The Little Fella: How Middlesbrough Fell in Love with Juninho

It was an incredible time I was there from the day he first arrived at the found to play head tending with Robbo to the emotional scenes at Elland road through his come back and that amazing day in Cardiff.

it was magical. You need to be a special player to wear the no 10 shirt for Brazil a shirt that is almost mythical.

no other team experienced what we did with Juno to me the closest was batistuta at fiorentina and his link to the town and team.

special times with a special player.
 
I will never forget growing up and worshiping the Brazilian World Cup teams. I was 14 when they won the World Cup in '94 in the USA. Fast forward a year and they were playing England at Wembley as the current world champions. Some of the World Cup squad had retired to bask in eternal glory and a new batch of youngsters were introduced to the English audience. They duly give us a beating. Juninho curled a free-kick into the TC and played wearing the coveted number 10 and I vividly remember marveling at him, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Edmundo who were the next batch off the conveyor belt for Brazil. I honestly couldn't believe it when we were linked to TLF and still wouldn't believe it until I saw him get off that plane with Keith Lamb and that nasty looking grey suit that he must've borrowed off his dad.

It wasn't just Boro that were excited to see him play, the whole country was. Absolutely awesome memories. Never to be repeated.
 
Doom_On_Horseback said:
I will never forget growing up and worshiping the Brazilian World Cup teams. I was 14 when they won the World Cup in '94 in the USA. Fast forward a year and they were playing England at Wembley as the current world champions. Some of the World Cup squad had retired to bask in eternal glory and a new batch of youngsters were introduced to the English audience. They duly give us a beating. Juninho curled a free-kick into the TC and played wearing the coveted number 10 and I vividly remember marveling at him, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Edmundo who were the next batch off the conveyor belt for Brazil. I honestly couldn't believe it when we were linked to TLF and still wouldn't believe it until I saw him get off that plane with Keith Lamb and that nasty looking grey suit that he must've borrowed off his dad.

It wasn't just Boro that were excited to see him play, the whole country was. Absolutely awesome memories. Never to be repeated.
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I mentioned this before but I went to Southampton away on the travel
Club and we got there early and we went to pub near the Dell a fe Southampton fan came over to ask us about Juno and saying they were excited to see him play live.

I’ve never ever known that before he truly was the best player in the country at the time and he was OURS.

look at the names on that list

Kaka. rivelino, Rivaldo, Rai, my childhood idol zico and of course Pele.
 
Sounds like it'll be a good read and I don't want to be a Negative Nigel here, but the writer says in that Gazette piece that we were a struggling team when Juninho originally signed for us, which is part of the reason the move was so unusual. But I don't think we were a struggling team. We'd just come up into the Premier League as champions of the second division and had just signed Nick Barmby for more than we paid for Juninho. We had moved into a brand new stadium and were playing in front of sell-out crowds every week. When Juninho made his debut against Leeds, Boro had played 11 games, and won 6 and drawn 3 of them. The Boro were flying. The only sides to have beaten us at that point where Newcastle and Manchester United, who both went all out for the title for the full season. They were the two best sides in the league by quite a distance.

Boro weren't struggling when Juninho signed, they were absolutely thriving. I think that's a key part of why he actually signed for Boro, along with Robbo and what were presumably good wages at the time.
 
I wonder how our younger fans took the signing of TLF? To us of more mature years it took a lot to believe this was really happening! I recall being in Turkey when we signed Rav - and reading all the English papers on the stand!

Heady, heady days the likes of which I doubt we will see again. Fantastic memories.

Gibbo, special mention, in his prime as far as I am concerned. Really went for it and he more than anyone else didn’t deserve relegation.
 
IMHO, he was good enough & fit enough & even if SMc had a one on one chat with him & explained his new thinking & Juninho wouldn't be used as much I reckon he would have been OK with that
 
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