Chelsea have missed out on at least two of their top transfer targets this summer – bloody Barcelona – but neither Raphinha nor Jules Kounde would get anywhere near this legendary XI of players once thought or confirmed to be close to a move to Stamford Bridge.
GK: Gianluigi Buffon
Juventus immediately snubbed a £40m offer from Chelsea for Buffon in 2003, believing it would be daft to sell the world’s best goalkeeper whom they’d signed for nearly £30m from Parma two years before. Good call.
Buffon went on to make a mammoth 682 appearances for the Old Lady, winning ten Serie A titles in the process, but unlike Petr Cech – the alternative Chelsea plumped for a year later – the Italian does not have a Champions League win to his name. It’s got to hurt.
RB: Dani Alves
‘Chelsea capture Alves in £21.5m deal’ was The Guardian headline in August 2007 after the Blues had beaten Real Madrid to his signature, only for Barcelona to swoop in at the last minute. Typical then, even more so now.
Chelsea signed Juliano Belletti instead.
CB: Alessandro Nesta
Chelsea spent £153m on 11 new players in their first transfer window under the ownership of Roman Abramovich back in 2003. Hernan Crespo, Claude Makelele, Joe Cole and Juan Sebastian Veron were among the stars signed as they splashed the cash under Claudio Ranieri.
The only position they didn’t strengthen was at centre-back, but not for the want of trying. The club reportedly tabled a £35m bid for Nesta – who had just been crowned Serie A Defender of the Year for the fourth season in a row – which would have seen him become the most expensive defender in history. But having just won the Champions League with Milan, Nesta decided to stay put.
CB: Fabio Cannavaro
Having won his second Serie A title in two years with Juventus and captaining Italy to World Cup glory, Cannavaro moved to Real Madrid for just £6.3m in the summer of 2006, winning the Ballon d’Or soon after. But he revealed this year that he was “close” to joining Chelsea instead. He knew of interest from Jose Mourinho but instead opted to join Fabio Capello at Madrid, with whom he won consecutive La Liga crowns.
LB: Roberto Carlos
Chelsea already had arguably the best left-back in the world in Ashley Cole in 2007, but they wanted the man he had taken the title from as his understudy at Stamford Bridge.
The Brazilian admitted that he met Abramovich in Paris to discuss the move after 11 years with Madrid, but a…
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