Emi Buendia - Injured

[exigo]

Creative/attacking midfield is not an area of the pitch many of us have been asking to address which does make me a bit concerned that this is partly an insurance move against Grealish leaving (the journalist Miguel Delaney apparently thinks Jack to Citeh is happening). But hopefully, Jack and Emi can be together in electric dreams for us.

I see it as insurance, but not against Jack leaving, more a lesson learned about how our form dipped when he was unavailable, or off form personally.  This just feels like an attempt to make us less of a one-man creative force.  I think it's a brilliant sign of how the club is run these days.  "This was an issue last season, how do we fix it? Oh, right, well let's get the deal done as quickly as possible with the least amount of fuss imaginable"

Delaney is close to the Manchester clubs, and doubtless from City's point of view they can't imagine why Jack wouldn't go there this summer, but nobody I've seen who reports close to the Villa seems to think it's inevitable at all. Evans in the Athletic reported we want Buendia to play with Jack.

Sure it was in the Athletic that I read Jack was told before he linked up with England that we wouldn't be accepting any bids for him, and this summer was all about bringing the rest of the team up to the standards he deserves. And that Jack was looking forward to next season with us.

[The Edge]

They seem to dislike Mings more than is healthy as well. Did he do something to offend them sometime?

Throw in a bit of casual curry-based racism about the B6 area and you have yourself a perfect storm of a fanbase in total meltdown.

A couple of years ago we played them on the last day of the season. They won the Championship title on our pitch and a packed Villa Park allowed them their big moment and applauded them. The hallowed turf of the fifth most successful club in English football history was given over to them for the day. But anyone who understands football in this country knows it was a bump in the road for us. Well now we're back from those dark days and are elbowing our way back to the top where we belong. Sorry if we've ruffled a few Canary feathers but 30+ million quid landing in their account should soften the blow. There's going to be plenty more clubs who get their egos deflated by us but to be honest I couldn't give a fuck. As David Bradley put it in the brilliant "140 years" video WE'RE ASTON VILLA.

[N'ZMAV]

Arsenal and Norwich fans online haven't got a clue. Signing Buendia clearly means Grealish is off. Right. Ok.

[mr underhill]

Why would Grealish join Arsenal? Why? Hubristic, pompous, entitled wankpots.

[chrisw1]

I think this is an excellent signing.  The fact we beat Arsenal to him is also a great coup and big statement of intent.

Brilliant stuff.

[The Edge]

I don't think we should underestimate the influence Emi Martinez had in this one. He spent years being totally unused and unrated by Arsenal. Now look at him. I'm guessing obviously but I'm pretty sure those two had a conversation and Emis advice was to come to Villa. The guys fast becoming a legend at Villa Park.

[Villa Lew]

Sounds great news, but I'll be celebrating, when the deal's done.

[CT]

Why would Grealish join Arsenal? Why? Hubristic, pompous, entitled wankpots.

With regards to Arsenal fans, I really couldn’t put that any better.

[Drummond]

X from The Athletic (written in January)


Norwich City’s FA Cup tie with Coventry was all but won yet Emi Buendia still jogged on for an 18-minute cameo — long enough to create a chance, scream towards the heavens after being ignored for a pass and stare venomously into the stands (despite them being empty).

In some ways, it was a fitting 100th appearance for the club’s third, and most-used, Argentinian player; their only South American goalscorer.

Norwich have won precisely one league game without Buendia since he arrived in 2018. He looked like a Premier League player more than most in Daniel Farke’s relegation-bound squad last season. One way or another, Buendia will return to the country’s top flight this summer.

His story since making his Norwich debut is well known, his impact enough for supporters to label him “Football Heaven”, but what led a midfielder from Argentina to ascend to such heights in a rural corner of England?

This is “the fat kid” Norwich gambled to sign. The “difficult-to-manage” fighter. The petulant talent who still seemed beyond their recruitment power. Norwich’s dirty little secret.

This is Emi Buendia in Spain.

“You are seeing the football now that I saw when he was a child. His ambition. His desire to develop, improve and reach the highest level.” — Pablo Franco

Some people saw it. Some didn’t. Buendia spoke in depth to The Athletic in August 2019 about his upbringing in Argentina’s Atlantic coastal resort of Mar del Plata, the futbol de potrero (street football) that formed him, supporting River Plate and some of the sacrifices his family made for his opportunities.

