Are there any players that were really good, but "wasted" their prime?

duffer said:
Harsh to say wasted. Unfulfilled potential maybe?

He's so just so injury prone rather than bad transfer decisions or lack of effort.
Click to expand...

Aren't wasted and unfulfilled the same thing just potentially different reasons for the same outcome? What do you think of Hudson-Odoi btw, is he on course to fill his potential?

I seem to remember Bayern chasing him for a few years and chelsea offered him an insane 100k a week contract at the age of 18(?) to keep him but he doesn't seem to have nailed down a place - yet he's still only 22.
 
iHicksy said:
Aren't wasted and unfulfilled the same thing just potentially different reasons for the same outcome? What do you think of Hudson-Odoi btw, is he on course to fill his potential?

I seem to remember Bayern chasing him for a few years and chelsea offered him an insane 100k a week contract at the age of 18(?) to keep him but he doesn't seem to have nailed down a place - yet he's still only 22.
Click to expand...
"Wasted his career" to me says it's their fault.

As for CHO, he's another one injury really scuppered. He was doing really well before his Achilles snapped.
 
It might seem disingenuous, but Ronaldinho. His best years came between the age of 23-26, which is a very short peak, and he was well past his best by the age of 27.
 
MyOnlySolskjaer said:
Van Persie wasn’t always a 30 goal striker. Very different case to the others. The first moment he gave an indication he was that level he moved and won a league title. His prime was very short.
Click to expand...
Disagree. Yes he was a winger in his younger days, but the only thing preventing him from being a prolific goal scorer over a longer period of time was injuries. His prime was literally the 2 years where he didn't get injured.
 
Big_Bro said:
Anderson - Manchester United
Denílson - Brazil
Walter Samuel
Click to expand...

What the heck?

Samuel had his prime at Inter. Winning everything there.

Denilson was a dribbler and a flair player, was at the right club at Betis, being the star there instead of a bench player at Real. Way way to inconsistent.

Anderson is a truly weird suggestion
 
David Villa should have left Valencia at least two years earlier.
He was close to going to Madrid but finally the transfer didn't happen.
Capello already wanted him in 2006/07.
He even sacked his agent for being unable to close a deal.
He arrived too late at Barcelona
 
Andersonson said:
What the heck?

Samuel had his prime at Inter. Winning everything there.

Denilson was a dribbler and a flair player, was at the right club at Betis, being the star there instead of a bench player at Real. Way way to inconsistent.

Anderson is a truly weird suggestion
Click to expand...

I really didn't follow Samuel again after Real Madrid. Cos in my expectations, he should have been one of the best central defenders of his generation.

Could you explain why you think Anderson is a weird suggestion?
 
Precaution said:
Pavel Nedved and Recoba I feel could had gone onto greater things, Recoba was linked to Real Madrid but stayed at Inter for too long and kinda became abit of a benchwarmer Nedved went to Juve and didn't really win much (going to Seria B didn't help) both great players but they had oodles of potential
Click to expand...

The first name that came to my mind was Recoba too. On the surface, yeah spending 11 years at a club like Inter is great, winning a couple of titles but I always felt he could have gotten so much more out of his career, he was that talented.
 
SilentWitness said:
Do you think Alan Shearer is more talented than Wayne Rooney?
Click to expand...

That’s not a parallel argument as Shearer is more one dimensional + they’ve reached their career end. So we’re no longer talking about talent but measuring what their talent ended up with in the end. The thread and my post is about Mbappe wasting his talent at PSG.

As per my last post, Mbappe has more assists than Messi at age 23, so you can also take that as Mbappe being more than just a goalscorer, hence the Shearer comparison is ridiculous.

And then there is the eye test: every one should be able to see how ridiculously good Mbappe is on the ball / at dribbling.
 
I think Lukaku is currently wasting his.
 
ROFLUTION said:
That’s not a parallel argument as Shearer is more one dimensional + they’ve reached their career end. So we’re no longer talking about talent but measuring what their talent ended up with in the end. The thread and my post is about Mbappe wasting his talent at PSG.

As per my last post, Mbappe has more assists than Messi, so you can also take that as Mbappe being more than just a goalscorer, hence the Shearer comparison is ridiculous.

And then just the eye test: every one should be able to see how ridiculously good Mbappe is on the ball / at dribbling.
Click to expand...

Right, so goals = talent when it suits your argument but they don't matter when it doesn't. Glad that clears it up.

Equating goals + assists to talent is a silly comparison. It is obviously a factor in judging talent but it is not the only facet to it. What would be a better judge of those goals and assists is the type of goals and assists they are making. The range of goals and assists that Messi has is beyond what Mbappe has done. Plus the overall playmaking quality to their side is something that Messi excels in compared to Mbappe.

Messi is far beyond Mbappe on a technical level. Mbappe beats him for pace but in other areas of the pitch he's not more talented than him.
 
