Remembering Elano: A Manchester City Cult Hero Who Never Fulfilled Early Promise

When Sven-Goran Eriksson took the reins at Manchester City in July 2007, the squad he was working with was a shambles. It had finished the previous season having scored just 10 home league goals; the quality of the football was beyond dire; and many supporters questioned whether they’d even bother returning to watch the new campaign. 

Backed by new chairman Thaksin Shinawatra’s chequebook—which would later turn out to be not that useful—Eriksson set about bringing in a whole host of players to boost his squad.

The early headlines were grabbed by the likes of Geovanni, a Brazilian who came with a good reputation having scored in the Champions League against rivals Manchester United, and Rolando Bianchi, an Italian striker who had been netting goals for fun in Serie A for Reggina.

However, once their early promise died down, the real excitement grew around another of the new signings—creative midfielder Elano.

He took a few games to settle into Eriksson’s City team. Once he had, he was whetting the supporters’ appetite again, after a long spell of little for them to get excited about. When he scored his first goal for the club especially, tongues really did begin to wag.

It came in a 3-1 victory over Newcastle United at the then-City of Manchester Stadium. It had been a tough match for City; they’d fallen behind early on but fought back to lead with goals either side of half-time. The icing was put on the cake in the closing stages, after a foul by Nicky Butt around 30 yards out was penalised by the referee.

Elano stood over it and, without whipping or curling the ball, simply powered an effort right into the top corner of Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given’s net. It was perfectly placed—the shot couldn’t have gone nearer to the corner of the goal without touching either the post or the crossbar—and despite beating the wall on the goalkeeper’s side, Given just couldn’t get near it.

For a spell, that opened the floodgates. Elano netted twice in the next match, a 3-1 home win over Middlesbrough, one of them being another superb free-kick. This time he used less power and curled a shot over the wall, into the bottom corner of Mark Schwarzer’s net.

The Brazilian then bagged the winner in a 1-0 success over Birmingham City, sliding a shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the box. It capped off four strikes in three games, as he appeared to have truly settled into the team.

Former City midfielder Elano has announced his retirement from football at the age of 35. He’s set to become Santos assistant manager. pic.twitter.com/yyMksDUDPR

— City Watch (@City_Watch) November 24, 2016

He might have faded in and out of the opening matches of the campaign, but he was really …

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