Some transfers are celebrated before a ball is even kicked. Others fly under the radar — only to become vital pieces of silverware-winning squads, cult heroes, or defining figures of an era. In this article, we rank the 15 most underrated summer transfers in European football history, from free-agent coups to forgotten title-winners.
These aren’t the players with the most medals or the flashiest fees. They’re the ones who quietly changed clubs — and never got the recognition they deserved.
15. Diego Godín → Atlético Madrid (2010, €8m from Villarreal)
Position: Centre-back
Achievements: La Liga title (2014), 2x UCL finalist, 389 appearances
Why underrated: Godín was crucial to Simeone’s Atleti revolution, forming one of the most feared back lines in Europe.
There were so many warriors at center back throughout the 2010s, and I don’t think Diego Godin got nearly enough credit for how incredible he was during the better part of the decade for Atletico Madrid.
It’s no coincidence that Atleti’s dominance, La Liga title, and appearances in multiple Champions League Finals not long after being seen as jokes in comparison to rivals Real Madrid all came shortly after Godin joined them.
For less than 10 million euros, Atletico Madrid signed quite literally one of the best center backs in La Liga history and one of the best players in any position during the 2010s.
Sergio Ramos may have been the best center back of the era, but Godin was legitimately right behind him in terms of La Liga’s best central defenders. He and Joao Miranda were an exceptional pair, and Godin’s hard-nosed defensive style and leadership really epitomized those Atletico defenses under Diego Simeone.
14. Edin Džeko → Roma (2016, €11m from Manchester City)
Position: Striker
Achievements: Serie A top scorer (2016–17), 119 goals for Roma
Why underrated: Arrived as a City cast-off, became a prolific and consistent No.9 for Roma and Inter.
Edin Dzeko was always a fantastic footballer. You don’t make it to back-to-back Bundesliga Team of the Seasons, lead the league in goals, win the Player’s Player of the Season, and dethrone Bayern Munich at VfL Wolfsburg by accident.
The greatest Bosnian footballer in history, Dzeko parlayed his breakout years in Wolfsburg into a big move to Manchester City, where he played a critical but understated role in establishing City’s rise to power in England.
But when you look at his overall career, his finest work honestly came with Roma in terms of how he matured into a wonderful all-around striker who was just as likely to create chances for others with a deft pass or a brilliant piece of strong hold-up play as he was to send the back of the net bulging with a clinical finish.
Dzeko helped orchestrate an unlikely Champions League semifinal run for Roma as a member of the Champions League Squad of the Season, one year after he led the Europa League and Serie A in goals. To think a player of his pedigree and caliber cost Roma just 11 million euros!
The best part is, Dzeko was a quality starter for Roma until he turned 35, helping his team finish no lower than seventh in all his seasons in the Italian capital with four seasons with more than 12 goals and five seasons with more than five.
13. Júlio César → Inter Milan (2005, ~€2.5m from Flamengo/Chievo)
Position: Goalkeeper
Achievements: 5x Serie A, 2010 Champions League winner
Why underrated: At the heart of Mourinho’s treble-winning Inter but rarely mentioned among all-time great keepers.
Julio Cesar is one of the most underrated footballers in history, and he is as important as any of the legends on the 2009/10, Jose Mourinho-led Inter Milan side that became the first – and so far only – Italian team to win the treble.
The Brazilian shot-stopper was every bit as good as Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon when he was in his prime for Inter, yet while Buffon was a record-breaking transfer for Juventus and Iker literally dubbed a “Saint” by Real Madrid fans, Cesar has been forgotten by most world football fans, save for the few cultured hipsters who remember his spellbinding saves in Nerazzurri colors.
Cesar won five straight Serie A titles from the moment he joined Inter Milan, never allowing a goal per game in any of those seasons. He had three seasons with a save percentage above 80 and never had a save percentage below 76.6, which is just mind-boggling and, again, as good of a five-year window as any goalkeeping legend in the history of the modern game.
12. Wissam Ben Yedder → Sevilla (2016, €9m from Toulouse)
Position: Forward
Achievements: 70+ goals for Sevilla, crucial in Europe
Why underrated: One of the most efficient scorers of his generation. Almost never made headlines.
Wissam Ben Yedder eventually got his cred from fans in the know online, reminiscing on his scoring title chases with Kylian Mbappe in Ligue 1, but his finest work before all that in Spain at Sevilla is still largely lost to the sands of time.