Playing for Cadetes de San Martin from the age of five was Buendia’s beginning. Come 2008, after catching the eye of Juan Esnaider, the former Atletico Madrid and Juventus striker (also from Mar del Plata) arranged for the 11-year-old to have a trial at Real Madrid.

It was successful. For the first six months, Buendia lived with Esnaider and other young footballers before his parents, Karina and Eduardo, brought the family to Madrid permanently, including Buendia’s two younger brothers, Augustin and Joaquin. Both had to repeat a year of their education after arriving in Spain.

The academy was daunting. Zinedine Zidane’s eldest sons — Enzo, a No 10, was two years up, with goalkeeper Luca a year below – sandwiched Buendia. He had learned to dribble and beat players in Argentina but in Spain, Buendia needed time to adjust to the higher passing tempo. Already behind in his physical development, a knee injury in the 2009-10 season left him chasing minutes to shine before that campaign finished.

When it did, Real Madrid felt he wouldn’t get much game time the following year. Buendia’s two “dreamy” seasons were over.

The only remaining evidence is a post from partisan supporters’ website, Defensa Central, on December 28, 2009, wishing happy birthday to promising 19-year-old left-back Marcos Alonso. Tagged to the bottom was a similar sentiment to a talent in their youth ranks. Buendia had turned 13 three days earlier. The Argentinian’s birthday falling on Christmas Day has never been lost on Norwich supporters.

Esnaider stepped in again. Within days, Buendia was signed by the academy of another La Liga club: Getafe.

That kept him in Madrid: good news for the Carlos Sainz Karting track, where Buendia regularly raced with friends and family. He owned his own kart in Argentina and can still handle himself on the track — Buendia won Norwich’s karting grand prix during their pre-season camp in Germany last year.


Buendia’s rise through Getafe’s junior ranks soon progressed at a similar pace.

Pablo Franco was looking at his new squad and he was worried. It was only July 2014 and, having joined the club as Getafe’s B-team manager, surviving a season in Spain’s regionalised third tier already looked problematic.

Fortunately, not all his players were in front of him.

“Our sporting director, Carlos Guerrero, told me about some of the players who were actually with the first team,” Franco tells The Athletic. “Mateo Garcia was our Juvenile C (under-18) head coach and also Emi’s coach at Real Madrid. He said to me, ‘He’s very short, so you’re going to see him and say he can’t play with us but I can tell you, he’s a very good player’.”

The previous season, Garcia noticed Buendia was not being used by Getafe Under-17s and asked if he could take him. Within two weeks, he was asked to train with Getafe B. After the session, he was told “come back tomorrow” until Buendia earned his senior football debut that March, a 2-1 win at Puerta Bonita. At 17, Buendia was the youngest player to appear in the division that season.

Under Franco, Buendia remained one of the youngest in Getafe B’s squad.

“When you see him for the first time, you see Emi has everything. It was like seeing a spark. Magic. You are paying attention because it’s something you have never seen before,” says Franco, now manager of Kuwaiti side, Qadsia.

“You realised he could play with both feet, shoot really hard and really accurately. He was making good decisions when only 18 years old and making them without hesitation. He was brave in those situations. We would be winning and he’s still arriving in the box to finish an action because he has the desire to score. If we lost the ball, he reacted quick; fighting the opponent, tackling. In just a few minutes, you could see he was doing everything in terms of intensity and ambition at a higher level than the professional players. It was just, ‘Wow’.”

Three goals in two games under Franco saw Buendia earn his first-team bow in a Copa del Rey win over Eibar in the December. By January, Quique Sanchez Flores’s second spell in charge of Getafe had begun and once February arrived, Buendia was handed his La Liga debut at Almeria. Aged 18 years and 37 days, he was the youngest player to represent Getafe in the competition, going on to help them reach the Copa quarter-finals that season.

“It was a difficult period for the club,” Sanchez Flores tells The Athletic. “They didn’t have money for new players, so we needed to take players from the academy, and one of the best was Emi. He was very focused; convinced he would be a professional.

“He needed to improve in his defensive tasks but he was a very good player. He didn’t look afraid of anything, always asking for the ball and wanting to help the team. Already more mature than 18. His body was small but compact. He had that power.

