Tottenham fans, we’re taking you back to the mid-80s for this article.
It revolves around a player called Luciano Marangon, who used to play at left-back and managed to get himself one cap for Italy in 1982 when he featured in a friendly against East Germany.
Marangon spent all of his career in his home country, starting off with Juventus and playing for Vicenza, Napoli, Roma, Hellas Verona and Inter before retiring at the age of 31.
That’s really early for a footballer who was still fully able to play, and the reason why he decided to call it a day was because he wasn’t allowed to join Tottenham.
This is what the now 65-year-old told Corriere del Veneto on Thursday in an interview where he was asked about the decision to retire so young.
He said: “I was at Inter, I came from a serious knee injury and I wanted a change of scenery. I had the opportunity to go to Tottenham, but I was still tied to Inter for two years, with a high wage. I asked the club to free me, to lower the demands.
“After a month of negotiations, I said that if they didn’t release me, I would stop playing. They didn’t believe me. I packed my bags and went to New York. Disappeared into thin air”.
At the time, Chris Hughton was the left back at Tottenham, where he stayed in the role until 1990 when he left to West Ham on a free transfer.
Records suggest they didn’t really have a backup at the time, so the arrival of Marangon could have gone a long way.
It never happened, and the player stuck by his word, never kicking a ball again for Inter or anyone else because he wasn’t allowed to go to Spurs.
