8. Johannes Geis—$11.55m
Johannes Geis is just another big-time defensive midfield investment gone wrong, though we haven’t gotten to the bigger gone-wrong defensive midfielders yet. He made the same trek from Mainz to Schalke that Suat Serdar would make three years later. Perhaps it’s no just a coincidence that they both cost the exact same.
For Geis, the opportunity was always there to solidify himself as the future of this midfield but it just never materialized. While his initial burst was felt around Germany, he quickly came back down to earth and struggled to regain that initial acclaim.
Geis actually followed a similar trajectory as the guy next up on the list—he had one great introductory season only to fall off the charts in the next year and some change, at which point he went on loan before being purchased outright for far under what his market value once was.
Schalke sold Geis to FC Koln for pretty much nothing and he’s currently playing at FC Nurnberg. No. 7 is next.