The wasted talent thread - South American Curse?

[TheReligion]

Partly inspired by the ‘players you feel sorry for’ thread but a different slant.

What players do you feel ended up being a wasted talent? Those who could, and should, have gone to be greats but never ended up fulfilling their potential?

I’ll mention a few that got me growing up;

Mario Jardell - From 96-03 he was arguably the most prolific striker in Europe (130 in 125 games for Porto, 22 in 24 for Galatasary and 53 in 49 at Sporting). Rumoured unprofessional behaviour off pitch including drug use saw him drop off a cliff, move to Bolton and never regain any sort of form for the rest of his career.

Denilson - Signed by Betis as the hottest prospect in Brazilian football with a world record fee… ended up being later loaned away and rejected by Bolton Wanderers. Crazy.

Ariel Ortega - Recall him being sensational for River Plate and pretty good when he moved to Europe in La Liga. Things seems to fall off during arguments about his ownership rights and a 4 month ban he was forced to serve for breaching employment contract. Ended up back in South America and his career kind of passed by without reaching it’s true potential. Perhaps mismanaged by agents? Can see why the biggest clubs were put off.

Andres D’Allesandro - Was dubbed the next Maradona but ended up on loan at Portsmouth playing for Harry Redknapp. He wasn’t actually bad for them but was keen to move to Spain. Ultimately he failed in Europe but returned South America to Internacional and became a legend at the club. Perhaps harsh to include him but surely had the tools to be top dog at one of Europes elite.

 

[Lay]

Pato
Queresma
Adriano

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Adriano had it all but the death of his father, depression and alcohol ruined his career.

 

[Tottenhamguy]

Adriano

 

[OverratedOpinion]

Just want to be the first person to say Ravel Morrison.

 

[TheReligion]

Would it be fair to say the majority are South American? Why do we think that is the case?

 

[Dancfc]

Josh McEachran. Never seen such a natural talent come out of our academy in the modern era (and that includes out of everyone the last few years) but he had absolutely zero application to make it long term.

 

[V.O.]

Yoann Gourcuff - had the talent to be the French Kaka, but it never quite fell into place for whatever reason. Any excuse to post this as well:

 

[OverratedOpinion]

Yoann Gourcuff - had the talent to be the French Kaka, but it never quite fell into place for whatever reason. Any excuse to post this as well:

Didn't he only have 1 good season on loan in the French League in his entire career?

 

[TheGame]

Javier Saviola
Freddy Adu
James Rodrigues
Keith Gillespie - during the academy people thought he was good as Giggs.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Jese and Morata were coming up around the same time in Real Madrid's youth teams. I think people, fans especially, saw Jese as the more talented one. He had a bad injury that stopped his progress, but he was still at Real Madrid for a few seasons.

His career collapsed pretty quickly after that. He moved to PSG for 25m but within six months they sent him away on a bunch of failed loans. He ended up in the 2nd division of La Liga. He was finally performing decently but now moved to some Turkish club for $$$.

I think he's mostly totally undisciplined and his life is a reality-tv-show nightmare.

 

[V.O.]

Didn't he only have 1 good season on loan in the French League in his entire career?

That was the only time he consistently produced over a year I think, yeah. But he must have shown serious talent much earlier to get snapped up by the Milan side of that era in the first place as well.

Being a prat seems to have stifled his progress (Maldini said that Gourcuff purposefully distanced himself from the rest of the team and refused to learn Italian), and injuries finished him off - but the talent was definitely there.

 

[TheReligion]

Javier Saviola
Freddy Adu
James Rodrigues
Keith Gillespie - during the academy people thought he was good as Giggs.

I think probably post Barca? I recall him being good for them

 

[V.O.]

Jese and Morata were coming up around the same time in Real Madrid's youth teams. I think people, fans especially, saw Jese as the more talented one. He had a bad injury that stopped his progress, but he was still at Real Madrid for a few seasons.

His career collapsed pretty quickly after that. He moved to PSG for 25m but within six months they sent him away on a bunch of failed loans. He ended up in the 2nd division of La Liga. He was finally performing decently but now moved to some Turkish club for $$$.

I think he's mostly totally undisciplined and his life is a reality-tv-show nightmare.

Stoke legend Jese?

He's still only 29... Can he play right wing?

 

[OverratedOpinion]

That was the only time he consistently produced over a year I think, yeah. But he must have shown serious talent much earlier to get snapped up by the Milan side of that era in the first place as well.

Being a prat seems to have stifled his progress (Maldini said that Gourcuff purposefully distanced himself from the rest of the team and refused to learn Italian), and injuries finished him off - but the talent was definitely there.

Fair enough.

I always felt like he got a bit overrated on here during his first season at Bordeaux because we hadn't had a proper number 10 in a while and we all got a bit intoxicated by Kaka toying with us a couple of years earlier.

 

[TheReligion]

Jese and Morata were coming up around the same time in Real Madrid's youth teams. I think people, fans especially, saw Jese as the more talented one. He had a bad injury that stopped his progress, but he was still at Real Madrid for a few seasons.

His career collapsed pretty quickly after that. He moved to PSG for 25m but within six months they sent him away on a bunch of failed loans. He ended up in the 2nd division of La Liga. He was finally performing decently but now moved to some Turkish club for $$$.

I think he's mostly totally undisciplined and his life is a reality-tv-show nightmare.

Cassano and Drenthe stick in my mind for Real specifically. Perhaps Elvir Baljic?

 

[Munkehboi]

Bojan. Star of La Masia but ended in Stoke and now in Japan.

 

[Niemans]

- Ivan de la Peña
- Guti
- Robinho
- Bojan Krkic

 

[Dancfc]

Jese and Morata were coming up around the same time in Real Madrid's youth teams. I think people, fans especially, saw Jese as the more talented one. He had a bad injury that stopped his progress, but he was still at Real Madrid for a few seasons.

His career collapsed pretty quickly after that. He moved to PSG for 25m but within six months they sent him away on a bunch of failed loans. He ended up in the 2nd division of La Liga. He was finally performing decently but now moved to some Turkish club for $$$.

I think he's mostly totally undisciplined and his life is a reality-tv-show nightmare.

I'd sat Morata was pretty wasted tbh. He had all the tools to be a world class striker but couldn't cope with the pressure.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

He's missing an important tool for a striker which is the "knowing how to score goals" tool.

 

[Grylte]

Greenwood....
Or is it too soon?

 

[GuyfromAustria]

Bojan. Star of La Masia but ended in Stoke and now in Japan.

I'm baffled that he's still playing with Iniesta.

 

[antohan]

Would it be fair to say the majority are South American? Why do we think that is the case?

It isn't really.

I'd argue Bentley-boyism (too much money too soon) is a bigger issue for Europeans than South Americans since they don't know hardship as much (in relative terms).

The flipside is poorer education and being too dim to know what's best for you. But for every indisciplined South American you will have dozens that will fully embrace the unique opportunity given to them and won't let go.

Leeching entourage is an issue that knows no borders.

 

[TheGame]

I think probably post Barca? I recall him being good for them

Don’t think he was that great at Barca. Better at River Plate then kind of fell away.

 

[Theafonis]

Josh McEachran. Never seen such a natural talent come out of our academy in the modern era (and that includes out of everyone the last few years) but he had absolutely zero application to make it long term.

Neat tidy player but that’s literally it. He never developed beyond that.

Gael Kakuta was insane at youth level. I remember watching tons of YouTube videos on him, closely watching youth matches, and touting him for stardom. Thought he would honestly be the next Ronaldo (tbf I was like 15 at the time when he was breaking through). No idea what happened to him but his game didn’t translate to the adult level I guess.