Manchester United’s 1999 treble winner, Teddy Sheringham, has revealed that Diego Maradona was once close to a shock move to Tottenham Hotspur, before what he described as the Argentine’s “baggage” ultimately ended the possibility of a deal.
Speaking on talkSPORT and Burger King’s Squad Table, Sheringham revisited the moment former Spurs manager Ossie Ardiles consulted him over a potential move for the late World Cup winner Diego Maradona.
According to Sheringham, the idea briefly gathered momentum before collapsing, with the club instead turning to another high-profile signing.
“We’re going back a few years, and you’re talking about people you’d want to sit down with, Maradona would have to be one,” Sheringham recounted.
“Ossie Ardiles was my manager at Tottenham, he came to me one afternoon.
“He said, ‘I want your opinion on something, Ted. I’m thinking about signing someone, what do you think?’
“I went, ‘Well, go on, who?’ He went, ‘Maradona’. I just erupted and was like, ‘Ossie, just do it’. He said, ‘Okay, it’s in the pipeline’.
“He came back a couple of weeks later and said, ‘Look, we can’t sign him. There’s too much baggage. But we’re going to sign [Jurgen] Klinsmann instead.”
“Five minutes later, Klinsmann was at the club and all was forgiven. But Maradona would have been a good one.”
Instead of Maradona, Spurs went on to secure the services of Jürgen Klinsmann, bringing an end to what might have been one of football’s most intriguing transfer “what ifs.”