“We just told Emi to force the defensive tasks, be careful, pay attention, but when you take the ball, please bring your quality and create solutions. I prefer good players to follow their instinct to invent different things; to feel the freedom. I remember he was improving fast.”

Buendia’s former Getafe team-mate Diego Castro, now with Perth Glory in Australia, adds: “You could already see he had a different mindset. We’d been doing cardio tests to see who could keep running. I felt I’d always be top five — then Emi came through and smashed everybody. That was the first time it had happened to me like that.

“It stuck with me that he was willing to commit so he could reach a better level. He carried football in his mind for 24 hours. Even if a coach or someone else could not trust him, he always knew what path to follow.”

Despite Buendia’s first-team impact, his return to the B team did not always please Franco. The day after being an unused substitute for Getafe’s home La Liga win over Espanyol in the February, Getafe B had a 500km trip to Basque side Real Union. Buendia and three other first-team substitutes the previous night were driven north by Guerrero to make kick-off.

“I was feeling, when Emi came back from the first team, he was not training at the same level,” recalls Franco. “He was a little lazier or saving himself for the big guys, so I had to be tough and make him react. I started the other three players and played Emi for only 20 minutes.

“It was a tough situation for him. I know he was angry. He was with the first team, making a big effort to get to a B-team game, then the coach was not playing him. Sometimes, relationships between players and coaches are not the best but when you’re looking for the best — for the player and the team — it works. He learned from that. I hope he remembers this situation with a little fondness.

“He was not easy to manage. He was an amazing person but as a player, you had a fighter every day in the training ground. That’s fantastic for a head coach in effort, intensity and quality, but also difficult for keeping a good atmosphere with the team. There can be many disputes. I understood it was part of Emi’s game. I loved it but I also knew sometimes I had to be hard.

“Emi always reacted well. That’s why he’s reaching the level he’s reaching. It wasn’t a matter of power but ambition. He would always go 200 per cent at everything. Sometimes he made mistakes, but he was a kid. His family, especially his father, loves football. He loves him and paid him a lot of attention. Most training sessions, he showed up. Every game. He never said anything to the coaches or the club, respected every decision we made. He (Buendia’s father) also gave a good education to Emi. He got him to think of reasons why he wouldn’t be playing, to learn from it and change it.

“But Emi was really brave, even when he was promoted to the first team. He would kick the veteran players with everything and understood he’d get kicked even harder back! He would never complain; only respect it and keep going. That was the best thing.”

Buendia’s next appearance for Franco turned out to be his second in La Liga, against Villarreal. Sanchez Flores walked out after just 21 days back at Getafe. By April, Franco was interim first-team manager and Buendia made his first senior start in special circumstances: against Barcelona in the Nou Camp.

Buendia’s compatriot and one of his idols, Lionel Messi, scored twice that day. Another, Javier Mascherano, was an unused substitute. Buendia left the stadium with both players’ shirts. Xavi, Neymar and Luis Suarez (twice) completed Getafe’s 6-0 defeat.

“Only once in my life have I seen Emi’s face show fear,” says Franco. “He was closer to a loose ball than his opponent, right in front of me. We were certain Emi would get the ball, then suddenly, we were looking at each other going, ‘Where is it? Where’s the other guy? What happened?’ Emi’s face was like he had seen a ghost.”

Rather, it was a close encounter of the Messi kind.

Buendia made one more substitute appearance under Franco. Getafe survived their tax issues and relegation scare but the Spaniard was a casualty come the summer.

With the second half waiting on the Nou Camp pitch, Messi had a question for Buendia. He had to come closer for Buendia to hear him over the crowd. He asked if Humberto had called him.

“Humberto” was Humberto Grondona, Argentina Under-20s head coach. Buendia happened to be a Spain Under-19s international at the time. He wasn’t sure how to answer.

Seven months earlier, Buendia’s emergence for Getafe B prompted Spain’s scouts to invite him to train with their under-19s during their 2015 European Championship preparations. Buendia had been granted Spanish citizenship earlier in the year. By the November, he had played twice for his adopted country in a friendly tournament in Greece.