Last edited:
SilentWitness said:
Right, so goals = talent when it suits your argument but they don't matter when it doesn't. Glad that clears it up.
Click to expand...

I think the summary is more that you only listen to your own idiotic Alan Shearer argument. Not sure you can actually read and understand my posts.
 
ROFLUTION said:
I think the summary is more that you only listen to your own idiotic Alan Shearer argument. Not sure you can actually read and understand my posts.
Click to expand...

I made that argument to display how silly yours was.
 
Given how much he won, it’s hard to say he wasted anything, but I feel that Phil Neville could have been a starter for most other clubs in the PL throughout the 2000s and maybe have gotten closer to 100 caps for England. Read the game extremely well, and went to Everton too late in his career.
 
Theonas said:
Zlatan somehow managed to have won a lot but barely a top league or anywhere near the CL. His time in Italy was when Serie A was at its weakest and a far cry from La Liga or PL. he had that one year with Barcelona playing elite football but failed to show up in his only CL semis. A serial league winner but could have been more if he played his best years outside of France or a relatively weak Italian league.
Click to expand...
Tell me you didn't watch football in the 00s without telling me you didn't watch football in the 00s
 
abundance said:
Tell me you didn't watch football in the 00s without telling me you didn't watch football in the 00s
Click to expand...
Yes, of course, that's why Italian teams had a grand total of 4 final CL appearances, 3 of which from a Milan side that basically gave up the domestic title in pursuit of those CLs whereas Juventus were hit by a corruption scandal. The heights the PL reached in the late '00s and La Liga in the early '10s were significantly higher than anything Italy produced since the '90s when it was by far the best league in the world.

In case that's not enough, I reiterate the point about the CL. When is Zlatan's big game changing moment in the CL among Europe's elite? The one year he plays for a team that is expected and favorite to go far in the CL, he fails. To me, that makes him either a step below the very elite strikers or someone who just made career choices that did not challenge him enough to be in the company of Henry, Lewandowski, Benzema or Suarez.
 
duffer said:
"Wasted his career" to me says it's their fault.

As for CHO, he's another one injury really scuppered. He was doing really well before his Achilles snapped.
Click to expand...

Yeah - that's fair enough, I agree.

That's a shame, hopefully he can kick on but from the outside in Chelsea doesn't seem the place to be fostering youth. Especially with the recent influx of players that doesn't look like stopping anytime soon. I wouldn't be surprised to see the likes of Gallagher leave too next year if someone like Newcastle is ready to offer him first team football in the starting 11.
 
iHicksy said:
Aren't wasted and unfulfilled the same thing just potentially different reasons for the same outcome? What do you think of Hudson-Odoi btw, is he on course to fill his potential?

I seem to remember Bayern chasing him for a few years and chelsea offered him an insane 100k a week contract at the age of 18(?) to keep him but he doesn't seem to have nailed down a place - yet he's still only 22.
Click to expand...

The kicker recently reported he's on €12M p. a. at Chelsea. Not sure if paying young players that much money is a good idea with regards to their development. At least not if it is not based on world class performances but in anticipation of those.
 
Don't want to be too disrespectful to the Scottish League but would Henrik Larsson be a shout?

I know the SPL was more competitive on the continental stage during the 90's and early 00's then it is now but given Larsson's performances at international level, and how well he played at in his later years at Barcelona and United, he could've played for a top team in a bigger league during his prime.
 
Big_Bro said:
I really didn't follow Samuel again after Real Madrid. Cos in my expectations, he should have been one of the best central defenders of his generation.

Could you explain why you think Anderson is a weird suggestion?
Click to expand...

Going from Real to Inter at that time isnt really a downgrade. Inter and serie A was huge at the time. Inter won the CL and so did other Italian teams.

Anderson was exciting when he was a talent, but he never matured and was never considered a first team player. He was never ' really good' but he had some decent spells as a young player and some odd good games. There is a reason he has 8 caps for Brazil and they all came in the time span when he was considered a talent
 
Anelka, he made so many bad choices.
Cesc stayed too long with Arsenal and chose the wrong club joining Barca, it costed him his best years.
Verrati and Marquinhos, I feel they would have improved faster if they moved clubs.
 
YikesSchmeics said:
Do you understand what "contributing" means or do you think of everything in absolutes?
Click to expand...
Yes but plenty of players contributed to us being the worst I’ve ever seen us last season and for various reasons Pogba didn’t actually contribute much to that. He wasn’t alone in contributing and actually was consistently one of our better performers
 
Theonas said:
Im comparing him to the likes of Henry, Benzema, Lewa and Suarez. Those guys featured and starred in the biggest CL games and/or title winning campaigns in leagues with the highest quality at the time. I can’t think of similar achievements for Zlatan.
Click to expand...