The Moroccan international never won anything meaningful for Sevilla, but his all-around production in his three seasons in Spain were so good that he eventually left the club for 40 million euros to Monaco – where he became a little more famous, though still underrated – in 2019.
Worth five times more leaving Sevilla than he was on the transfer market upon his arrival, Ben Yedder carried the Nervionenses to the 2018 Copa del Rey Final with a joint-high (with Lionel Messi) five goals in the competition.
And in his final season in Sevilla, Ben Yedder outdid himself with 18 goals and 9 assists, the latter still standing to this day as the highest single-season haul in the Frenchman’s understated career.
11. Miroslav Klose → Lazio (2011, Free from Bayern Munich)
Position: Striker
Achievements: 63 goals in Serie A, club icon status
Why underrated: World Cup legend who brought class, leadership, and consistent goals to Lazio late in his career.
Miroslav Klose was already a legend by the time he left German football for a new challenge in Italy, as he was the leading goal-scorer at the 2006 World Cup – and would eventually break the all-time record in 2014 when he and Germany finally won the big one. He did that, by the way, as a Lazio player.
The eagle-eyed finisher spent five seasons with Lazio to close his career, meaning he actually spent more years in the Italian capital than he did playing for German powerhouses Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich.
Klose left Bayern for Lazio for free having scored just 3 goals in 25 appearances and 1 in 20 in his final seasons in Bavaria, with most pundits in Germany writing the 33-year-old as finished.
Well he ended up following in a long tradition of old-but-gold forwards to prove the world wrong with Lazio, as he scored 28 goals in his first two league seasons combined.
Klose never scored fewer than seven goals in any of his five seasons in Lazio and reached a total of five assists in three seasons, aging beautifully and reinventing himself as a more well-rounded No. 9 during his time in Italy, which was actually his reputation at Werder with 29 assists in his three seasons there.
10. Ivan Rakitić → Sevilla (2011, €2.5m from Schalke 04)
Position: Midfielder
Achievements: Sevilla captain, Europa League champion
Why underrated: Before Barcelona, he was the heartbeat of a rebuilding Sevilla side that would dominate Europe.
There’s no doubt that Ivan Rakitic is a Barcelona icon and a key player in a side that dominated European football in the 2014/15 season, even if he was overshadowed by the legendary attacking trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar – as well as Xavi and Andres Iniesta.
But before Rakitic helped Croatia reach a World Cup Final and before he won the treble with Barca – or even arrived in Catalunya – Rakitic was already one of the best overall players in La Liga for Sevilla.
A quality but highly underrated midfielder for one of German football’s biggest clubs in Schalke, Rakitic made the jump to Spain for mere pennies on the dollar and became a central figure and a leadership pillar for Sevilla, who would go on to become one of the greatest Europa League sides of all time.
Rakitic won two Europa League titles in Seville and had a combined 20 goals and 19 assists in his final two seasons there, putting up the kind of production from midfield that even forwards were jealous of.
9. Steve McManaman → Real Madrid (1999, Free from Liverpool)
Position: Midfielder
Achievements: 2x Champions League, 2x La Liga titles
Why underrated: Free transfer who scored in a UCL final and was adored in Madrid — but forgotten in England.
Steve McManaman won more Champions League titles for Real Madrid than Galacticos Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario, Michael Owen, or David Beckham, yet he is forgotten by many English fans and even reviled by some Real Madrid supporters who dislike his punditry on the team.
It seems like McManaman is more well-known, especially by younger fans, as a pundit rather than a legitimately world-class player in his day for both Liverpool and Real Madrid.
The boyhood Everton fan is one of the greatest free agent transfers in history, as he was a top player for Liverpool before becoming the exact kind of professional squad player Real Madrid needed.
McManaman wasn’t as big of a name as his Real Madrid teammates, but he was plenty capable technically and never made a fuss about his work. He could transcend the big moments in games, too, as evidenced by a class volley against Valencia in a Champions League Final.
Although there’s little doubt that Beckham was the superior footballer, McManaman was actually the bigger Real Madrid legend for all his production on the pitch and accolades with the team, yet he isn’t seen with nearly the same level of fondness. McManaman was the perfect complement on the pitch to all the Galacticos, taking up any position and doing whatever it took for the others – and the team as a whole – to shine.
