Bolton Wanderers and Sam Allardyce struck gold with Real Madrid icon | OneFootball

The signing of former Real Madrid captain Fernando Hierro proved to be a brilliant one by Bolton Wanderers and Sam Allardyce.

During the 2000s, Bolton Wanderers were regularly bloodying the nose of England’s elite as they legitimately competed for a top four finish and UEFA Champions League qualification on more than one occasion in the Premier League.

They had an array of stars throughout their squad, from cult-heroes such as Jussi Jaaskelainen, Ricardo Gardner, Kevin Nolan, El-Hadji Diouf and Kevin Davies to legitimate stars of the European and world game in the likes of Ivan Campo, Gary Speed, Youri Djorkaeff, Jay-Jay Okocha, Stelios Giannakopoulos and Nicolas Anelka.

Sam Allardyce scoured the international market to bring in players with big reputations, perhaps only for short but successful periods such as Vincent Candela and Jared Borgetti, or underwhelming stints like Hidetoshi Nakata and Mario Jardel. Deals for the likes of Rivaldo and Patrick Kluivert also fell through.

One man who arrived for a short period of time but left as one of the best to pull on the Bolton shirt was former Real Madrid and Spanish national team captain, Fernando Hierro.

“He came from Real Madrid, he didn’t cost a quid”

As the Bolton supporters’ chant puts it quite simply: “Hierro, woah, Hierro, woah, he came from Real Madrid, he didn’t cost a quid,” – the former Madrid skipper joined Bolton on a free transfer from Qatari side Al Rayyan in the summer of 2004.

Hierro arrived having spent a year playing in the Middle-East but, despite playing at a lower level for the previous 12 months, his level remained pretty much immaculate for the season he spent at the Reebok Stadium.

A centre-back for much of his career at the Bernabeu, he occasionally filled in there for Allardyce’s Whites, too, but his incredible grace, touch and vision meant Allardyce often deployed him a defensive midfield role to read the game.

He made just 35 appearances for the Trotters in the 2004/05 season as they missed out on UEFA Champions League qualification to Everton by just three points, whilst also having a better goal difference than the Toffees.

Despite so few appearances in the grand scheme of things, many Wanderers supporters to this day will happily declare him one of, if not the most talented players to wear the Bolton shirt, and they were desperate for him to stay, but he instead chose to retire and play his last ever professional game whilst at the Reebok.

‘Galacticos’ to ‘Big Sam’s Galacticos’

The early to mid-noughties saw Real Madrid embark upon the so-called ‘Galacticos’ project with the likes of Roberto Carlos, Claude Makelele, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Luís Figo, Steve McManaman and Ronaldo signed by Los Blancos, as well as the likes of academy graduates such as Guti and Raul.

It often didn’t work or ever look like working for much of that period, but there were a few players that held things together, aside from Makelele, who was eventually sold to Chelsea, and arguably the most important of all was indeed Hierro.

The man who led Spain at the 2018 FIFA World Cup following the sudden departure of Julen Lopetegui on the eve of the tournament and someone who earned 89 caps for his country, scoring a remarkable 29 goals for a defensive player, was a key pillar of arguably the world’s biggest club for well over a decade before moving to Bolton.

He helped Madrid win five La Liga titles, a Copa del Rey, four Supercopa de Espana, three UEFA Champions League trophies, two Intercontinental Cups as well as a UEFA Super Cup.

Bolton had plenty of stars throughout the noughties and Allardyce built a team of ‘Galacticos’ for himself in Lancashire, but in terms of sheer class and pedigree, Hierro would have to perhaps rank as the highest of them all.