Everton sent a delegation to Spain in a bid to sign Romanian star Gheorghe Hagi in the early 1990s.
Hagi was playing for Real Madrid but Howard Kendall hoped to bring him to Goodison as he looked to rebuild the Blues after taking over from Colin Harvey.
The story is told by Gavin Buckland during the first part of an 'Everton in the 90s' Royal Blue podcast special, which was released o n Friday.
Host Phil Kirkbride was joined by Buckland and Dave Prentice to look back at the birth of a new decade, right up until the sacking of Mike Walker.
Prentice and Buckland provide wonderful insight, commentary and knowledge about a turbulent period of the Blues' history, including stories of transfers that didn't happen.
"It's fascinating, that he tried to sign Ian Rush, they had talks," Buckland says in the podcast.
"He also tried to sign Gheorge Hagi. He was at Real Madrid at the time but was too much money. Howard went out to Spain with Jim Greenwood to try and sign him. Imagine, Gheorge Hagi playing for Everton!"
Prentice goes onto talk about how Kendall, in the same period, tried to sign Dean Saunders only to see him have a late change of heart and join Liverpool instead.
"Howard was so convinced he was going to sign Dean Saunders," explained Prentice.
"Graeme Souness was in charge of Liverpool at the time and they had an agreement that they would sign Mark Wright and Everton would sign Saunders. That was until Souness got wind of the fact Saunders quite fancied coming to Liverpool rather than Everton.
"Everton were away on pre-season in Germany and Ken Rogers was with them and so confident were they that Saunders was signing that they had his name printed on a team-sheet for the friendly Everton were playing later that day.
"Ken rang the office and they said: 'No, he's here. He's signing for Liverpool'.
"Ken said: 'He's what?!' and he goes and tells Howard."
