Waste of talent xi? (Wasteman xi)

[Dr. Dwayne]

Putting Diesler in is unfair. Declining mental health isn't a fitting match for a waster.

Agree with this. From everything I've read the guy had plenty of difficulty just coping with everyday life, let alone being a professional footballer. From the outside looking in it seems that he tried but his mental state could not cope. I don't see that as a waste of talent, just an unfortunate confluence of circumstances.

Winston Bogarde should surely be in everyone's 11.

 

[Segment]

Just saying; 'Wasteman' is a slang word used in London, of which is offensive, it doesn't just mean wasted lives/talent

Yup, your right, but in this context it is true. Or you can call them paigons

 

[duffer]

Just saying; 'Wasteman' is a slang word used in London, of which is offensive, it doesn't just mean wasted lives/talent

Eh? What else does it mean apart from "someone who wasted/is wasting their life"?

 

[Vidic_In_Moscow]

I'll cry real man tears when he finally sees Wrestlemania.

 

[SirScholes]

-------------------Akinfeev--------------------
Myself----------Breno------------Jones------Sharpe
Deisler------Gascoigne------Scholl------Quaresma
------------Balotelli--------Adriano--------------

EDIT:
Can't post anymore today so here my explanation of picking Mehmet Scholl.
Scholl had some terrible luck with injuries in his career. Especially his international career has been cut short because of it.
He had outrageous talent and while he collected lots of club trophies due to playing for Bayern he never became the player he could have become. So unless we only pick players who wasted their careers by themselves it's completely fine to pick him and most of the other German posters will probably agree with what I wrote.

Yourself at right back? I thought no one grew up wanting to be Gary Neville

 

[ADJUDICATOR]

Eh? What else does it mean apart from "someone who wasted/is wasting their life"?

I guess it's more like saying the person's a waste of a life.

 

[redspoony]

Yeah the same. Went from the biggest talent in the world to basically a nothing player in couple of years. He never reached the top, indeed, but I don't think it was due to lacking the talent, but lacking the mentality, which makes him a candidate here.

I see where you're coming from but I don't agree. I think he was a flashy young talent who got scooped up too soon and his club knew he could bank roll them. This was at a time where Barca and Real Madrid were buying world class players for fun - if he was that good surely one of them would have been in for him. As I recall, they weren't.

Either way though, he certainly didn't fulfill his early promise, that we are agreed on.

 

[anant]

Royston Drenthe?

 

[Eplel]

I wonder if they can beat "waste of money" xi...

 

[duffer]

I guess it's more like saying the person's a waste of a life.

Not sure how that is much different. As a born and raised Londoner I have heard the term all of my life. Was just curious as to why someone thought it meant something else.

 

[ivaldo]

Jose Baxter perhaps? Never going to be a world beater but had a hell of a lot more talent than he's shown, a failed drugs test doesn't help either!

 

[ADJUDICATOR]

Not sure how that is much different. as a born and raised londoner and have heard the term all of my life. Was just curious as to why someone thought it meant something else.

As with most insults, it's got a wide scope.

 

[Isotope]

Hazard could be on Messi/Ronaldo level. He just doesn't want to.

Charlie Adam used to be THE pivot for Liverpool "crème of Europe" FC. Now, he's just a corner specialist for Stoke.

 

[donkeyfish]

Sebastian Deisler surely deserves a spot.

Perhaps Bojan Djordic

 

[Jaybomb]

Taarabt.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

?
Rafael - Evans - Jones - Fabio
Cleverley - Anderson
Nani - Ravel - Zaha
Welbeck​

Ive never been a Nani fan, but in fairness to him the Nani we saw in the Euro's was not the Nani I remember from his days here, he tracked back, when he lost the ball he didn't sit and sulk he got up and got on with it, he seemed to know when to do the simple thing when at united he would always go for the spectacular.

Basically looked like he had grew up.

 

[Brwned]

Sczcesny
Naughton-Richards-Coates-Gibbs
Townsend-Huddlestone-Anderson-Bojan
Adriano
Balotelli

Richards?! Come on. His talent took him as far as he could reach.

