The bizarre Brighton career of ‘Argentine Crouch’ Federico Turienzo

So bizarre was the Brighton career of Federico Turienzo that I have sat here for about 10 minutes now trying to come up with an opening paragraph to do the story justice.

But no. It just seems impossible. How do you start to explain how and why the Albion ended up paying what was then big money for a 22-year-old Argentinian striker whose last competitive game had been eight months earlier, spoke no English and was rejected by Mark McGhee after one trial friendly away at Lewes?

Brighton have made all kinds of weird and wonderful moves in the transfer market. Turienzo though must rank as one of the strangest of the lot.

The story begins with Zbigniew Boniek, the legendary Polish midfielder. One of the finest players of the 1980s, Boniek won every domestic and European trophy going with Juventus and helped Poland to third place at the 1982 World Cup.

Fast forward to 2005 and Boniek remained a good friend with former Albion boss Liam Brady through their time at Juve together.

Boniek had been working as a scout in Argentina when he came across a 6’2, target-man striker called Federico Turienzo at Primera Division club Gimnasia.

Turienzo had made 56 appearances in four seasons having come through the youth system at Estadio Juan Carmelo Zerillo, scoring seven times and assisting twice.

With game time so limited, Turienzo successfully applied for an Italian passport with the aim of securing a move to Europe. Boniek subsequently recommended Federico Turienzo to Brady to recommend to Dick Knight as a potential signing for Brighton.

These were the days when the Albion struggled to score goals in the Championship. Tony Bloom was a couple of years away from becoming a silent background investor, Withdean was draining the club’s resources and the only way to survive was by selling players.

It felt like Mark McGhee was permanently in need of forward reinforcements. And with the lack of resources, that meant the Albion having to constantly think outside-of-the-box.

So desperate was the search at times that you suspected a random bloke in a pub could have whispered in Knight’s ear that he knew a striker from Turkmenistan with nine goals in the nation’s fourth division, but who could be bought for £27 and a relatively healthy goat. Which it kind of feels is exactly what happened with Turienzo.

The season before Federico Turienzo arrived at Brighton, McGhee came up with a genius answer to the lack of goals from his frontline – converting Adam Virgo from a defender into a striker.

What initially seemed like a plan dreamt up by McGhee after one too many pints of whiskey ended with Virgo netting eight times, keeping the Albion in the Championship and earning a £1.5 million move to Celtic in the process.

The departure of Virgo sent Brighton back to square one. They now needed to replace the goals of their defender-turned-forward. And so Turienzo arrived in Sussex for a trial with the 2005-06 campaign three weeks away.

It was not hard to see why Knight was keen. The Albion specialised in finding players from nowhere who then went onto become pretty successful.

Gary Hart from Stansted for £1,000 and a set of kit, an unknown Bristol Rovers reserves striker called Bobby Zamora, an unknown Bristol Rovers back up goalkeeper called Michel Kuipers. The list went on…

The hope for Brighton was they could potentially unearth a gem – this time from South America, rather than Essex or Bristol – to keep them in the Championship, who no other club in England had on their radar.

It turned out though there was a reason no other club in England had Turienzo on their radar, as evidenced in his first appearance for Brighton at the Dripping Pan on Sunday 17th July 2005.

Lewes proved limited opponents as the Albion ran out 4-2 winners on a scorching hot day. Of the four strikers McGhee played, three of them scored. Colin Kazim-Richards, Jake Robinson and Mark McCammon all found the back of the net. The odd one out? Turienzo.

The Argus report from Lewes 2-4 Brighton said of the Argentinian trialist: “Turienzo worked hard and was keen to impress but it was hard to see what he offered the Seagulls that they do not possess already.”

In contrast, there was praise for Trinidad & Tobago international defender Brent Sancho. Like Turienzo, Sancho played for just under an hour against the Rooks.

“Sancho looked strong, solid and reliable with the ball, and Albion will continue to learn what he can do when he trains with them this week,” said The Argus. No prizes for guessing which of the two trialists the Seagulls ended up keeping.

McGhee appeared to agree with the assessment of Turienzo. The trial was over after 56 minutes. And then, completely out of the blue two weeks later, Brighton announced they had signed Federico Turienzo to a two-year contract with an option for a further two years.

Not only that, but the most cash-strapped in the Championship had spent an undisclosed six-figure fee on his services – later revealed to be in the region of £125,000. A huge amount at the time for the Albion.

What sparked the turnaround? For once, nobody suggested it was down to the madness of the great McGhee. The better rumours included Knight overruling his manager and deciding to sign Turienzo even though McGhee was unconvinced.

The controversy did not end there. It transpired the fee was not paid to Gimnasia, but Turienzo’s agent for negotiating his client’s release on a free transfer.

Similar arrangements were apparently made around the same time when Brighton signed Sebastien Carole and Alexandre Frutos – the thinking being it was better to pay an agent £125,000 to get their player’s contract cancelled with their existing club than fork out £180,000 direct to said club.

