A superb tournament in his homeland saw Real Madrid swoop for the then Feyenoord man. After regular outings in his first campaign, Drenthe was soon ditched in favour of the progressing Marcelo, while he had loan spells with Hercules and Everton. From here, though, his career stalled and spells with Reading and Sheffield Wednesday were sandwiched by time in Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, before calling time on his career and focussing on becoming a rapper.
Following his seven goals in the 2009 tournament, Berg joined Hamburg from Groningen for around €10million. He failed to reproduce the form which won him the Golden Player award, though, scoring just five Bundesliga goals in 54 appearances, and even a decent loan spell with PSV Eindhoven couldn’t perk him up.