Michu

By Craig · Published 31 October 2026

In the summer of 2012, Swansea paid Rayo Vallecano £2m for a Spaniard almost nobody in England knew. Not even Sir Alex Ferguson, who admitted in December 2012 that he had "never even heard of" him before he came to Swansea. By the end of the season Michu had 22 goals, a League Cup winner's medal and a place in almost 37% of Fantasy Premier League squads.

Clubs

Oviedo, Celta Vigo, Rayo Vallecano, Swansea City, Napoli (loan), Langreo

Premier League

52 appearances, 20 goals, all for Swansea

Honours

League Cup 2013, Swansea Player of the Year

International

Spain, 1 cap

Fantasy price

£9.5m in 2012/13

How he arrived

Michu started out in Spain's fourth tier with Oviedo, his boyhood club, and spent three seasons at Celta Vigo before one year at Rayo Vallecano, where he scored 15 goals in 37 La Liga games in 2011/12. Michael Laudrup's Swansea signed him on 20 July 2012 for £2m.

He made his point on the opening day: two goals and an assist in a 5-0 win at QPR. Goals against West Ham and Sunderland followed. By the turn of the year he had 13 of what would be 18 league goals, six of them in one December spell.

The moment: Arsenal, 1 December 2012

Swansea went to the Emirates and, for 88 minutes, it looked like a decent point. Then substitute Luke Moore sent Michu through with his first touch, and he shot past Wojciech Szczęsny into the far corner. In added time Nathan Dyer won the ball from Carl Jenkinson on halfway, Michu followed the loose ball and calmly beat Szczęsny again.

Arsenal 0 Swansea 2. It was his tenth league goal of the season, and it lifted Swansea to seventh.

The trophy: Bradford, 24 February 2013

The League Cup run had his fingerprints on it too. He scored at Crawley in the third round, then at Stamford Bridge in the semi-final first leg, pouncing on a mistake by Branislav Ivanović in a 2-0 win. At Wembley, in front of 82,597, he scored again as Swansea beat Bradford, a fourth-tier side, 5-0. It was Swansea's first major trophy, in their centenary season.

Why the streets won't forget

Every few years someone arrives for small money and makes the expensive signings look silly. Nobody has done it quite like Michu. £2m bought 18 league goals, 22 in all, a goal at Wembley and Swansea's player of the year. Fantasy managers noticed early: he had gained almost 400,000 new owners by the fourth gameweek.

Then it stopped. The trouble with his right ankle began in his second season, and he managed two league goals in 17 games. A year later he was gone.

Which is exactly why he belongs here. A long career gets remembered as a career. One perfect season gets remembered as a feeling: the year a £2m signing nobody had heard of won at the Emirates and Stamford Bridge, then lifted a trophy at Wembley. Michu called it "the best year I could have had". Erling Haaland, who copied his celebration, has named him one of his three favourite players. That is the kind of year that sticks.

Where is he now

Swansea loaned him to Napoli in July 2014, where he made six appearances without scoring, and released him in November 2015. He went back to Spain's lower leagues, scoring 12 in 17 for Langreo, then returned to Oviedo for one last season. He retired on 25 July 2017, aged 31, because of that right ankle. He has since said the ankle is "that of a 90-year-old".

He stayed in the game. After spells as director of football at Langreo and technical secretary at Oviedo, he joined Burgos in December 2019, where he is now director of football. In October 2024 he even took charge of the first team for one game, and won it 5-2 at Móstoles in the Copa del Rey.

His one Spain cap came on 11 October 2013, a 2-1 World Cup qualifying win over Belarus.

Which seasons can you draft him in?

One. The game's squads leave out 2013/14, when the ankle trouble started.

Want him in your retro fantasy football team? Pick him in 2012/13 for £9.5m.