Dharmabum
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http://www.umaxit.com/index.php/columns/mourning-sandro-tottenhams-great-unfulfilled-talent
PS! The article says "AC Milan" but it was Inter Milan that Spurs played...
Mourning Sandro: Tottenham’s Great Unfulfilled Talent
Dan Kilpatrick | January 12, 2017
The 2012-13 Premier League season belongs to Gareth Bale. The Tottenham forward was an unstoppable force, finishing the campaign with 21 goals and every award going, before heading to Real Madrid in a world-record deal. Bale was unquestionably the finest player in the league that year but ask a Tottenham supporter for their most important player up until January and you may be given a different
name.
Bale came alive in the New Year with 11 goals in eight games but Sandro Raniere was Tottenham’s rock for the first half the campaign, forming a brilliant and under-appreciated partnership with Mousa
Dembele in central midfield. At times – notably in the 3-2 win at Manchester United in September, which ended Spurs’ 23-year wait for a win at Old Trafford – they looked like a defining duo, one that would make other managers change their approach to the midfield two, and Sandro was the star. He had everything: brute strength, a crunching tackle, the ability to read the game and, even if he was unspectacular on the ball, a certain Brazilian flair for dribbling and shooting. He was quickly nicknamed ‘the Beast’.
His season ended in Spurs’ 25th league game at Queens Park Rangers when he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Scott Parker replaced him for the remainder of the campaign but it
wasn’t the same and, despite Bale’s heroics, Spurs missed out on a Champions League place by a single point. It’s easy to say now, but they would surely have made it with a fit Sandro.
Almost exactly five years on from that injury, Sandro left England this week to join Turkish club Antalyaspor from QPR. He is 27 and should be reaching the peak of his powers but instead it is another
depressing downward step for a player who has not been the same after falling to the turf innocuously at Loftus Road.
He returned for Spurs, much changed by the Bale money, at the start of the following season but he was a pale imitation of his former self, plagued by hesitation and muscle injuries. There were signs, including another fine performance and stunning goal at White Hart Lane, that all was not lost but Mauricio Pochettino quickly saw that Sandro was not capable anymore, and sold him to QPR in summer 2014. It was the last big, careless deal done by the Hoops and they have deeply regretted it. Sandro’s decline has been steep and he has made just 49 appearances since leaving Spurs, including 12 on loan at West Brom.
Sandro is unlikely to return – certainly it would be amazing if he played in the Premier League again – and his time in England should be viewed with nostalgia tinged with regret, particularly for Spurs fans. His brilliant half-a-season in 2012-13 was his best period of sustained form but perhaps his standout performance was a coming-of-age display in the San Siro in February 2011.
In the first-leg of Tottenham’s Champions League quarterfinal against AC Milan, Sandro made the absence of Luka Modric, who was only fit enough for the bench, look like a blessing, screening the back four, wrestling the ball from renowned opponents and driving Spurs forward. They won 1-0. He was 21 and it was his first appearance in the competition after he had been left out of the squad for the group stage, embarrassingly arriving at Stanstead Airport before the match at Werder Bremen, only to be left in Departures after being told by he was ineligible to play.
Modric returned alongside him for the second leg at White Hart Lane, a 0-0 draw, and Sandro was described as “immense” by Harry Redknapp, the manager who later, foolishly took him QPR, hoping the old player was not gone for good. But it was in the San Siro – alongside Wilson Palacios, another player whose career was destroyed by an event outside his control – that Sandro announced himself.
Looking back at that night, it’s impossible not to feel melancholic about the player who stifled Clarence Seedord, Pato, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho. Sandro had the world at his feet then.
PS! The article says "AC Milan" but it was Inter Milan that Spurs played...
Mourning Sandro: Tottenham’s Great Unfulfilled Talent
Dan Kilpatrick | January 12, 2017
The 2012-13 Premier League season belongs to Gareth Bale. The Tottenham forward was an unstoppable force, finishing the campaign with 21 goals and every award going, before heading to Real Madrid in a world-record deal. Bale was unquestionably the finest player in the league that year but ask a Tottenham supporter for their most important player up until January and you may be given a different
name.
Bale came alive in the New Year with 11 goals in eight games but Sandro Raniere was Tottenham’s rock for the first half the campaign, forming a brilliant and under-appreciated partnership with Mousa
Dembele in central midfield. At times – notably in the 3-2 win at Manchester United in September, which ended Spurs’ 23-year wait for a win at Old Trafford – they looked like a defining duo, one that would make other managers change their approach to the midfield two, and Sandro was the star. He had everything: brute strength, a crunching tackle, the ability to read the game and, even if he was unspectacular on the ball, a certain Brazilian flair for dribbling and shooting. He was quickly nicknamed ‘the Beast’.
His season ended in Spurs’ 25th league game at Queens Park Rangers when he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Scott Parker replaced him for the remainder of the campaign but it
wasn’t the same and, despite Bale’s heroics, Spurs missed out on a Champions League place by a single point. It’s easy to say now, but they would surely have made it with a fit Sandro.
Almost exactly five years on from that injury, Sandro left England this week to join Turkish club Antalyaspor from QPR. He is 27 and should be reaching the peak of his powers but instead it is another
depressing downward step for a player who has not been the same after falling to the turf innocuously at Loftus Road.
He returned for Spurs, much changed by the Bale money, at the start of the following season but he was a pale imitation of his former self, plagued by hesitation and muscle injuries. There were signs, including another fine performance and stunning goal at White Hart Lane, that all was not lost but Mauricio Pochettino quickly saw that Sandro was not capable anymore, and sold him to QPR in summer 2014. It was the last big, careless deal done by the Hoops and they have deeply regretted it. Sandro’s decline has been steep and he has made just 49 appearances since leaving Spurs, including 12 on loan at West Brom.
Sandro is unlikely to return – certainly it would be amazing if he played in the Premier League again – and his time in England should be viewed with nostalgia tinged with regret, particularly for Spurs fans. His brilliant half-a-season in 2012-13 was his best period of sustained form but perhaps his standout performance was a coming-of-age display in the San Siro in February 2011.
In the first-leg of Tottenham’s Champions League quarterfinal against AC Milan, Sandro made the absence of Luka Modric, who was only fit enough for the bench, look like a blessing, screening the back four, wrestling the ball from renowned opponents and driving Spurs forward. They won 1-0. He was 21 and it was his first appearance in the competition after he had been left out of the squad for the group stage, embarrassingly arriving at Stanstead Airport before the match at Werder Bremen, only to be left in Departures after being told by he was ineligible to play.
Modric returned alongside him for the second leg at White Hart Lane, a 0-0 draw, and Sandro was described as “immense” by Harry Redknapp, the manager who later, foolishly took him QPR, hoping the old player was not gone for good. But it was in the San Siro – alongside Wilson Palacios, another player whose career was destroyed by an event outside his control – that Sandro announced himself.
Looking back at that night, it’s impossible not to feel melancholic about the player who stifled Clarence Seedord, Pato, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho. Sandro had the world at his feet then.
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