The fear of losing Buendia to Spain permanently stirred the Argentine Football Association (AFA) into action. Grondona was preparing for the Under-20s World Cup in New Zealand that summer and travelled to Madrid in mid-April. Buendia played the final seven minutes against Villarreal. The pair had dinner together that evening.

By the time Buendia was facing Barcelona, there was already a call-up letter waiting for him from the AFA. The only thing faster than Buendia’s acceptance was his resignation from Spain’s summer preparations.

“He was an Argentine guy with a very Argentine family. He loves asados (a traditional Argentine barbeque), he loves Argentine football and he loves Messi, so when the national team called, he couldn’t continue playing for Spain,” says Franco. “Playing for Spain may have been an easier way, but he chose the more emotional way. It was pure love.”

Despite being six-time Under-20 World Cup winners, Argentina failed to win a group game in New Zealand — including a shock 3-2 loss to Ghana — and were eliminated. However, Buendia’s individual reviews were encouraging. He finished the summer with five appearances and two goals for his country.

While Buendia’s dream remains to play for Argentina at senior level and there were hopes playing in the Premier League could prompt a call-up last season, he has not made an international appearance since.

He didn’t know it, but life had already peaked for Buendia at Getafe.

The attacking midfielder was in and out of Fran Escriba’s side in the 2015-16 season. Another 6-0 defeat at the Nou Camp came in a run of four games where he was deployed at right-back. His first senior goal — a cute near-post finish after breaking free from inside his own half in a 3-0 home La Liga win over Levante in the September — felt a long time ago.

With six games of the season to play and having gone 12 without victory, Escriba was fired and replaced by the man who had brought Buendia to Spain: Esnaider.

There was no happy ending, though. Getafe’s relegation was confirmed by a 2-1 final-day defeat at Real Betis. They were already losing when Buendia was introduced on the hour. He lasted 19 minutes.

Betis doubled their lead three minutes before Buendia’s rash kick at Dani Ceballos earned a straight red card. Alvaro Medran’s late goal was barely a consolation. Coincidentally, on-loan Norwich striker Ricky van Wolfswinkel, the club’s record signing at the time, was an unused substitute for Betis that day.

Getafe dropped to the Segunda Division for the first time in 12 years. Buendia signed a new five-year contract that summer but an ankle injury prevented him ever playing for Esnaider again. By October, it was Jose Bordalas in charge, with former Liverpool forward and Norwich loanee Dani Pacheco among those keeping Buendia out of the team.

Bordalas returned Getafe to La Liga at the first attempt, finishing eighth in the top flight the following season. But all too often, Buendia was not involved. Come 2017-18, it became clear his future — temporarily at least — would lie elsewhere.

“I can’t help feeling Emi was like a son to Juan,” adds Castro. “Sometimes, you don’t get many chances. In the top division, all the players have got quality and the coach has less time to build up young players.

“Emi could run better than us all but the football IQ and tactical quality comes during your career. The important players at Getafe at the time would say when Emi gets the IQ and adds that to his running and quality, it would be amazing. It’s clear it’s happened now.”

The speculation had started in January 2017. Out of favour at Getafe, English tabloid newspapers were carrying Buendia’s name, Swansea’s interest and tales of a potential loan to put the Argentinian in a bigger shop window. That move did not happen and by the summer, Swansea were distancing themselves from continued links.

More likely was a Segunda Division loan and there was plenty of interest there, led by Cultural Leonesa: a traditional club in north west Spain adjusting to life under the Qatari ownership of Aspire Academy, who also had links to Leeds United and Belgian top-flight outfit KAS Eupen.

They were also embarking on their first second-tier campaign for 43 years.

Buendia’s signing had been prepared for weeks; hard to get done and laden with fears of a late collapse. The chance for him to take a leading role on the pitch proved decisive.

“He seemed like a normal boy but with a naughty face. He had the inspiration of street football,” Cultural’s press chief at the time, German Romo, tells The Athletic.

Buendia scored one goal and made six more in his first 10 league appearances in a fast start. Against better sides, Leonesa came unstuck but manager Ruben de la Barrera still had a team that could trouble most of the division.

A 4-4 draw at home to neighbours Real Valladolid saw Buendia produce a breakthrough performance. Another came in the February, at home to the club who would go on to win the title.

