Generally when a player shines for a smaller nation at the World Cup they are greeted by a host of offers to join bigger teams from Europe's top leagues. Some get picked up by Champions League clubs, like Liverpool's 2002 duo of El-Hadji Diouf and Salid Daio, while some are targeted by the less alluring clubs, like Asamoah Gyan's move to Sunderland in 2010.
However, when then 38-year-old Roger Milla scored four goals at Italia 90 for Cameroon, making them Africa's first ever quarter-finalists, there wasn't the usual queue of clubs knocking down the door for his signature.
Instead, the first team to contact the player was English side Walsall, who had just been relegated to the 4th division. In a great interview with Milla on the BBC website today, they reveal that Walsall manager at the time, Kenny Hibbert, claims to have attempted to sign the Cameroon legend:
We had a Cameroon player, Charlie Ntamark, training with us that summer to get over an injury that meant he missed the World Cup. He acted as a go-between for us to speak to Milla.
If you don't ask, you don't get, but Roger wanted $1m to play for us and unfortunately we were broke. We ended up signing Charlie instead.
Milla who had been playing amateur soccer in Madagascar before his surprise inclusion in Cameroon's World Cup squad, instead decided to return to the professional game with Cameroon side Tonnerre Yaounde. There he played for four seasons before becoming the oldest player to score in a World Cup, netting against Russia in 1994 at the sprightly age of 42.
You can read the full Milla interview here.