I thought Nelson Oliveira would go on to be Portugal's long-awaited answer to their striking problem but he looked a bit useless at Swansea and is currently a reserve player for Benfica after a series of loans.

Michael Owen, maybe? Ballon d'Or winner at 21 but by 25 he was wasting away at Newcastle.

Alexandre Pato was ruined by injury it seems.

 

[friend]

There are two problems regarding "waste of talent"

1) Some people overestimate the ability and potential of youngsters when they are in age-group football. The step up to pro football is a much bigger step than thought of. Hence guys who go on to have solid careers, though never being at the top end as once expected to get labelled as waste of talents. I'm looking at Zaha, Cleverley, Rodwell from this thread.

2) You have players who did reach the top-end of the game but couldn't sustain it for whatever reason (injuries, personal problems). Did they really waste their talent though? Gazza for instance was at the peak of his powers world class. A genuine elite player. Ronaldinho had 3 years of elite performance but was on the downward scale by 27. Is he a wasted talent? Both did justice to their talents by reaching the heights expected after-all.

Agreed with this, personally I wouldn't label either category as waste of talents. I think generally when talking about wasted talent or potential, people are referring to players who have just been immensely hyped up (sometimes only by fans of their own club) after playing well for about half a season or even less in some cases, and then never obtaining the world class tag as they progress through their careers.

I don't like to use that term anyway as I think the only definitive criteria to judge whether the player had that talent is to look back at his career and see how he did. If they don't end up doing so well, can it not just be a case of a purple patch that just so happened to occur at the start of their careers? I realize a lot of these players don't make it because of their attitude, work ethic, etc. but to me it seems like they get that free pass of "waste of talent" in terms of how good they were (as compared to players who don't have such problems but just aren't good enough and labelled as such) when you will never know if they could actually keep up their performances if they did control their off field issues.

 

[redspoony]

If we're using injury as a qualification on this, Norman Whiteside.

 

[Ish]

Balotelli has done justice to his limited talent.

There's definitely that way to look at it!

 

[Raoul]

-------------------Akinfeev--------------------
Myself----------Breno------------Jones------Sharpe
Deisler------Gascoigne------Scholl------Quaresma
------------Balotelli--------Adriano--------------

EDIT:
Can't post anymore today so here my explanation of picking Mehmet Scholl.
Scholl had some terrible luck with injuries in his career. Especially his international career has been cut short because of it.
He had outrageous talent and while he collected lots of club trophies due to playing for Bayern he never became the player he could have become. So unless we only pick players who wasted their careers by themselves it's completely fine to pick him and most of the other German posters will probably agree with what I wrote.

I suppose Quaresma can cry himself to sleep with his 6 leagues, FA Cup, Champions League, and Euro 2016 medal.

 

[sunama]

I think Ben Arfa has to be in even though he's found decent form and got a move to PSG. It's all come a bit late for him.

Ben Arfa has (recently) done very well for himself.
As you said, he is now at the best club in France and may be a regular in their first team.
Most footballers around the World would kill to be in that position.
I don't think he can be called a waste of talent.

P.Jones has good raw talent, but due to injury he has wasted his talent.

 

[simonhch]

Balotelli
Morrison
Adriano
Recoba
Mutu
Anderson
Diaby
Breno

 

[Gjx]

David Bentley. Clearly blessed but saw through all the bs that comes with being a prem player and called it a day when he was 29.

Have a fair bit of respect as there's plenty players who's hearts aren't in the game but take the money anyway.

Also responsible for one of my fav football vids.

 

[Amar__]

Balotelli has done justice to his limited talent.

Agreed, I never understood what was all the hype around him, apart from good shot on him, and being physically strong I am not sure which other great attributes he had.

 

[Black Adder]

Mancini?

Was great for Roma playing RB, dissapeared after moving to Inter.