“We were losing 2-0 to Rayo Vallecano,” De la Barrera tells The Athletic, whose half-time changes that day included Buendia’s introduction. “Emi’s performance was incredible. A team full of experienced players from the Primera Division were unable to stop him. When he was really ‘plugged-in’ and we were able to get him involved, the kid showed incredible personality. He made us play. He could do everything.”

Buendia equalised on the hour mark but Rayo went on to win, 3-2. Much like Leonesa’s season, he could only do so much.

“He was very clear why La Cultural was his best option at that moment,” adds De la Berrera. “He listened to you, although, as a coach, he made me work on my communication to make sure I reached him.

“He is a very competitive person, who wants to improve. All that is not easy to manage, for sure. The objective was to accompany him along the way, let him see what Emi needed to be for the team.

“I remember one chat after training more than any other. Emi sometimes was not capable of using his personality as the moment or team required. It drove him to behaviour some team-mates wouldn’t understand. This day, things had not gone well for him at training and I told him when he feels far from being able to achieve what he wants to, he needed to not show his anger to everyone and it not affect his performance.

“That is what can make the difference from being a player with a lot of potential to a real player. Both he and I left that conversation convinced he would be able to manage these moments better in future.”


Buendia was settled and comfortable at Leonesa. When the team got together for a meal, he was the one taking charge of the asados: “He was the chief of the kitchen. He loved it. In that moment, Emi was also an important member of the team,” says Romo.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing.

The day before Leonesa were due to host fellow relegation candidates Lorca in the January, training finished with Buendia winding up team-mate Yelko Pino, an infrequently-used midfielder who was on loan from divisional rivals Lugo.

Tired and fed up of being filmed by Buendia, Pino launched into a series of expletives directed at his current club with the aim of making Buendia delete the footage and stop bugging him. In that moment, De la Barrera walked into the dressing room to address his group. In the rush to hide his phone — they were banned whenever the manager was in the room — instead of deleting the video, Buendia published it to his Instagram Story.

Only after De la Barrera had finished speaking about 15 minutes later did the two players realise what had happened. Their faces “turned absolutely white”. The video was deleted but by then it was too late.

“I was at the office and my mobile started to explode,” Romo tells The Athletic. “Messages, notifications. There were messages saying, ‘Yelko Pino, go home’. Lots of bad words in Spanish! When I saw Yelko, he was saying, ‘Oh my god, fuck me, my life!’ In that moment, you want to disappear from the world.

“A lot of journalists were calling. I was asking and hoping they would play it down but, of course, they said, ‘No chance. It is gold for us!’ Both players issued statements apologising to supporters. Maybe young fans could understand this type of situation but older fans, media and the football world, it wasn’t easy to explain how one of our players could say those words in a video that was published. It had consequences.”

Pino’s loan was cancelled. His career has since dropped down the Spanish divisions while Buendia was expelled from Leonesa’s squad the following night and only made the bench for the next game at Osasuna.

Joking about the incident is still beyond some of the pair’s former Cultural team-mates and while Buendia still follows Pino on Instagram, Pino doesn’t appear to be returning the favour.

The media began to link Buendia with a permanent move from Getafe to another Aspire-linked club, Leeds. What no one realised was Norwich’s recruitment team had already gone into overdrive. They even got someone to make the arduous 1,000-mile trip over from Norwich, just to watch their target live at a freezing Estadio Reino de Leon.

The game was against Lorca. The wasted journey, and reason for it, were noted.

Just two months into the 2017-18 season, Norwich’s recruitment and scouting teams were busy watching videos of games, writing reports on potential players to target, and analysing standout statistics in various foreign leagues.

When asked aloud by head of recruitment Kieran Scott if there was anyone the club could be accused of missing, the response came back: Emi Buendia. The attacking midfielder was producing eye-catching moments and statistics in Leon. It had Norwich excited and their eyes and the data were saying the same thing.

By the following morning, Scott agreed and he was stood in front of sporting director Stuart Webber, desperate to convince him, too. Five minutes into watching his clips, Webber was puffing out his cheeks. “And you think we can get him?!”

Norwich were watching Buendia live by the time December arrived, despite the potential for games being called off and moved at short notice. Plenty of Spanish scouts were in attendance too, but never one representing another English club.

The reports had consistent highlights: vision, movement (always moving), good finishing technique, and a player who appeared to need adversity — people to doubt him — for him to reply with his football.

