10 Players You Didn't Know Were On Trial At Newcastle United
6. Francesco Coco
If there's one thing you can't accuse Graeme Souness of during his time at Newcastle, it's passing up an opportunity to waste money. And, with only a half-fit Celestine Babayaro on his books, that's precisely what he tried to do with Italian international Francesco Coco in the summer of 2005. Following spells at both AC Milan and Inter, Newcastle convinced the 28 year old to make the switch to Tyneside towards the end of their pre-season. He impressed sufficiently, and was thrown in to a friendly against Yeading where, unbelievably, he looked reasonably tidy against a team from the Conference South. "He did impress me, and I've asked the chairman if we can sign him", Souness eulogised after the game. "He's played 17 times for Italy so he can't be a mug". We'll never know just what a sound bedrock of logic that was though, as Newcastle failed to throw sufficient money at Coco and he skulked off back to Inter before retiring two seasons later at the age of just 30. A quite fitting end for a player who, and I'm being kind here, never really got to grips with the professional side of his job. He did try to break into acting, but got about as far as the Italian version of Survivor and packed it in after about a week. Went on to: Open a clothing shop in Italy, get dumped by his model girlfriend, become an estate agent. Not considered as good as: Whatever wages he was asking for.
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