Bolton Wanderers never lived Champions League dream – ex-Barcelona and AC Milan star could have made it a reality | OneFootball

In the summer of 2004, Bolton Wanderers missed out in their pursuit of world star Rivaldo before then narrowly missing out on the top four.

In the mid-2000s, Bolton Wanderers enjoyed their modern-era ‘glory days’ as Big Sam’s so-called ‘Galacticos’ assembled in south Lancashire to make the Trotters a consistent threat in the Premier League.

Two UEFA Cup qualifications, an EFL Cup final and four successive top eight finishes in the Premiership between 2003 and 2007 marked Wanderers out as one of the toughest tests anyone could face in the English top-flight.

Sam Allardyce, with two games left of the 2006/07 season, has since stated that the reason for his departure was that he believed he could get the club into the UEFA Champions League, but the board refused to give him an extra bit of money that he wanted in the transfer window.

However, that UEFA Champions League dream was ever so nearly realised in the 2004/05 campaign when they finished sixth in the table and just outside of the top four.

At the start of that season, as Wanderers sought to build on a squad that already boasted the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha, Ivan Campo and Stelios Giannakopoulos but wanting to replace the departing Youri Djorkaeff, Bolton believed they were closing in on the signing that could have pushed them over the line: 2002 FIFA World Cup winner and one of the greatest footballers of all time, Rivaldo.

The biggest deal in Bolton’s history that never was

In the winter of the 2003/04 season, Rivaldo left AC Milan, where he had found it difficult to shine following his stellar spell in Spain at Barcelona. He departed the Rossoneri for Brazilian club Cruzeiro for a short two-month stint in early 2004, departing when Vanderlei Luxemburgo, his early career mentor, was sacked.

As he became desperate to return to the limelight in the hopes of regaining enough recognition to force his way back into Brazil’s plans a couple of years out from defending the FIFA World Cup, Rivaldo and his intermediaries searched for a deal in Europe and, preferably, the Premier League.

Bolton, as they had already and would continue to make a habit of doing so in this era, saw an opportunity to bring in a global mega-star to the then Reebok Stadium and talks were initiated to the point of Phil Gartside openly discussing the fact he has a fax of Rivaldo saying he wants to go to Bolton – something Rivaldo would later deny.

He may have denied the fax, but he did discuss the idea of playing for Bolton, describing it as a ‘good chance’ he would turn out for the Whites and even acknowledging that they had offered more money than Celtic.

His desire for money, though, eventually saw Bolton’s pursuit end when he joined Olympiacos on a free transfer in July 2004. By that stage, Wanderers had already given up on the deal amid public utterances from both camps.

Big Sam’s Bolton Galacticos

Bolton eventually went on to target Patrick Kluivert in that window before he joined Newcastle United, but they did manage to bring in some big names of their own regardless, such as Les Ferdinand, Gary Speed, Fernando Hierro and El-Hadji Diouf.

The missing piece of a starting attacker that would be the jewel in the crown of an excellent Bolton side, though, remained absent for that 2004/05 campaign with their top scorer in the league, the aforementioned Diouf, not making it to double figures for goals.

Having finished just three points off the UEFA Champions League spots, despite the absence of that missing piece, there will have to be a strong sense of ‘what if’ for Bolton supporters as they had to settle for a first-ever UEFA Cup campaign instead.

They did eventually bring in Nicolas Anelka for a then-club-record fee of around £8 million from Fenerbahce in the summer of 2006 and, once again, they challenged for the top four for much of the campaign, being as high as third in the table behind Manchester United and Chelsea on New Year’s Day.

As it became clear that Allardyce was becoming disgruntled in the latter stages of that season, and then his sudden departure, Wanderers dropped to seventh in the table.

The sweet spot for that top four finish was indeed to be the 2004/05 campaign, and it was a magnificent season but one in which they dropped a staggering 18 points to teams in the bottom six of the table that season.

Just three more points would have been enough to see them qualify for Europe’s elite club competition and the failed signing of a Brazil star in Rivaldo could, and perhaps would, have made the difference.