Ex-Barcelona forward Eidur Gudjohnsen has revealed Real Madrid showed an interest in signing him before he moved to the Camp Nou but were too tied up in their presidential election to take him to the Santiago Bernabeu.
The forward, who enjoyed successful spells with Bolton Wanderers and Chelsea in England, moved to La Liga in 2006. He went on to make 112 appearances for Los Cules and helped them win the Champions League, La Liga and Copa del Rey.
But he said things could have been different that summer had Real not been too busy electing Ramon Calderon and then appointing Fabio Capello as the new manager.
Speaking to FourFourTwo magazine, the ex-Iceland international said: “From what I was told at the time, they were at least interested. The first interest I heard from Spain was Real Madrid. But the club were going through their elections and didn’t have a coach, so I wondered how concrete the interest was. I had no idea then how things worked in Spain.
“When Barcelona came in with everything in place, having just won the Champions League, I thought: ‘Let’s get this done – where do I sign?’ I’d heard whispers about Barcelona for a year, ever since we [Chelsea] had knocked them out of Europe.”