Also highlighted was his need to do better defensively. At the same time, Norwich felt Buendia looked “a little heavy” but that with strength and conditioning work at Colney, they could improve his fitness significantly to deliver that higher work-rate. The bigger question was whether he would have that drive in him.

Buendia was seen as petulant and tempestuous, although that could also be construed as an “edge”. Factor in Norwich’s faith in Farke’s coaching abilities and not only did they like what they had seen, but they also felt there was another 20 per cent of performance in there they could extract. Ask them now and they’d say they have got far more than an extra 20 per cent.

The perception of Buendia off the pitch was not ideal, either. They viewed the video incident as nothing more than silly (taking place during their negotiations with parent club Getafe, it may have even helped Norwich out) and those who knew him knew of his discipline and ambition. Having met his girlfriend Claudia in 2016, the pair had also just discovered they were expecting their first child the following August.

Ultimately, Norwich saw Buendia making vital contributions at vital times in a relatively poor side. They loved that.

There was also no hiding the risk. There were “a million reasons to say no” in the middle of a recruitment period where Scott and his team knew they were proposing targets who weren’t always the easiest for Webber to back.

The timing was relatively good. Alex Pritchard got the Premier League move he demanded when Huddersfield called with £10 million in January 2018, money that went straight into filling the forthcoming summer loss of parachute payments. Webber scraped together funds that January to borrow Moritz Leitner and buy Onel Hernandez and Dennis Srbeny, as well as sign Kenny McLean and loan him back to Aberdeen until the summer.

Norwich tentatively asked Webber’s initial question over whether they could get Buendia as well, and got encouraging answers. The player was interested in the move, Getafe were open to a deal and notably, they needed to raise some money. Selling an academy product not involved in their first team or fancied by the current manager would be a useful cash injection.

Convinced waiting until the summer window would see Buendia catch more eyes and his price climb beyond what they could afford, Norwich wanted to move quickly. They already assumed Leeds knew of the Argentinian, given Aspire’s links, and Swansea’s name wouldn’t go away, while Southampton and Liverpool had both been monitoring his progress.

Webber was soon in Madrid to meet Getafe but after a day of difficult talks, he left with no agreement. The atmosphere wasn’t helped by his hosts wrongly assuming Norwich’s sporting director could not understand their subtle conversations in Spanish.

A few days later and seemingly afraid Norwich would walk away, Getafe were back in touch and keen to restart negotiations. Norwich made it clear they would not see their time wasted. Their next meeting saw a deal swiftly struck.

At an airport hotel on the outskirts of Madrid, the conversations with Buendia and his representatives were easier. Although he could not speak English, he still managed to express “a look on his face and sparkle in his eye that he wanted to come to England and prove himself”.

Norwich told Buendia there and then that he would be left to spend the rest of the season at Leonesa. While convention would assume it would be better to bring Buendia to England as soon as possible to give him time to settle, Norwich preferred the idea of him arriving in Norfolk as a summer signing after a successful season, and with all the freshness it can provide during a pre-season. They certainly didn’t view Buendia as the sort of player who could be plucked out of Spain mid-season and thrown into the Championship.

Even Farke — who was struggling to make headway on the pitch, angry at losing Pritchard and now being left to wait for his replacement — was willing to be patient.

It meant Leonesa were kept out of the negotiations. Ending Buendia’s loan early would have required their agreement and them receiving financial compensation. That mattered to Norwich, who were desperate to keep their new signing under wraps until he had passed his summer medical.

A pre-contract obligation to buy Buendia for £1.5 million in the summer was signed. The four-year deal would start following his medical, providing Buendia had no serious injury concerns for the rest of the season.

No one whispered a word.

Leonesa hated the idea of losing Buendia halfway through his loan but had no reason to believe it would happen. They were entirely unaware of Norwich’s agreement. That included the rest of their squad, emphasising how private Buendia is as a person; a man regularly described as happy in his own company.

Leonesa also routinely ignored any speculation linking Leeds with their players, as was the case that January. Whether Leeds missed a trick is up for debate. Spanish forward Samuel Saiz was already catching the eye at Elland Road, with Leeds having signed him from Huesca. Spaniard Victor Orta had joined Leeds as their director of football in May 2017 and inherited the link with Leonesa, set up by former director Ivan Bravo.

