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.
Despite competition for his signature from teams competing for UEFA Champions League spots at the time, such as Leeds United and Newcastle United, the Black Cats were able to bring in a cult hero for a more than reasonable fee.
Arca remained something of a gamble for Peter Reid’s side in the summer of 2000, having made only 36 professional appearances in Argentina prior to his long journey to the north of England, but he almost immediately struck 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 preceding his move to Sunderland but the versatile Quilmes-born midfielder excelled at the Stadium of Light after his £3.5 million move.
Sunderland had achieved promotion to the Premier League in 1999 under the guidance of Peter Reid and then finished seventh in their maiden season in the top-flight before achieving the same outstanding league finish in the 2000/01 campaign with Arca a major cog in the Wearsiders’ machine.
Injuries hampered him over the next few seasons, but he re-established himself in the first-team when they were relegated in 2003, and he went on to become a key player for Sunderland, scoring a career-high nine goals in 40 Championship appearances as they won the second-tier title after losing in the play-off semi-finals to Crystal Palace the year before.
| Sunderland’s top scorers in their 04/05 Championship winning season | |
|---|---|
| Player | Goals |
| Marcus Stewart | 17 |
| Stephen Elliott | 16 |
| Julio Arca | 9 |
| Source: Soccerbase | |
Arca finally concluded his Sunderland career having made 177 appearances for the Black Cats, scoring 23 goals, before a transfer to north east rivals Middlesbrough in the summer of 2006.
Julio Arca has the distinction of being a Sunderland AND Middlesbrough cult hero
After establishing himself as a cult icon at Sunderland, Arca went on to do the same at the Riverside during a seven-season stay on Teesside, where he made 185 appearances for the Smoggies.
Arca, who won the FIFA U20 World Cup with Argentina in the summer after moving to Sunderland, had an excellent 13-year playing career in the North East, and the fact that two opposing sets of supporters regarded so highly of him speaks volumes about him as a player.
Having won 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 earn 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 continued in the North East following Sunderland and Boro, playing a couple seasons at South Shields, where he helped them achieve 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 beloved figure at the Stadium of Light, and he remains fond of the club, recently explaining how he believed “it’s time for the club to be back in the Premier League” and had his “fingers crossed” for them ahead of their eventual dramatic Championship play-off final defeat of Sheffield United at Wembley Stadium.
Holding off Newcastle and Leeds for his signature was already a coup in retrospect, but even with such interest in a highly-rated youngster, few could have predicted the impact the cultured left-footer, who arrived from Argentina at the age of 19, could have had at Sunderland, Middlesbrough, and South Shields.
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