There was a time when Eliaquim Mandala was seen as the potential next best defender in the world after excelling at FC Porto, which is why Manchester City spent a lot of money on him.
However, he would only ever make 79 appearances for the Etihad residents, assisting three goals, as injuries have plagued his career ever since.
Following his Manchester City exit, he has played for Valencia and and Saint-Etienne, before taking a year out to recover from injuries and return to Portugal, where he now features for Estoril Praia and sat down with Le10 Sport to discuss various subjects.
The defender, now 33, gives himself another five years of potentially playing should his body allow it, and was asked whether he can believe that he was once the most expensive defender of all time 10 years ago, with Manchester City spending €53-54m on him.
He said: “When I was told at the time that it was over €50m, and €50m was a lot of money… But no man is worth €50m! When you’re part of an industry, a business, you inevitably enter into a logic that goes beyond normal life, but nobody is worth this or that price. It doesn’t make sense.
“But it was a real experience to go through that. I really enjoyed it. I said, you’ll see in one or two years, this record will be broken, and it was (laughs)…”