8. Makoto Hasebe → Eintracht Frankfurt (2014, Free from Nürnberg)
Position: Defensive Midfielder / Centre-back
Achievements: Europa League champion, DFB Pokal winner, club captain
Why underrated: Rebuilt himself as a sweeper in his mid-30s and became the brain of Frankfurt’s back line.
A true legend of the Bundesliga, Makoto Hasebe is a great barometer test to use on people if you really want to test how much they know about football. Because if you know the game, you know that Hasebe was one of the most technically gifted, gritty, underrated, versatile, and classy center backs of the second half of the 2010s.
Initially brought in to play defensive midfield, Hasebe shifted to center back within a year or two of his Frankfurt career, and that was the change he needed to go from a fairly mediocre midfielder into a world-beater and an eventual Europa League champion.
Hasebe played until he was 40. He has the third-most appearances in Bundesliga history of any non-German player, and the Japanese defender is literally one of only a handful of Bundesliga players to suit up into his 40s.
Most people have no idea who Hasebe is, but ask any Eintracht fan or diehard Bundesliga supporter, and they will tell you that Hasebe was one of the greatest leaders, ball-playing center backs, and coach-on-the-field-type tacticians in the history of the German game. And he was completely free.
7. Nicolás Tagliafico → Ajax (2018, €4m from Independiente)
Position: Left-back
Achievements: UCL semifinalist (2018–19), 3x Eredivisie titles
Why underrated: Embodied Ajax’s intensity, leadership, and pressing in their surprise UCL run.
You could arguably fill a list of 15 on Ajax players alone, but Nicolas Tagliafico deserves a lot more mention here. Though only one of his two Copa America titles came while he was at Ajax and the World Cup triumph with Argentina technically doesn’t count on his club ledger, they do serve to show you the caliber of left back Ajax uneartehd in 2018.
Nearly as brilliant of a bargain as Marcelo from South America and far less celebrated, Tagliafico was a vital part of the fairytale Ajax side that was a Tottenham comeback away from having a very, very good shot at winning a Champions League title and becoming the only team besides Jose Mourinho’s Porto win a Champions League crown outside of Europe’s top five leagues.
Tagliafico was a dogged defender for years for Ajax and a solid two-way left back who tirelessly bombed up the pitch, put wingers in shackles defensively, and could even score a goal or two.
6. Christian Maggio → Napoli (2008, €8m from Sampdoria)
Position: Right wing-back
Achievements: 300+ appearances, Coppa Italia winner x2
Why underrated: Defined Napoli’s resurgence with relentless work rate and consistency, but was never flashy.
Fullbacks tend to get underrated pretty easily, and Napoli have had their fair share of talented fullbacks who flew under the radar. The best of them was a bargain signing from fellow historic Italian club Sampdoria in 2008, as Christian Maggio ended up becoming a crucial part of Napoli’s rebuild into a Champions League team and one of the most exciting attacking sides in Europe.
Understandably, Napoli were more known over the years for fielding exceptional attacking talents like Dries Mertens, Lorenzo Insigne, Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi, and Marek Hamsik, but Maggio was also a top-class player in his own right.
The attacking right back made three straight Serie A Teams of the Season to kick off the 2010s and won a total of three cup trophies for the Partenopei,
5. Martín Demichelis → Málaga (2010, Free from Bayern Munich)
Position: Centre-back
Achievements: UCL quarterfinalist, key figure in Málaga’s golden era
Why underrated: Experienced, composed, and crucial in Málaga’s short-lived but historic rise.
Another player who proved he had more left in the tank than Bayern Munich thought, Martin Demichelis, arrived in Malaga as the new defensive leader of an ambitious sporting project in La Liga, and he brought his wealth of title-winning experience in Bavaria to help the dream Malaga side achieve its improbable success story in both La Liga and the Champions League.
Demichelis would continue his career at two more prestigious clubs in Atletico Madrid and Manchester City after his trio of seasons in Malaga were up, but his cult hero status was fully unlocked during those years of top-quality defending.
4. Diego Forlán → Villarreal (2004, Free from Manchester United)
Position: Forward
Achievements: La Liga Golden Boot, UEFA Super Cup winner
Why underrated: People remember his United struggles and World Cup — but not how he torched La Liga.
