I posted on another thread that i thought Kirovski may well be one of the most talented American players who simply has no success with his national team... it's obvious that he has ability (no player lasts in Europe for 8 years without demonstrating some measure of ability)... but he somehow seems to be snakebit when he puts on the USA jersey... based on his performances with the national team, he really doesn't deserve too many more chances... based on the fact that he plays in Europe, i know he'll get more opportunities... Anyway... i wanted to start a new thread to have people post some names of players (from around the world) who were excellent players for their clubs, and yet seemed to "fail" when they put on their respective national team colors... the example that i posted on the other thread was Beto Alonso of Argentina in the mid/late 1980's... he was arguably the best Argentine player at the time as River Plate's #10... but he was never able to duplicate his success with the national team... i just wanted to get some other opinions of such players from around the world... any thoughts???
DaniCrew let's be serious, this guy may be living in Europe but he hasn't been playing and he definitely hasn't excelled for any club. Honestly, he might just be staying over there just so nobody in America really knows if he's actually any good. It seems as if anybody plays in Europe your ready to jump on their bandwagon and maybe the coaches do too. I'd like to see this guy in the MLS where he'd get regular playing time to make a fair assessment of his value at the club level to see if he deserves to be called up.
Oh no... i think you may have misunderstood my statements... i completely agree that he has not "excelled" with any team that he's played on... but since we seem to give a lot of credit for our american players who "survive" (for lack of a better term) in Europe, one can say that he has been reasonably successful (and one of the more accomplished american players) in that regard... better said, if playing in Europe is a measure of one's success in the game, then Kirovski is arguably one of the more successful american players for the past 8 years... personally, since i've only gotten to see him with the national team, i have not seen anything that would lead me to call him back in... with the exception of the Germany game a few years back, he has been simply horrific with the national team... i was trying to start a discussion of other players from around the world who were very good players for their clubs or who were "successful" in club play, but for whatever reason, were unsuccessful as part of their national teams... i made an example of Beto Alonso... but George Best comes to mind... maybe Raul from Spain... players along those lines...