unfulfilled potential

mdgoonah41

maybe there is a thread for this, if so, please point me to it and merge this sucker.

i was thinking tonight about some players who had/have all the ability in the world, but for whatever reason (injury, off the field nonsense, etc) did not live up to it. i somehow ended up vicente's wikipedia page, which got me thinking about this. he was a joy to watch, but he was injured constantly. he ended up making 300 appearances for valencia, but in 11 seasons. his last 5 seasons were injury wrecked. but what a talent

the other one that comes to mind for me is quaresma. brilliant technical player, magician when it comes to striking the ball, but what has he made of his career? his thing with barca, one season at inter, and then wasting away his career at porto and in the turkish league

what say you?

Bryant

One name sticks out for me in terms of unfulfilled potential:

Bold Tone

What about our very own Diaby and Rosicky?

Biggus

Welbeck doesn't belong here as he doesn't have any potential.

mdgoonah41

adriano is a great shout

Irishgunner

Adriano was brilliant, such a sad story.

Gunner89

Serious waste of talent but managed a ton of trophies in his career.

Premier league, FA Cup and Community Shield
La Liga and Segunda Liga winner
4 Europa League titles (must be a record), Uefa intertoto cup and Super cup
Portuguese cup

Claudius

Players who still have a chance to fix their story:

Lasanna Diarra (green shoots this season though)
Alexandre Pato
Mario Balotelli
Paulo Ganso
Amaury Bischoff PI

jones

Nice thread, Adriano is definitely number one. Could easily have been top five ever had he kept it up, he was Ibrahimovic on steroids basically.

Segway

Except those already mentioned I'm thinking of:
Ariel Ortega
Alvaro Recoba
Gaizka Mendieta
Nicklas Bendtner 🙁

Big Willie

Pablo Aimar is a good shout I think. The guy was amazing when he first came through and then just disappeared. Similar with Javier Saviola.

QuincyAbeyie

Ben Arfa could've been great.

Claudius

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Ben Arfa could've been great.

Good shout. One of the great disappointments of the last few years. France is good at this game. Samir Nasri, Mamadou Sakho, Lassana Diarra, etc. There's a fair few players coming out of there with very high ceilings and then just disappearing into nothingness.

Qwiss

From our academy Pennant and Bentley come to mind.

And Gazza of course.

jones

Reyes is another good shout, I'm hoping to this day that someone slide tackles Neville in the face for what he did.

Klaus

Sebastian Giovinco. Enough talent to become the new Del Piero but only a third of the drive compared to the original.

Sebastian Deisler, if anyone remembers him. Fearsome potential but the depression took his career.

Gaizka Mendieta would rank high on any list too. Maybe the biggest waste of all time along with Juan Sebastian Veron. These guys could have ruled the world for a solid decade. Instead they were pretty much finished in European football at the age of 24.

Mirth

Robinho
Baptista

Summer 2006 nostalgia

lorddulaarsenal

David Hurst

banduan

I wouldn't call Reyes unfilfilled potential. Sure he copped out the Arsenal but achieved stuff elsewhere.

Pato was always rubbish.

Ben Arfa is definitely high up amongst the coulda beens. Veron... 😆

Clrnc

Joaquin? Was electrifying back in those days with Denilson on the other wing. Pity his career never really took off although he was still at some decent clubs.

I could think of a few interesting names. Bojinov, Aisatti, Babel, Dos Santos, Drenthe, Bojan, Kerlon, Kluivert, D'alessandro.

There's one English lad that was dubbed the next superstar back in those Citeh days where Eriksen was in charge. I cannot remember his name but he grew fat and disappeared.