5 famous footballers you forgot played in the Premier League

The Premier League has hosted legends, icons and cult heroes, but it’s also quietly featured some wild cameos that feel almost fictional in hindsight. This list includes an actual President of a country and the undisputed king of the trivela…

These weren’t long, glorious chapters. Most were brief, chaotic, or blink-and-you-miss-it spells that slipped through football’s collective memory.

Here are five famous footballers you probably forgot played in the Premier League, and the bizarre stories behind how it happened.

5) Roberto Mancini – The manager who came to scout

Long before delivering Manchester City their first Premier League title, Roberto Mancini quietly dipped his toe into English football as a player.

In 2001, a 36-year-old Mancini joined Leicester City on loan. The move was less about football and more about education. He wanted to understand the English game before moving into management.

He played just four matches, never completed a full 90 minutes, lived in a hotel, then received a phone call offering him the Fiorentina job. Mancini flew back to Italy mid-season and never returned. No farewell, no announcement. Just gone.

4) Marco Materazzi – Chaos before immortality

To the world, Marco Materazzi is the man forever linked to Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt. But if there’s a faction of fans who saw that headbutt coming nearly a decade ago, it’s the Evertonians.

Between 1998 and 1999, a young Materazzi played for Everton, and was absolute mayhem. In just 27 appearances, he was sent off three times. Three.

One red card ended with Materazzi sitting on the advertising boards in tears. Everton fans remember him as a lunatic. A decade later, he was a World Cup winner and an Inter Milan legend. Premier League football never quite knew what to do with him.

3) Ricardo Quaresma – The king of the trivela

If football had an aesthetic Hall of Fame, Ricardo Quaresma would walk straight in. Outside-of-the-foot passes, impossible angles, pure vibes.

In 2009, Luiz Felipe Scolari brought him to Chelsea on loan from Inter to add flair. Instead, chaos followed. Scolari was sacked almost immediately, and Guus Hiddink had little patience for Quaresma’s work rate.

The result? Four league appearances, zero goals but maximum aura. Quaresma left London having barely played, yet somehow remaining one of the coolest players to ever flop in the Premier League.

2) Samuel Eto’o – A glitch in the footballing matrix

Everyone remembers Samuel Eto’o at Barcelona, Inter and even Chelsea but far fewer remember his surreal 2014 spell at Everton.

This was a striker who’d won back-to-back trebles, lining up for wet midweek fixtures at Goodison Park. It felt wrong.

Eto’o scored four goals in 20 appearances, showed flashes of his old intelligence, and then vanished almost as quickly as he arrived. After just five months, his contract was terminated by mutual consent so he could join Sampdoria.

1) George Weah – The Ballon d’Or winner before the Presidency

Before becoming the President of Liberia, George Weah was one of the greatest players on the planet. The only African Ballon d’Or winner, a god at AC Milan, and, briefly, a Premier League cult hero.

In 2000, Weah joined Chelsea on loan and instantly won fans over by scoring the winner against Tottenham on his debut. He even picked up an FA Cup medal.

Then came the truly strange part. He moved to Manchester City, then a newly promoted side. After being benched by Joe Royle, Weah walked out after just 11 games, saying he felt “disrespected.” Premier League cameo complete.