A legend at Espanyol, having made 387 appearances over 13 years at the club, Raul Tamudo’s love affair with the La Liga club could have been cut 10 years short.
In 2000, the centre-forward came extremely close to signing with Glasgow’s Rangers, but a failed medical stopped everything in its tracks.
He said: “They told me: you go, or your teammates aren’t getting paid.”
An ultimatum from Espanyol, who had accepted Rangers’ offer of meeting the player’s release clause, to the man who had just completed his first full season for the club of his heart.
Crying, the player went to the medical, but after two hours in an MRI machine, a Rangers doctor told him he would not be playing for Rangers at the Ibrox, and advised the Scottish club vetoed the transfer.
Tamudo then explained that man, the doctor who performed the MRI, now has an Espanyol fan club named after him as a thank you for unknowingly allowing Raul Tamudo to become the Espanyol legend he is today.
For those interested, the doctor was Dr Gert Jan Goudswaard, employed by Rangers at the time, and the fan club is called “Doctor Gert, Diga 23”, with 23 being the shirt number Raul Tamudo wore during his years at Espanyol.
