The Adventure of Jermaine Pennant: Madrid Mayhem…
Hold on to your matchday pies, folks! Jermaine Pennant, the winger who whizzed through 15 clubs like a ball boy at a cup final, once turned down the galactic allure of Real Madrid. Yes, the same Real Madrid where players are treated like demigods and even the grass on the pitch whispers, “Halá Madrid!” Pennant was at Liverpool, where he enjoyed a brief stint of glamour and glitz, only to dodge paradise in 2009 to zoom off to Portsmouth instead. Who’d think swapping the Santiago Bernabéu glow for the damp drizzle of Fratton Park made sense?
Having tangoed with clubs from Arsenal to Stoke, Pennant’s reflection on his Madrid snub comes loaded with a twinkle of regret. Picture it: the 42-year-old, once a football world wanderer, scratching his head, pondering if trading bench-bursts of glory at Real for first-team fireworks elsewhere was the ticket to football ecstasy. As he turned down the Spanish sun for a raincoat in Zaragoza, one of those “sliding doors” moments was born — “No, gracias!” to Madrid, “¡Hola Zaragoza!”
According to his trusty agent, Sky Andrew, Pennant was a creature of pitch-bound fancies. “Jermaine,” said Sky, “Liverpool have Real on the line, and they’re thinking you, my friend, as a bench-sitter extraordinaire! But Pennant wouldn’t have it, visions of warming the bench set his boots quivering in dismay. So instead of joining the ranks of Madrid’s exploring Galácticos, off he went, avoiding Spanish sunburn in favor of British showers. A decision baffling enough to make a football gaffer’s clipboard spontaneously combust!