 

[harms]

--------Adriano--Bojan--------
Robinho------------Quaresma
----Anderson---Denilson-----
Zhirkov--Peixe*--Jones--Brown
----------Rene Adler-------

*a defensive midfielder who also played as a CB, won Golden Ball in one of the youth WC

Subs: Sergio Asenjo; Peter Knowles, Robin Friday, Lee Trundle, Ravel Morrison, Mutu

Tried to pick a high-profile players, some of them even had a decent career (but should've have amazing one). It was very tough with the defensive line, Brown and Zhirkov are especially a stretch. Most of them are modern and most of them played in EPL (English hype-machine at its best)

 

[nevillestache]

I remember Mads Timm as a promising youngster at United from the early 2000's but a supposedly poor attitude and the road race incident (with Callum Flanagan) ended up with him retiring from football in his early twenties.

 

[RedTiger]

Foster
Vanden Borre - Bramble - Bogarde - Drenthe

Deisler - Anderson - Djalminha - Fiore

Jeffers --- Edmundo
​

Special mentions for:

Finidi George
Lukas Podolski
Michael Johnson

 

[paulscholes18]

Foster
Richards Breno Bogarde Sharpe
Morrison Gazza
Recoba
Adriano Balotelli Cassano

 

[Munkehboi]

Steven Gerrard...come on most of the names on here has won a leauge title at least

Serisouly, Keiron Dyer and Richard Wright

 

[snk123]

------- Ben Foster ------
Rafael --- Jones --- Breno --- Fabio
----- Anderson ----- Felipe Melo
Morrison ------ Robinho
----- Balotelli ----- Adriano

P.S - you can actually make a few setups of only brazilian players

 

[GloryHunter07]

Cassano, Joe Cole, Bojan Djordic, Mido?

 

[Munkehboi]

Cassano, Joe Cole

Cole won three leauge titles and numerous cups, dont think he was a waste man at all.

 

[GloryHunter07]

Cole won three leauge titles and numerous cups, dont think he was a waste man at all.

I dont think he got anywhere near his level of talent.

 

[Grylte]

I'd put Vorm in there as GK.
Had a fantastic season for Swansea, then decided to be second gk for Spurs instead of playing every week.

Wasn't there a kid back in the days called Cadamanteri, or something like that?
Think he was at Wolves.... (Could of course have googled), Supposed to be the next English superstar.

Chamakh
Taraabt
Babel
Wasn't there a guy called Cherno Samba that was promising, or was that just on championship manager, and nothing in real life?

 

[choiboyx012]

Adriano, Robinho, Balotelli, Arshavin, Quaresma

Riquelme- could've played at top-flight European club a bit longer before going back to Boca
Berbatov

 

[Robertd0803]

Adriano springs to mind. Scott Sinclair and Jack Rodwell are 2 great examples of joining the wrong club at the wrong time in their career.

 

[paulscholes18]

I'd put Vorm in there as GK.
Had a fantastic season for Swansea, then decided to be second gk for Spurs instead of playing every week.

Wasn't there a kid back in the days called Cadamanteri, or something like that?
Think he was at Wolves.... (Could of course have googled), Supposed to be the next English superstar.

Chamakh
Taraabt
Babel
Wasn't there a guy called Cherno Samba that was promising, or was that just on championship manager, and nothing in real life?

Danny Cadamarteri the ex Everton youngster is a good shout

Matt Jansen the ex Blackburn player, big things were expected but never did anything of note

 

[redspoony]

Richard Wright

Van den Borre
Winston Bogarde
Breno

Anderson
Joe Cole
Robinho
Matthew Le Tissier

Adriano
Robin Friday
Stan Collymore

Le Tissier might surprise a few but he was supremely talented, beyond nearly any English player at the time. His unwillingness to remove himself from the comfort of Southampton and not challenge himself at a bigger club means he is a majorly wasted talent for me.

And as for Collymore, when he was on form in his Forest and early Liverpool days, he was almost unplayable. He just never made the most of his amazing talent.

There's a case for including Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler as well, especially the latter; he was one of the best finishers of his generation and could play a bit as well but he just dropped off and became a bit of a joke.