Just thinking fast in terms of more modern players I can think of Oleguer at Barca, Guti at Madrid, Paolo Ferreira at Chelsea. There's a ton more but I'm not thinking much at the moment. Who else?
I wouldn't rate Guti as a poor player, not by a longshot. Not much of a topic either, considering that dissing on professional football players for poor career choices is quite immature. It happens to all of us in various degrees at some point in our careers afterall.
Bendtner was not there long enough time. Guti was never at Madrid's standard especially even after the transfers came im. He has moments of brilliance but he was crap a lot of times. There's no denying he stayed there because he was a faithful Madridista and people liked him for whatever reason including sentimental ones. Guti has always been a completely average player who could come up with a bit of magic every once in a blue moon. Why isn't it much of a topic? And where am I dismissing players for poor career choices? In most part I'm dismissing the clubs for allowing them to stay there despite the fact that they were not important anymore. There are plenty of average players allowed to stay at a club for sentimental reasons and you know that.
Martín Palermo, Filippo Inzaghi, spring to mind immediately. Both had successful careers, both are adored by their fans for some reason, both less than average football players.
Oleguer was the first that came to mind for barcelona yeah he is from la Masia but my god he was crap...can you imagine him in the current team? another one and probably the most famous is Bogarde, I mean you cant go past this guy Gudjohnson to me was average yet from 2000 to 2009 he was either at chelsea or barcelona
Kuyt was producing at a nice clip for a winger until this season. I don't think 3/4 of a season counts as a significant period of time.
Juliano Belleti for Barcelona and Chelsea. Raúl Bravo for Real Madrid. Thiago Motta for Barcelona and Inter. Pepe for Real Madrid, already too long.
Most of these are pretty wide of the mark. Paulo Ferreira was superb at Porto and had an excellent first season at Chelsea. Winston Bogarde was a top quality player at Ajax. Guti was an extremely talented player who was superb at times for Madrid. Eidur Gudjohnson had a couple of excellent seasons at Chelsea. Pepe has been one of the best defenders in the world over the last 5 years. Dirk Kuyt has been a consistent performer for Liverpool for years. Michael Carrick was and is one of the best deep lying playmakers in European football. Basically all of these players were at some point in their career (and each of them for a reasonable duration), among the top 200 players in world football. Not one of them is a bad player. That's why as well as playing for top clubs they also won a large number of caps for big nations (Iceland obviously excluded).
Only in 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 maybe. The other years not really. His only selection for an all star XI was in 2003/2004. Of course, England has an abundance of Pirlo-esque players, therefore he plays so few matches.
Indeed one big shame. An average player in the second amateur league has a better technique than him.