Widely considered to be among the poorest transfers made by Tottenham, even if he didn’t cost them anything, Milenko Acimovic is seen very differently elsewhere.
The then attacking midfielder only ever made 17 appearance for Spurs, failing to get an assist or a goal in the year and a half he had a chance to feature for them.
His lack of game time at Tottenham meant a loan was then sorted in January of 2004, where he went to Lille, and his career took a very quick turn for the better, as he recalls in an interview with the Ligue 1 side, relayed by Le Petit Lillois.
It was a chance for Acimovic to prove himself, which he wanted to do, even if the French club were then in a really bad position in the table.
“I spoke to Claude Puel. We talked and I saw the team. I don’t know how to put it, but after two or three training sessions, I knew I’d made the right choice. I brought my family, saw the town and then the results started coming. I felt good in the city, I felt like a star.”
Following his successful initial six months on loan, he moved to the Ligue 1 club on a free, and remained there for another two years.
Compared to his statistics at Tottenham, Acimovic was a success at Lille, scoring 18 goals and providing one assist in 69 games, before a serious injury stopped his season, quickly leading to a move to Saudi Arabia at Al-Ittihad in 2006.
He only stayed there for six months, before returning to Europe with Austria Vienna, where he played for another three years, eventually hanging up his boots in 2010.
