007 and 2009 in Manchester. Elano, became somewhat of a talisman for City during this spell and despite more high profile names coming into the side, most notably Robinho he had seemed to adapt a bit better than most of the deluge of players that turned up at the old Carrington campus during that whirlwind period.
Elano scored 10 goals during his first season and matched this feat with 10 assists, where after a quiet mid period in the season, manager Eriksson had announced that ‘Elano was back’ as he was regularly on the scoresheet during March and April. However, his second season left much to be desired notching only four goals and only one assist as he left for Turkey at the end of the 2008-09 campaign.
Following somewhat average spells at Galatasaray and Santos, he found his form again at Gremio.
In the last year he has looked to broaden his horizons again with a move to the fledgling and innovative Indian Super League, signing as Chenaiyinn FC marquee signing. He lit up the ISL’s inaugural season which featured fellow ex-Premier League stars Freddie Ljungberg, Luis Garcia and David James amongst others and finished top scorer with eight goals.
He has now returned to the club for a second spell as the ISL begins it’s second season and one thing that attracted him was the project that he said was similar to City in the early years;
“Today I see myself in the same situation, where I see India as a power in world football in the next few years to come,”
He continued;
It’s always exciting to be part of a new project. Also, the country has attracted me for the history and culture,”
He left City as more of a cult hero than a player who will be written into the City history books but you cannot question the 34 year old’s passion for the game even now as he looks to usher in a new dawn of football in India.
