Paul Scholes (36): Secretly returned for Manchester derby
January 8, 2012. Manchester United fans rub their eyes when they see the match sheet for the FA match against city rival Man City. Paul Scholes is on the couch. Hadn’t he quit 6 months earlier? They had seen him play a goodbye match.
Scholes had maintained his condition with the reserves after his retirement and saw how his team was not playing well and was struggling with injuries. “I was nervous when I got the idea to come back to the board and Alex Ferguson. But they all said yes.”
“My teammates only heard it when I entered the dressing room before the match against City. I should have bought a cheap pair of shoes in a shoe store, because I had no sponsor anymore and Nike should not know, because then the news would have leaked “he said afterwards.
His return was quite successful. Scholes played 17 PL games that season. United also almost took the title, but a goal by Aguëro in the 94th minute ensured that it was ultimately for City based on goals. Scholes added another year in which he came on the pitch 21 more times, “but I should have stopped after the first season.”
Jens Lehmann (41): Out of club love 1 time in goal and 9 times on the bench
In March 2011, German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann came out of his football retirement for his former club Arsenal. Not easy, because Lehmann left London dissatisfied in 2008, because he had lost his place as number 1. In the summer of 2010 he said goodbye to football at Stuttgart.
But six months later, he saw his beloved Arsenal in trouble. Due to injuries to Wojciech Szczęsny, Łukasz Fabiański and Vito Mannone, the club had only 1 goalkeeper: Manuel Almunia. Lehmann put his pride aside and signed a substitute contract. Not easy, because Almunia had just driven him to the exit at Arsenal.
The reward followed three weeks later. Almunia was injured in the warm-up before the away match against Blackpool and Lehmann played. Arsenal won 1-3. It was not a great success. Lehmann did not get further than 1 base place and 9 times the role of substitute, but he did work in the hearts of the Arsenal fans.
Johan Cruijff (31): Lost so much money that he had to return
One of the greatest footballers of all time was not one of the greatest businessmen of all time. Johan Cruijff retired as a footballer when he was 31 years old because he had determined that for himself.
“I suddenly became an entrepreneur. That decision has become one of the most important lessons in my life,” he writes in his autobiography “Johan Cruijff, my story”. “Half a year after my retirement as a footballer, I lost almost all my money.”
Cruijff was ripped off. He invested in pig breeding and real estate in Ibiza, among other things, but many of his investments turned out to be cat in a bag. “The newspaper said it would be $ 6 million, but I don’t know. I think eighty percent of my assets.”
Cruijff therefore had to play football again to survive financially. He went to the LA Aztecs and would eventually play football for 6 more seasons for Levante, Ajax and Feyenoord, among others.
Marc Overmars (35): So good in gala match that he turned pro again
Marc Overmars had already stopped playing football for 4 years when he was asked for a gala match against Ajax in honor of the farewell of his former team-mate with Orange, Jaap Stam.
The quick-flank attacker had stopped at Barcelona in 2004 after persistent knee problems. But Stam’s “friend team” soon showed that he was still in top shape four years later. Ajax player George Ogăraru was turned crazy all match and Overmars also scored.
Dutch and German clubs inquired whether Overmars was considering a return. He eventually did. With the small Go Ahead Eagles, where he had been on the board for a while.
It was not a huge success. In the 2008-2009 season, he still played 24 games in the Dutch second division, but his statistics did not go beyond an assist. His last professional match was in May 2009. Coincidence or not. He left the field with a serious ankle injury.
Roger Milla (38): returned after a phone call from the president
Whoever says Roger Milla says dancing at the corner flag at the 1990 World Cup. The dance would not have seen the world without a call from Paul Biya, the 1990 President of Cameroon.
In the summer of 1987, Milla had left the life of a professional football player. He thought he was 35 years old to enjoy life on the island of Reunion, where he still had some fun with a local team. But the nation needed the attacker, the president said.
So Milla went to the World Cup in Italy, where he scored four times and led his country to the quarterfinals. Milla was not satisfied with that World Cup and so went on until the next World Cup in 1994.
There he became the oldest player ever at a World Cup (42). A record that was broken in 2014 by Colombian goalkeeper Faryd Mondragón and in 2018 by Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El Hadary (45).
Anthony Vanden Borre (32): Under the wings of Vercauteren and Kompany
The word pension has never been officially used, but it was a big surprise when Anthony Vanden Borre rejoined Anderlecht at the age of 32 in January this year after a period of two and a half years of radio silence.
In 2017 he was first received as a king in Congo by the fans of TP Mazembe, to leave as a thief in the night after a few months after an official match.
His relationship with “friend” Vincent Kompany and “confidant” Frank Vercauteren drove him a third time in the arms of Anderlecht in early 2020, but it was not a success. He will almost certainly not get a new contract.