Everyone knows Diego Forlan for the way he mastered the fabled Jabulani ball at the 2010 World Cup, helping Uruguay reach the semifinals in a crazy underdog story – that came at the expense of another underdog story in Ghana’s.
Forlan was one of the best strikers of his era in terms of technical quality and an eye for the spectacular, but he actually had a reputation for being a flop long before he became one of the most beloved figures in world football in 2010.
The golden-haired forward began his career with Manchester United, and while he did score six goals in a title-winning season at the age of 22, his four seasons at Old Trafford were, by and large, highly disappointing with the Uruguayan legend finishing third in the other three seasons with no more than four goals.
After playing just one game in his final campaign with United, Forlan made the jump to La Liga for free, and he was an immediate success at Villarreal and never looked back from then.
Forlan banged home 24 goals in his inaugural season in Spain for the Yellow Submarine, and he would score 10 and 19 more in subsequent seasons before becoming an even bigger legend in Spanish football with Atletico Madrid.
3. José Fonte → Lille (2018, Free from West Ham)
Position: Centre-back
Achievements: Ligue 1 title (2020–21), club captain
Why underrated: Joined at 36, captained Lille to an improbable title, and outplayed far younger stars.
Portugal has produced many great center backs in the modern era, with Pepe and Ricardo Carvalho of Real Madrid fame being the two most celebrated, and now Manchester City’s former Premier League Player of the Season Ruben Dias is joining them in stature.
But the excellence of former Southampton man Jose Fonte in Ligue 1 should not be ignored, as the veteran journeyman ended up becoming a key leader and a pillar of the defense alongside young Dutchman Sven Botman in Lille’s miracle 2020/21 league title triumph over Mauricio Pochettino and Kylian Mbappe’s PSG.
Dethroning PSG in the Qatar era takes some doing, and the only other team to do that was another Luis Campos-constructed outfit in Monaco, which had a cadre of a generational talents in the squad like the aforementioned Mbappe and future Man City star Bernardo Silva.
Lille didn’t have as many big names, but they had the right faces in the right roles, such as bargain bin free agent Fonte. Then 36 at the time, Fonte delivered defensive monsterclass after defensive monsterclass in all five of his underrated seasons in Lille, with his finest work obviously coming in 2020/21 when Les Dogue hoisted the French title.
2. James Milner → Liverpool (2015, Free from Manchester City)
Position: Utility midfielder
Achievements: Champions League, Premier League, 300+ Liverpool appearances
Why underrated: Became the ultimate professional and Klopp’s trusted man — often mocked for being boring.
James Milner was the never-say-die, run-his-socks-off midfielder and utility player for Liverpool during their peak years under Jurgen Klopp in which they were truly the second-best team in European football behind only Real Madrid, reaching a total of three Champions League Finals in five seasons.
Even though Milner was one of the more talented players in English football at both West Ham and Manchester City, Liverpool needed to spend nothing to sign the midfielder from their future title rivals.
Milner was there throughout the rebuild, playing a leadership role to the youngsters as the Reds went from the eighth-best team in England to the literal best in 2020.
Even though Milner spent eight seasons at Anfield and played there until he was 37, he never made fewer than 20 appearances for the club and will always be an icon for the Reds.
1. Benjamin André → Lille (2019, ~€8m from Rennes)
Position: Defensive Midfielder
Achievements: Ligue 1 champion, Lille’s midfield engine
Why underrated: No headlines. No hype. Just elite ball-winning, discipline, and balance behind a title-winning team.
The 2020/21 Ligue 1 champions, Lille were built on the backs of underrated players who put their blood, sweat, and tears into the team, and defensive midfielder Benjamin Andre was every bit as influential to that team as Jose Fonte or anyone else.
Andre joined Les Dogues in 2019 after a handful of exceptional but incredibly understated years as the midfield engine for Rennes, and he seamlessly picked up where he left off in the north of France, turning Lille into title winners just a year after joining.
The French international recorded at least 2.7 tackles per game in all six seasons with Lille, including two seasons with more than two interceptions per match, four seasons with at least 3.3 tackles per game, and two seasons with at least 3.7 tackles per contest.
Andre’s defensive numbers match up comparably with literally any defensive midfielder of that era, including Real Madrid legend Casemiro’s, and he was even a quality creator on the ball. He is one of the best midfielders in the history of Ligue 1, yet most people who call themselves fans of the beautiful game don’t even know who he is.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.