There's no football club in the world like Real Madrid. The Spanish side are the biggest team on the planet and the allure of playing in the Santiago Bernabeu, with those famous white jerseys on, is too much for the majority of players to turn down. Only recently, Trent Alexander-Arnold has become the latest figure to join the side. The Englishman turned his back on his boyhood club Liverpool, alienating himself from the fans who had spent years adoring him for Madrid and he's far from the first player to do so.
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Michael Owen followed that same path during his time at Liverpool, Kylian Mbappe left Paris Saint-Germain for Los Blancos last summer and there have been many, many more. There haven't been many who have actually rejected the chance to join Madrid, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been anyone.
In fact, one surprising former Premier League star had the chance to join the club during his career, but turned them down. Just over a year later, he was playing for Stoke City.
Jermaine Pennant Had the Chance to Join Real Madrid
He turned them down and went to Real Zaragoza instead
Jermaine Pennant in action for Liverpool
Known for being one of the most unpredictable players in Premier League history, Jermaine Pennant was surprisingly on Real Madrid's radar towards the end of his time with Liverpool. After joining Arsenal as a 16-year-old, he looked like a very promising young talent. He spent time on loan at Watford and Leeds United, before finding a permanent home at Birmingham City. It was during his time in the midlands that he made a real name for himself and he was snapped up by Liverpool in 2006 when he was still just 23 years old.
His time at Anfield started strongly and he spent three years in total with the Reds, spending several months in 2009 on loan at Portsmouth. That summer, though, Liverpool were ready to move on from him and, as luck would have it, Madrid came calling. Pennant ultimately, and shockingly, turned them down, however. His agent, Sky Andrew, spoke about the situation on The Sports Bar and, as quoted by talkSPORT, he said:
"[Former Liverpool chief executive] Rick Parry called me up and he said to me, ‘are you sitting down?’ So I said ‘yes’. He said: ‘We’ve agreed a fee with Real Madrid for Jermaine.’ Pennant was just one of those people, his dream was to go to Liverpool and when he messed that up, there was nowhere else to go. So I rang him and said ‘Jermaine, Liverpool have agreed a fee for you to go to Real Madrid.
"He said: ‘What’s the money’. I said to him: ‘They’re sending a private jet for you to go over there.’ He was like ‘Oh right, yeah.' Underwhelming. I wish we would have done that deal. The narrative I got from the club (Real Madrid) is they were just looking for someone as backup to sit on the bench. The more I said it to Jermaine, the more he said ‘no, I’m not sitting on the bench.’ He’s a nightmare when he’s not playing."
Instead of joining Madrid, Pennant ultimately moved to Real Zaragoza in the same division. He spent just one season with the La Liga side, though, and the very next summer, he moved back to England and joined Stoke City. He would play for the Potters for three years and then bounced around a number of different teams before retiring at Billericay Town in 2017. Things could have been drastically different if he'd joined Los Blancos.