A relatively sensible argument, it you ignore the fact Gimnasia would have been out of their minds demanding over £100,000 for a striker averaging 10 appearances per season and who had not played a competitive game for eight months.

There would go onto be further controversy with Turienzo and money. One fantastic rumour repeated so often that it has become accepted fact tells the story of how once Turienzo had mastered some English, he complained very loudly in the changing room at “only” being on £2,500 per week.

The jaws of the rest of the squad dropped. And not in a good way. Turned out Turienzo was one of the highest paid players at the Albion, despite his signing being such a gamble.

With such a gamble, you might have thought it sensible to play down expectations. “Young player, coming from abroad, needs time to adapt, don’t expect too much too soon.” That sort of thing.

What did Brighton opt to do? Why, hail Turienzo as an Argentine version of Peter Crouch – Crouch having just spent the 2004-05 season scoring goals for fun for Southampton, breaking into the England team and securing a big money move to European champions Liverpool.

“He’s a centre forward who allows you to play football,” McGhee said of Turienzo. “He can keep the ball up front, he can allow play to develop, allow you to get your midfield or your fullbacks forward.”

“He can play with other strikers like Leon (Knight) or Colin (Kazim-Richards) and he will allow us to play the way we want to play.”

“I heard Rafa Benitez say why he wanted Peter Crouch at Liverpool and it was exactly what I’ve just said about Federico.”

“He has scored goals in the air but he’s also an alternative when you’re under pressure and you want to get the ball forward quickly. He’s similar to Peter Crouch but not as tall and certainly not as expensive.”

Even at the time, the transfer of Turienzo seemed rather odd. But excitement amongst Brighton fans trumped most concerns. For starters, the Albion had never signed an Argentinian before.

In the unglamorous setting of Withdean, Turienzo brought a flash of continental flair. Long hair. White boots. Latin American approach. The Albion were even wearing Argentina colours with that home shirt of lighter blue than normal.

Turienzo ticked every box (not involving ability) you want from a new signing from one of the greatest football playing nations on Earth, whom Brighton had zero contact with previously. He was something different. And that was exciting.

Your correspondent got so swept up in Turienzo-mania as to rush out and buy the brand new maroon away shirt with ‘Turienzo 8’ printed on the back.

Not even a radio interview with a South American football expert could dampen excitement. BBC Radio Sussex were obviously hoping to build expectation even further by speaking to somebody who had frequently watched Turienzo for Gimnasia.

Instead, said expert said something along the lines of it was a strange transfer, Turienzo had been offered by his agent all over Europe for a few years with no takers, had struggled to make any impression on Argentine football and never looked remotely like a player worth a six figure fee.

Unfortunately, the expert turned out to be right as Federico Turienzo endured a similar time with Brighton as he had at Gimnasia in all but one way – making an impression.

Turienzo turned out to be so bad that he became a cult hero amongst Albion fans, even though he cost an obscene amount of money and gave very little back.

Missing the opening weekend of the Championship season injured just a few days after McGhee described him as passing his medical “with flying colours” set the tone for what was to come.

Turienzo made his debut as a substitute, playing for 29 minutes in a 2-0 defeat to Reading at Withdean. Four days later and he came on for 25 minutes as Crewe Alexandra left the Theatre of Trees with a 2-2 draw, managing in his time on he pitch to miss an absolute sitter.

Albion appearance number three came three months after that, 18 minutes again from the bench as Brighton were well beaten 3-0 at Stoke City on November 5th 2005. No fireworks from a Seagulls point of view at the Britannia Stadium that day.

Turienzo finally made his first Albion start away at Luton Town on December 28th. McGhee must have been hitting those pints of whiskey particularly hard over the Christmas period as he opted for a strike force of Turienzo and McCammon in a winnable game.

Brighton lost 3-0. Turienzo limped off injured after 43 minutes. He was never seen again in first team action. After four appearances totalling 115 minutes, Turienzo was released by mutual consent at the end of the season with a year still to run on his contract.

From Brighton, Federico Turienzo went onto have a relatively successful career in the lower division of Italian football. He played 106 times for four clubs from the third tier downwards between 2006 and 2010 before retiring and heading back home to Argentina.

Despite playing less than two hours of competitive football for the Albion, Turienzo looks back on his time in England fondly.

Speaking to The Argus in 2015, he said: “In terms of the football, I loved the professional approach, the way people trained, how they worked, how they did things right.”

“When you come back to Argentina you realise how different things are. Here if someone is driving and a pedestrian is crossing the road, the driver will just miss him. In England, they stop and let him cross!”

Perhaps that is what we should have gone with in the opening paragraph – Federico Turienzo, the Argentine Peter Crouch who became an Albion cult hero and enjoyed living in Brighton as he did not get run over by a car.

Missed a trick, there.