So, with Euro 21 and Copa America going on, (and Hannibal and Amad racking up minutes for Tunisia and Cote d’Ivoire), we have a lot of discussions about why star players aren’t playing enough - Jadon Sancho, Adam Grealish, Bruno Fernandez yesterday etc - and of course who’s to blame (it’s Southgate).
It made me think of some other cases of players who excelled at club level but where not equally effective or appreciated in their national team. Scholes and even Carrick has been mentioned alot already. One stand out for me, is Eric Cantona, who dominated English football ahead of players like Dennis Bergkamp, Jürgen Klimsmann, Alan Shearer and Gianfranco Zola, but whereas these played important parts for their nations at big tournaments (Zola, though, was also somwhat underplayed for Italy as I recall), Le Roi wasn’t even selected for France at the height of his powers, even after he stopped being quarrelly and difficult. This of course also had to to with the development of a young Zinedine Zidane, and the French idea that two things are needed to conquer the world: A pick of grandiose masculine egos to lead the rest into battle, and a bunch of well oiled guillotines to remove most of the egoes to prevent civil war and mutiny.
Another one was Diego Maradona in 1978, only 17 but already arguably Argentinas most dangerous individual player, kept out of the squad altogether - alledgedly to shield him at a young age, but also probably not to create a stir in the established pecking order of the squad shortly before the WC where all eyes where watching Argentina but also the nationalistic junta arranging the tournament.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær himself came from the bench to fill in at right midfield for tiny Norway at the 1998 WC, due to the (successful) tactical dispositions of Egil ‘Mad Professor’ Olsen, preferring the towering Flo brothers as starters in a 4-5-1.
We also have the opposite: Paul Pogba the great captain of the tournament giants France, shuffled around between various positions and the bench even at his club.
Who can forget Kleberson? Or Carlton Palmer? And how good was Karel Poborsky really? Or Miroslav Klose? Jan Koller? Peter Crouch?
Shoot forth with examples of puzzling cases of ‘he can’t be that good, he barely gets a sniff at (insert name of club/NT)!
It made me think of some other cases of players who excelled at club level but where not equally effective or appreciated in their national team. Scholes and even Carrick has been mentioned alot already. One stand out for me, is Eric Cantona, who dominated English football ahead of players like Dennis Bergkamp, Jürgen Klimsmann, Alan Shearer and Gianfranco Zola, but whereas these played important parts for their nations at big tournaments (Zola, though, was also somwhat underplayed for Italy as I recall), Le Roi wasn’t even selected for France at the height of his powers, even after he stopped being quarrelly and difficult. This of course also had to to with the development of a young Zinedine Zidane, and the French idea that two things are needed to conquer the world: A pick of grandiose masculine egos to lead the rest into battle, and a bunch of well oiled guillotines to remove most of the egoes to prevent civil war and mutiny.
Another one was Diego Maradona in 1978, only 17 but already arguably Argentinas most dangerous individual player, kept out of the squad altogether - alledgedly to shield him at a young age, but also probably not to create a stir in the established pecking order of the squad shortly before the WC where all eyes where watching Argentina but also the nationalistic junta arranging the tournament.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær himself came from the bench to fill in at right midfield for tiny Norway at the 1998 WC, due to the (successful) tactical dispositions of Egil ‘Mad Professor’ Olsen, preferring the towering Flo brothers as starters in a 4-5-1.
We also have the opposite: Paul Pogba the great captain of the tournament giants France, shuffled around between various positions and the bench even at his club.
Who can forget Kleberson? Or Carlton Palmer? And how good was Karel Poborsky really? Or Miroslav Klose? Jan Koller? Peter Crouch?
Shoot forth with examples of puzzling cases of ‘he can’t be that good, he barely gets a sniff at (insert name of club/NT)!
