The after life- moving on from Celtic

Recently, I wrote an article on who I thought the best and worst players from recent times were. As a follow up, I have done a bit of research to find out what has happened to some of our former players.

Really, apart from Henrik Larsson, I can’t think of very many players who have left Celtic and gone onto bigger and better things. Are there any others that you can think of who have done better than Celtic after leaving us?

Liam Miller left for Manchester Utd but it never worked for him and, it could be argued that Pierre Van Hooijdonk moved on to better things when he won a UEFA cup medal with Feyenoord but that was in 2002 and five years after leaving Parkhead.

Maybe it’s too harsh for supporters to call him Judas. Let’s face it, if you played for a club smaller than Celtic, and got the chance to move to Celtic, you would take it so Miller only did the same thing – he supported Man Utd as a kid and got the chance to move to them and took it.

Oh and who can forget Jorge Cadete when he made it to the dizzy heights of Partick Thistle.

I don’t think very many would disagree on Rafael Felipe Schiedt being the worst player that we’ve had in recent times so what happened to him after leaving Parkhead? I once heard Tam Cowan translating his name as “Russell Philip Toley” and I think it was quite an apt name. Amazingly, he still continued his career as a footballer – if I’d known that was all it took to make money from football, I’d have done it too.

After leaving Parkhead, he went back to Brazil and played 6 years over there- 143 appearances and even managing to chip in with 5 goals. The next unfortunate lot to have him after us was Corinthians.

Whilst at Corinthians, they won the ‘Campeonato Paulista’, the equivalent of our SPL, in 2001. The following year, they won ‘Torneio Rio-São Paulo’ which is a tournament open to teams from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. This was the last year the tournament was ever held. On top of that, Corinthians won the ‘Copa de Brasil’, their equivalent of the Scottish Cup in the same year.

Next up was a move to Atlético Mineiro, nothing won there, they finished seventh in the league with Rafael playing 35 matches for them and scoring two goals.

For the following two years, big ‘Russell” darkened the door step of Botafogo winning more medals or at least the team did while he was employed by them. They won the Taça Guanabara (a regional tournament for teams in Rio de Janeiro and the Campeonato Carioca which is another regional tournament).

If the above winners medals isn’t enough, he also gained three Brazil caps in his career. One of the worst players at Parkhead may have turned out to have been one of the most successful ex Celts. Yes the world of football truly is a strange place.

Next up was our little Spanish ‘keeper, Javier Sanchez Broto who was mentioned by Brian in the comments as being a keeper who Brian thought was a pretty decent one for us. Although he only played 8 times for us, I don’t think he was a bad keeper and perhaps he was a bit unlucky not to have been able to stay on.

After leaving Parkhead, Javier moved on to play for Murcia, Getafe and Hércules for 1 season with each club. The first one that he signed for, Murcia, were relegated and Broto was used as a back up making 9 appearances.

For the 2004/05 season, he made 20 appearances for Getafe when they finished 13th in the league and made it into the last 16 of the Spanish cup.

In 2005 Broto hung up his gloves after he signed for Hércules but never made an appearance for them.

Since signing for us, his career never went as well as I am sure he would have hoped for but prior to coming to Parkhead, he had a decent spell at Livingston when they finished 3rd in the SPL in 2001 and gained entry into the UEFA cup.

>>>>>>>CLICK HERE to continue-  Freddie and Henri>>>>>>

When I wrote about who I thought was the worst midfielder, I listed Freddie Ljungberg but given that he is so recent, I have been unable to write much about what he did after leaving – although I could guess.

My guess is laugh all the way to the bank with the reported £20k per week he was paid to sit around on our bench. If only the people in power had known – I’d have done it for £5k/week and they could have saved a few bob.

The third player that I have decided to look up is Henri Camara – the only plus point I can state about this guy is that he was the last player who I won anything at the bookies with. I put him on as first scorer and us to win 3-1, I think it was v St Johnstone and I won £13

Other than that, he was a let down. Martin O’Neill signed him on loan for us in 2004, despite being at Celtic for the full season he was shipped out to make way for Craig Bellamy after scoring just eight goals. At the time of signing, he told the media that he was going to replace Larsson, with hindsight, it’s safe to say he was never fit to lace Larsson’s boots.

After moving on from Parkhead, he went on loan to a few other clubs, Southampton, West Ham & Stoke – playing a total of 27 games between the three clubs and scoring a whopping four goals – replacement for Larsson you say!!!!! Give me peace ‘On ree’

In between all of the above loan spells, he was signed by Wigan where he played 69 times and scored 20 goals – not a bad record when you consider he was playing outside the top teams in the premiership.

Next on the cards for Camara was Sheffield Utd, where he went back to the type of form he displayed when he was on loan at other clubs – 4 goals in 23 matches. It was safe to say that the good people of Sheffield were not happy with that return as they never kept him on.

The last I heard of him was that he was at a Greek team called Atromitos but his record there isn’t up to much, in 2010, just 3 goals in 28 goals. Outside of Wigan and his international team (Senegal) he has been another striker who manages to work his way round world football, not scoring very many goals and earning a small fortune along the way.

In Camara’s defence, he did have a decent goal scoring record at two teams earlier on his career but this article is only detailing what has happened to players after Celtic.

Hopefully this article gives you some good and memories of some of our former players, are there any others that you can think of that you have heard of recently? Do let me know as I quite enjoyed researching this article and I like to hear what former players are up to.

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