We are back to the football topics. In professional football talented players are not the ones remembered, usually it's those who achieved great success. I present to you 11 players, in my opinion, who didn't achieve success that was expected from them. It was difficult to select only 11 players, so I will split this into 2 parts.
Sebastien Frey
What a great talent he was. I heard about him for the first time while playing Sony PlayStation 1. He played for Internazionale at that moment. However, he didn’t get an adequate chance at Internazionale and he moved to Parma where he managed to show his talent. His career peak was while playing for Fiorentina, where he was a standard goalkeeper for years. For the French national team he played only 2 matches. A goalkeeper with such reflexes, talent and quality definitely deserved a better career.
Kevin Grosskreutz
A very grateful player, he can play along the entire left and right sides, but his natural position is at the right-back. Only a few years ago he won two titles in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund, played Champions League final, with the German national team won the 2014 World Cup. However, he could not cope with the fame, the problems started. He was first moved to the Borussia Dortmund II. In summer of 2015 he was transferred to Galatasaray, but due to the problem with documentation, he never played a single game in Turkey. After six months, he returned to Germany, Stuttgart. After a fight at night club, he gets fired and becomes a free agent. At that moment he even announced the possibility of ending his career. Kevin changed his mind, he is still playing football, currently in the 3rd league of Germany.
Breno
How crazy you can be. He came to Bayern Munchen with just 19 years for a solid 12 million Euros. He had all the predispositions to become a great defender. Instead of being known for his good games, he will always be remembered by lighting his own house in order to get money from insurance. Because of that, he was around 3 years in prison. After 4 years of pause, he returns to the club where he started his career, Sao Paulo. He is 29 years old now, still plays football, but it's not even close to the career it could have been.
Daniel Agger
I'm really happy that such a man was wearing a jersey of the club I support. For years he played at top level, was one of the best defensive players in the world. However, problems with injuries began early. After dropping out of Liverpool's first plan and the decision to leave the club, his choice was exclusively Brondby, even though he had offers from Barcelona, Manchester City and other big clubs. He stayed true to his statement a few years before that. On that occasion, he said that there are only two teams he could play for, Brondby and Liverpool. He ended his career with only 31 years. Listening to the heart in front of the money, he earned something that many others would never ... deep respect!
Royston Drenthe
He is a pure example that only talent is not enough for success. In 2007, he won the U21 European Championship with the Netherlands national team. He even got a reward for the best player in the tournament. That same year he moved from Feyenoord to Real Madrid, played well for the first season, everything went well for him. Together with Ryan Babel he was the greatest potential of Dutch football. However, frequent quarrels with coaches, non-professionalism, absences from training have caused a steep decline in his career. At age 29 he even wanted to finish his career. He is 31 old now and currently plays in the Dutch second league. Too bad, he could’ve done a much better.
Gojko Kačar
I suppose most of you didn’t even hear about him. He started his career in Vojvodina, at that time the best Serbian team behind Red Star and Partizan. What I appreciated most about him is that he could play at any position in the field, except the goalkeeper. Although his natural position was the defensive midfielder, it didn’t bother him to be quite effective in front of the opposite line. Thus, for example, he managed to score 5 goals for U21 Serbian national team against Hungary. He moves from Vojvodina to Hertha and becomes one of the main players in the first season already. Honestly, I already saw him at some of the best clubs in Europe. However, very soon he began to struggle with injuries. With such problems he managed to play only 10-20 per season. Through the whole career he never played more than 30 games per season. In my opinion, he was probably the most complete footballer Serbia had in the previous decade.
Yoann Gurcuff
He showed what kind of potential he was still in his teenage days. Many predicted that he is going to be the new Zidane. After moving to Milan expectations are not realized, for two years he fought for entering the starting 11, where he had a competition in Kaka, Pirlo and Seedorf. He returns to his homeland after 2 years spent in Italy. Playing for Bordeaux and Olympique Lyonnais, he showed a part of his potential, so he became the best French player for 2009. What attracted me to him is the ease and elegance how he played, creativity and incredible feeling for passing. In addition to the serious problem with injuries, his biggest problem was behavior. He was not problematic, he simply didn’t have the mentality to be a world class football player.
Juan Sebastian Veron
An artist in the field, an incredible vision of the game, creativity ... Although it can be said he was a great player and had achieved a great career, I kind of always expected more from him. First of all, he achieved this success in the Estudiantes jersey where he played on 4 occasions. In Europe, especially England, he remained incomplete.
Adrian Mutu
I watched Mutu for the first time while he was playing in the Parma jersey. He was one of the most promising players in Serie A, a great dribbler and a fantastic free kick executor. It was the last great generation of players who played for Parma. He becomes one of the first signings in post Abramovich era of Chelsea. His start in London was good, but after falling to the doping test and being banned for 7 months, a career decline begins. He got a new chance in Juventus and Fiorentina, where he failed at anti-doping test once again and being banned for 9 months. Taking into consideration that he had two long suspensions for the use of illicit substances, he achieved a solid career.
Michael Owen
Many will say that he had a successful career and doesn't have a place on this list. Still, I can't agree with that. Owen became world-known as a teenager when he scored that famous goal at the World Cup 1998 against Argentina. Back then he was only 18 years old. With 22 years he won Ballon d’Or for the best player in the world. Only the sky was limit. However, his career goes downhill by moving to the Real Madrid in 2004, where he competed for starting 11 with Ronaldo, Raul, Morientes. After arrival of Robinho and Julio Baptista in 2005, it was clear that he had to look for a new environment. When he arrived to Newcastle, serious problems with injuries started. For 4 years he played just 71 games in PL. He was trying to revive his career at Manchester United, unsuccessfully. He finished his career at Stoke after one season playing there. Surely the disappointing end of a promising career.
Adriano
When I already mentioned Mutu and Frey, I should mention the third member of the “golden generation” of Parma - Adriano. He had so much power in his left foot, fear and tremble for all the opponent defenders. At that time, he was one of the best attackers and free kick takers in the world. Often parties, drunkenness, unprofessional behavior have contributed to a fall in his career, which is even more aggravated after his father's death, he fall into depression. He tried several times to revive his career, returned to Europe in 2010, played only 5 games without scoring a single goal for Roma. He returned to Brazil, changed several clubs, but for several seasons he played only 5 games. His career officially ended in 2016 in Miami United.
I hope you found this post interesting! Don't forget to upvote and resteem it. Follow me @teofilex11 to stay updated about future posts.
Lots of awesome names on the list!! I freaking loved Grosskreutz. I enjoyed watching him at Dortmund a lot with thise great generation.
Haha sadly I can't quite agree with the inclusion of Owen. His career was pretty awesome. Yeah he wasn't very successful at United, but he did score that epic winning goal for us in the Manchester Derby!
Dope list, though.
Cheers.
Owen was my childhood hero, so that's one of the reasons why I expected so much from him. :)
Glad you enjoyed the list. Thanks for stopping by!
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
Nice one this is really interesting to know
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