Dutch midfielder Ouasim Bouy moved to Leon on loan for the 2017-18 season, having signed for Leeds on a free transfer from Juventus that summer. Come the January, Japanese midfielder Yosuke Ideguchi had also signed for Leeds. He joined Leonesa on loan the same day.

Buendia is a player Orta has always liked but Leeds made no move to sign him that season. Thomas Christiansen’s reign as manager was unravelling by the start of 2018 and was over come the February. Paul Heckingbottom’s time in charge was even shorter and when the summer arrived, everything was paving the way for Marcelo Bielsa’s arrival.

Also, although Buendia was playing at Leonesa, he was Getafe’s player – and Norwich had already made that move.

It was Norwich’s dirty secret. Even when some knew of the move and felt brave enough to bring it up, the tight Norwich circle would deny it.

“What are you doing that for? He’s a fat kid with a poor attitude. He’ll struggle in England.” The line of questioning in Spain was far from subtle.

Not that Norwich didn’t wonder what they were letting themselves in for.

A second titanic derby with Real Valladolid came in early February with a 3-2 away defeat and Buendia accused of spitting at Real winger Javier Ontiveros. Buendia escaped sanction but not public criticism, especially just three weeks after missing the Lorca game.

The following match was a trip to Huesca. Buendia was poor, giving the ball away from a corner that led to the only goal. He was substituted five minutes later, his arms flying in the air in disgust. When he reached the dugout, a water bottle went flying.

But as the season wore on, Buendia hit new heights as he was treated like a Norwich player out on loan: watched regularly by their loans manager Neil Adams and anyone else prepared to travel to Spain. By April, in a chance meeting between representatives of the two clubs, it was made clear Getafe were beginning to regret their decision to sell in January and that Norwich had done well to catch them in a bad moment.

Despite Buendia’s best efforts, Leonesa were relegated on the final day of the season. The Argentinian finished with the supporters voting him their player of the season. Everyone at Leonesa went their separate ways. It was only once confirmed the following month by Norwich that the Spanish club finally learned of Buendia’s move to England.

Rumours of a La Liga signing swirled around Norfolk for months but Buendia’s name only emerged on June 6: two days before Norwich’s announcement.

It was this reporter who first revealed the name, too, although this is far from self-congratulatory. Despite spending hours searching for potential attacking midfielders in Spain, it never occurred to look as far down as the Segunda Division relegation zone.

Buendia arrived in Norfolk more fresh-faced than naughty. His first season, Norwich won the Championship. Promotion earned Getafe a €5 million bonus and Buendia a new five-year contract.


Since then, Atletico Madrid (last April), Valencia (in July, as Ferran Torres’ replacement) and this month, Arsenal, have led a fresh list of clubs tempted by Buendia’s excellence — but for whatever reason, ventured no further.

Some were stunned Norwich pulled off a signing like Buendia in the first place. Argentinian bloggers viewed his move a surprise.

“We wanted a guy who can score and assist,” said Farke at the time of his arrival. “Emi is the perfect fit for our squad. We’ve followed him for several months and we were always desperate to sign him.”

With that, Buendia captured Norwich hearts, earned the nickname “Football Heaven” and the rest is history — one Norwich City fans can delight in the fact it is still being written.

[Lastfootstamper]

Why would Grealish join Arsenal? Why? Hubristic, pompous, entitled wankpots.

I can't fathom how any of them can believe he's an arsenal fan who's always dreamt of playing for them.

[Demitri_C]

Ticks alot of bosses.

Young, scores goals, creates chances could be a very shrewd signing.

If he can break into that Argentina squad as well his value will only go up.

Cant see us going for tammy now. This will be our biggest signing of the summer

[maidstonevillain]

Good signing.
But why did we not get him for £1m 3 years ago?

[DrGonzo]

Excellent! Assuming the reports that he has already passed a medical in Argentina means it's in the bag.  Definite upgrade on Trez/Barkley.  Moving forward!

[paul_e]

Good signing.
But why did we not get him for £1m 3 years ago?

because we used that money to buy McGinn.

[Ian.]

Good signing.
But why did we not get him for £1m 3 years ago?

Well hindsight is a wonderful thing.