You can't be serious and talk how Ibra "wasted" his career.
Ibra won league with every team bar UTD, and here he still won 2 trophies.
In total he won 33 trophies with top clubs in the world. 99 % of footballers would die to be Ibra and have career like his.
Going by your logic, Cantona or Bergkamp also "wasted" their careers.
 
Balotelli. Had the world at his feet but never grew up.
 
Red in STL said:
Georgi Kinkladze - he was obviously talented and utterly wasted at City
Click to expand...

Didn't cut it at an admittedly strong Ajax whom he joined at 25 and was binned off to Derby by 27.

Was a talented player but never what people talked him up to be, super inconsistent, despite being one of my faves.

What should have been his peak was being frozen out at Ajax and a rotation option at Derby where he was considered a flop till his 2nd season.
 
Last edited:
Mr.Hik said:
You can't be serious and talk how Ibra "wasted" his career.
Ibra won league with every team bar UTD, and here he still won 2 trophies.
In total he won 33 trophies with top clubs in the world. 99 % of footballers would die to be Ibra and have career like his.
Going by your logic, Cantona or Bergkamp also "wasted" their careers.
Click to expand...
You need to practice your reading skills.
 
Theonas said:
Yes, of course, that's why Italian teams had a grand total of 4 final CL appearances, 3 of which from a Milan side that basically gave up the domestic title in pursuit of those CLs whereas Juventus were hit by a corruption scandal. The heights the PL reached in the late '00s and La Liga in the early '10s were significantly higher than anything Italy produced since the '90s when it was by far the best league in the world.

In case that's not enough, I reiterate the point about the CL. When is Zlatan's big game changing moment in the CL among Europe's elite? The one year he plays for a team that is expected and favorite to go far in the CL, he fails. To me, that makes him either a step below the very elite strikers or someone who just made career choices that did not challenge him enough to be in the company of Henry, Lewandowski, Benzema or Suarez.
Click to expand...

In terms of individual quality and depth i take Series A over PL, both at its height.

Only La Liga wins cause the likes of Cristiano ,Messi and stacked Real.

And despite all the money, PL never attracted anybody close to the quality of Platini and Maradona, and hardly had any potential Balloon D'Or winner other than Ronaldo.
 
Stephen Ireland:
Retired now but when he first played for the senior team for City he looked like he belonged. But they moved him on and after that it was all downward moves.

Even for the Republic of Ireland he didn’t fare too well after he fell out with his teammates and the manager.
 
FrankFoot said:
In terms of individual quality and depth i take Series A over PL, both at its height.

Only La Liga wins cause the likes of Cristiano ,Messi and stacked Real.

And despite all the money, PL never attracted anybody close to the quality of Platini and Maradona, and hardly had any potential Balloon D'Or winner other than Ronaldo.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what you're referring to. Platini and Maradona were in Serie A two decades before the time I am talking about. I wrote that in the '90s Serie A was by far the best league in the world. The time Zlatan was at his peak which I would say from the mid '00s to mid to late '10s, the place to be was the PL or La Liga in terms of quality of teams and level of competition. Zlatan spent that time in Italy and France. To play at an elite level and be part of the very top, you needed to be at United, Chelsea, Real, Barcelona or Bayern as the latter were at a similar level to these tops teams from around 2012. None of Inter, Milan or Juve were at any point favorites to go far in the CL and compete with the aforementioned teams when Zlatan played for them. Compare that to Henry, Suarez, Lewa or Benzema which is the standard I think he could have reached and look at the level they played at and the amount of big games they influenced. I don't know if he ever had the chance to join these clubs or if he just found comfort in Italy and France but it doesn't change the fact that he's never been involved in games of that level, let alone influence them regularly.
 
You should read better.
Topic was good player who wasted his career.
 
Quaresma to an extent. Supremely talented but made a couple of silly transfers, the first to Barcelona and the second to Inter under Mourinho. Has a truckload of trophies regardless of the poor choices

Riquelme wasted his prime European years, Villarreal was a good marriage but he had the talent to play at a bigger club who understood how to play him (aka not LVG).
 
I watched a video involving Iker Casillas and Fabio Cannavaro recently.

They spoke about players whose potentials were way above their actual careers.

They mentioned two players: Guti and Antonio Cassano.

Cannavaro said: "Cassano and Guti with their quality should have done much more". Also "it's these guys who should be winning Ballon d'Or, not me!" while laughing.
 
Pogba and Ballotelli have been repeatedly mentioned in this thread. Sorry, the most important reason why they've underachieved is because they were overhyped and did not have in them what it takes to be decent footballers, mentally or physically. It wasn't like a big injury or a wrong transfer decision that ruined their potentially glorious careers. They had flashes of brilliance, but nothing consistently noteworthy.

To mention Pogba in the same breath as "potential Pirlo" is grotesque.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.