Sunderland AFC struck gold by beating Leeds United and Newcastle to £3.5m transfer | OneFootball

Sunderland pulled off what proved to be a remarkably impressive £3.5 million deal from Julio Arca, holding off interest from Newcastle & Leeds United.

Having gained promotion back to the top-flight for the first time since the 2016/17 season, Sunderland will be keen to unearth some bargains this summer, and one deal that will inspire them came 25 years ago with Julio Arca arriving upon Wearside.

Fending off competition for his signature from teams that were challenging for the UEFA Champions League spots at the time, Leeds United and Newcastle United, the Black Cats pulled off a deal that saw them bring in a cult-hero for a more than reasonable price.

Arca remained something of a risk and a punt for Peter Reid’s side in the summer of 2000, having made just 36 professional appearances in Argentina ahead of his long move to the north of England, but he almost immediately hit the ground running.

Julio Arca proved to be a gem of an unproven signing for Sunderland

Arca had played just 36 times for Argentinos Juniors in the year before his move to Sunderland but the versatile Quilmes-born midfielder thrived at the Stadium of Light after his £3.5 million move.

Sunderland had gained promotion to the Premier League in 1999 under the management of Peter Reid and then finished seventh in their first season in the top-flight before achieving the same impressive league finish in the 2000/01 campaign with Arca a key cog in the Wearsiders’ machine.

Injuries hampered him in the next couple of seasons before he once again re-established himself back in the first-team when they were relegated in 2003, and he then went on to become a fundamental player for Sunderland, scoring a career-best nine goals in 40 Championship appearances as they won the second-tier title, having lost in the play-off semi-finals to Crystal Palace the year before.

Arca eventually finished his Sunderland career having made 177 appearances for the Black Cats, scoring 23 goals, before a move to north east rivals Middlesbrough in the summer of 2006.

Julio Arca has the distinction of being a Sunderland AND Middlesbrough cult hero

Having established himself as a cult-hero at Sunderland, Arca went on to do similar at the Riverside over a seven-season stint on Teesside that saw him make 185 appearances for the Smoggies.

Arca, who won the FIFA U20 World Cup with Argentina in the summer after he moved to Sunderland, enjoyed an impressive 13-year playing career in the North East and a strong indication of him as a player would be that two rival sets of supporters think and thought of him so fondly.

Having been Sunderland’s Young Player of the Year in 2001 and in the PFA Championship Team of the Year in 2004 whilst at the Stadium of Light, he then went on to win Boro’s Player of the Year in 2010 as well as Middlesbrough’s Supporters’ Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year in 2011.

He remained in the North East after Sunderland and Boro, playing a few seasons at South Shields, where he helped them win promotion from both the Northern League Second Division and Northern League First Division, as well as a cup double with the Northern League Cup and FA Vase in 2017.

He became a much-loved figure at the Stadium of Light, and he remains fond of the club, too, recently explaining how he believed “it’s time for the club to be back in the Premier League” and that he had his “fingers crossed” for them ahead of their eventual dramatic play-off final defeat of Sheffield United at Wembley Stadium in the Championship play-off final.

For what now seems a bargain in retrospect, it was already a coup to hold off Newcastle and Leeds for his signature but, even with such interest in a highly-rated youngster, not many would have predicted just the impact the cultured left-footer, coming from Argentina at the age of 19, could have had at Sunderland, as well as at Middlesbrough and South Shields.