Featured Image Credit: Alamy
Topics: Football
Adnan Riaz
Premier League cult hero Michu has undergone a massive transformation after ditching his long brown hair from his iconic Swansea City playing days.
Michu made a lasting impression during his time in England after a stunning debut season with Swansea in the 2012-13 Premier League campaign.
Snapped up for a fee of around £2.2m from Rayo Vallecano, Michu scored an impressive 22 times in 43 appearances during his first season with Swansea.
The 36-year-old Spaniard also lifted the only silverware of his playing career at Swansea with their League Cup triumph in 2013.
Advert
Michu’s stunning run of form only lasted one season at Swansea and he was unable to replicate the performances that elevated him into a cult hero.
The former Spain international was plagued with injuries and went on to play for Napoli (on loan), Langreo and Oviedo before retiring from football in 2017.
Following his professional playing career, Michu took up a post as director of football for Langreo in 2018 and was later appointed technical secretary of Oviedo in 2019.
Posting on Instagram, the Premier League one-hit wonder shared a video of him sporting a fresh look and leaving himself unrecognisable from his Swansea spell.
Gone is the long hair for a much shorter trim and Michu is also sporting a fashionable beard, with fans insisting that the “streets will never forget” him.
Newcastle midfielder Jonjo Shelvey, who played alongside Michu, previously opened up on where he felt things went wrong for his former Swansea teammate.
“When I signed, I think [Michu] was their sort of main guy, in terms of goals and that,” he told The Beautiful Game Podcast in 2020.
“Then a week after I signed Wilfried Bony signed. I think personally that sort of knocked the stuffing out of him, because Wilfried came in on a big deal and as the main striker and after that it didn’t really work out for Michu.
“I only played with him for about six or seven months, but you could tell his finishing was just ridiculous.”
Shelvey continued: “We had these bands to wear, for when you go to sleep. They monitor you to show how much you are sleeping.
“They put it all up on a screen in the canteen. We had a meeting, there were a few lads going to bed at like 12 and that, on one graph he showed that someone was sleeping for three hours a night, and it was Michu.
“He was coming in and his eyes were drowsy and puffy, it turned out he was just up playing PlayStation ‘til like 4 o’clock in the morning.
“I don’t know if [he] had always been like that. He looked tired all the time, then he got a bad injury.
“I don’t even know what he’s doing now, he sort of disappeared off the face of the Earth, but when he was at Swansea he got a Spain call-up, he played for Spain, and you don’t get Spanish call-ups if you can’t play football.”