Great players on dead end national teams

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by wufc, Dec 19, 2006.

  1. wufc

    wufc Member

    May 1, 2005
    UC Irvine
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'd like to know if there are any players that have had highly successful club careers in major leagues (mainly active, but you can list past players too) that have played for national teams that are absolutely awful. Like I'm talking ranked 125 or below on FIFA rankings, teams that are pretty much never close to qualifying for a World Cup.
     
  2. Yañez

    Yañez Member+

    Oct 11, 2005
    Santiago, Llolleo
    Club:
    Univ de Chile
    Nat'l Team:
    Chile
    Only 1 i could think of is George Weah from Liberia. Played In AC Milan, Man United and Chelsea
     
  3. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    World Player of the Year in 95. Great player.
     
  4. maturin

    maturin Member

    Jun 8, 2004
    Eidur Gudjohnsen.
     
  5. MikeyM

    MikeyM New Member

    Jan 4, 2002
    Frisco, TX.
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    George Best, Northern Ireland

    Regarded by many as the greatest player of all time.

    Career included: Manchester United, LA Aztecs, Fulham, Ft Lauderdale Strikers, Hib's & San Jose Earthquakes.


    George Weah, Liberia

    1995 FIFA World Player of the Year, European Footballer of the Year, and African Footballer of the Year.

    Career that included stops at: Monaco, PSG, AC Milan, Chelsea, Man City, & Olympique Marseille.
     
  6. dor02

    dor02 Member

    Aug 9, 2004
    Melbourne
    Club:
    UC Sampdoria
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Ryan Giggs, Neville Southall and Ian Rush. Those guys are legends in England (even though Giggs is still playing, he will go down as one of the best to have played in England) but Wales is a joke of an NT. It would have been different for them three if Paul Bodin didn't miss a penalty in one of the World Cup qualifiers.

    Jari Litmanen is worthy of a mention. He was a star with Ajax in the 90s but Finland has never produced a decent team for him to play in.
     
  7. maturin

    maturin Member

    Jun 8, 2004
    Mido hasn't been playing well lately, but he's a great player when he's on form and Egypt are awful.
     
  8. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    who the hell told you Egypt are awful, you don't know anything about football, they're only African champs. Educate yourself before making stupid statements.
     
  9. leg_breaker

    leg_breaker Member

    Dec 23, 2005
    Steven Gerrard.
     
  10. Teso Dos Bichos

    Teso Dos Bichos Red Card

    Sep 2, 2004
    Purged by RvN
    It was Man City.
     
  11. Cassano

    Cassano Member

    Jul 16, 2004
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Weah really came close to qualifying for 2002, I think if he had won on the last day of qualifying Liberia would've qualified but they lost or tied IIRC...
     
  12. Catel

    Catel Member

    Dec 18, 2006
    Lyon, France
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    Eto'o with Cameroon, Shevchenko with Ukraine ?
     
  13. benficafan3

    benficafan3 Member+

    Nov 16, 2005
    What horrible examples. Eto'o has been to a World Cup, and Ukraine is a World Cup quarter-finalist.
     
  14. Miran Klosnic

    Miran Klosnic New Member

    Feb 1, 2006
    Adrian Ilie (Albania), Sergej Barbarez (Bosnia), Shabani Nonda (Congo), Andres Oper (Estonia), Alexiandr Hleb (Belarus), Maris Verpakovskis (Latvia), Dwight Yorke (T&T), David Suazo (Honduras), Giannakis Okkas and Michalis Konstantinou (Cyprus)...

    Maybe not all of them are "real" dead end teams, but they are definitely no crackers...
     
  15. Auriaprottu

    Auriaprottu Member+

    Atlanta Damn United
    Apr 1, 2002
    The back of the bus
    Club:
    Atlanta
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    This post brings to light a question I had when I first clicked on the thread. What, exactly, qualifies as a "dead-end" national team? Where do we draw the line between "dead-end" and "not dead-end, but no better off in terms of ultimate success"? The Cup is there to be won, and so grouping those teams that do not win in different categories seems a bit artificial IMO.

    It's clear that, for most teams, just reaching the World Cup finals is a great accomplishment. It's a clear goal for any player with competitive spirit. But real competitive spirit cannot be satisfied by a first or second round appearance. If, at the end of his career, a given player has appeared in two or three World Cup finals and continental NT cup finals, but never lifted his continental trophy or the World Cup, his NT was no more successful, really, than the team whose players watched from home.
     
  16. Ombak

    Ombak Moderator
    Staff Member

    Flamengo
    Apr 19, 1999
    Irvine, CA
    Club:
    Flamengo Rio Janeiro
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Shevchenko and Eto'o don't belong on a thread that started out with Best (N. Ireland) and Weah (Liberia). The first two were WC quarter-finalists or saw their country reach the WC quarter-finals and could do so again with them on the team, the other two never qualified for the World Cup. In fact Weah's country never qualified at all, with or without him.
     
  17. jkl;

    jkl; New Member

    Oct 15, 2003
    Ilie played for Romania, not Albania...
     
  18. humstein

    humstein New Member

    Jun 2, 2003
    I don't know if he's a "great" player, but Canadian Dwayne de Rosario could play on a number of major national teams.
     
  19. maturin

    maturin Member

    Jun 8, 2004
    Dimitar Berbatov perhaps.
     
  20. Excape Goat

    Excape Goat Member+

    Mar 18, 1999
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    At least, he played in one European Championship Finals. That should disqualify him from this thread.


    What was the names of the two brothers from Pananma?
     
  21. Ombak

    Ombak Moderator
    Staff Member

    Flamengo
    Apr 19, 1999
    Irvine, CA
    Club:
    Flamengo Rio Janeiro
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Julio Cesar Dely Valdez was one... I'll look up the other...
    Jorge Dely Valdez
     
  22. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'd define a dead-end national team as one for which it would take a miracle to qualify for a World Cup.

    Jari Litmanen is perhaps the most underrated player in this category - as recently as 2005, despite being well past his prime, he was still the Finnish national team's biggest attacking threat.

    Also:

    * Cha Bum-Kun. While South Korea in the 1980s doesn't fully fit the definition of dead-end national team (qualified regularly for the World Cup), they did not win their first World Cup match until 2002. The argument for calling them a dead-end national team in the 1980s is that they probably would have had little chance of qualifying from any other continent at the time despite fielding one of the best strikers of the decade.

    * They're not world-class, but Jason Roberts and Shalrie Joseph, who both play for Grenada (population 90,000), each would have been good enough to start regularly for at least a dozen teams in the last World Cup.

    * Also in the "ridiculously above his national teammates" category is Zeshan Rehman, who made his debut for Pakistan - perennially near the bottom of the FIFA rankings - in a season in which he made a reasonable number of first-team appearances in the English Premiership. That has to be one of the greatest-ever disparities in level of play between one man and the rest of his national team.
     
  23. Catel

    Catel Member

    Dec 18, 2006
    Lyon, France
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    Kaladze (Georgia) ?
     
  24. Miran Klosnic

    Miran Klosnic New Member

    Feb 1, 2006
    The best choice is Wynton Rufer (New Zealand)! Former Werder Bremen striker, who was one of the best during the early 90s.
     
  25. pittsy1

    pittsy1 New Member

    Jun 28, 2006
    England, Salford
    Goran Pandev- Macedonia
    Eidur Gudjonsson- Iceland
    Jorge Valdivia & Matias Fernandez- Chile
    Sherman Cardenas- Colombia
    Hossan Kaabi- Iran ( Qualified for WC....)
     

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