Mr. Kung Fu, flying fist of fury himself, Cantona. And practically the entire Netherlands squad from the 70s to the present. No World Cup glory for those choke artists. Van Basten Cruyff Neeskens Gullit Rijkaard Bergkamp Davids Manchester's dive artist and the rest of the origami Dutch players. Although same could be said for England AKA Argentina's shadow.
The question was - no trophies : Cantona won tons at home Van Basten - Euro 88 Cruyff - 4 Champions' Cups and 10 Domestic Titles, so on and so on.
Sure, but to soccer players, there's no bigger glory than World Cup glory. I'm sure Van Basten and Cruyff use their medals won in those respective tournaments as make-shift hammers to fix sh*i*t.
Allow me to correct myself - 8 domestic titles for Cruyff , here are his total awards : World Club Championship (1972) European Cup (1971, 72, 73) Dutch Championship (1966, 67, 68, 72, 73, 82, 84) Dutch Cup (1967, 70, 71, 72, 83) Spanish Championship (1974) Spanish Cup (1978) Individual Honours European Footballer of the Year (1971, 73, 74)
There's an opinion that Euro is harder to win than WC , not necessarily mine. Anyway the question is best players who have not won anything. If it's best players who have not won WC , there would be way too many to choose from , me lineup would be : Yashin Suurbier , DeGuya (?) , Maldini Zizinho , Sindelaar , Cruyff , Strel'tsov Friedenreich ,Leonidas , Fontaine and that does not include DiStefano , Mathews , Francescoli , Baggio , Puskas , Zico e.t.c.
Karl Heinz Rummenigge two times lost a world cup final. But at least he won EC 1980 and lots of national trophies.
Which is mistaken, IMHO. It's probably harder to get to the second round of the Euro than to get to the second round of the World Cup... but to win the whole thing is another story entirely. No team trying to win the Euro has to go through Brazil or Argentina.
There have been WC winning teams who did not go through Brasil or Argentina , only to have their fiercest competitors be eliminated by the aforementioned duo.
Plus a German championship and around 10 or so Northern German championship (before Germany had a national league).
if that the case, this list will go on forever..... for example, every single English players since 1966, every single Italian player since 1982, every single Spanish players since the collapse of the Roman Empire and before....
Excape Goat is right, the challenge posed by soccerhooligan is very specific and must be followed to make this a worthwhile excercise. So far no-one has provided a real candidate. Zico had a stellar club career, including winning 4 Brasileiro, the most democratic of championships to win. Seeler had one Bundesliga championship and one German cup. All the players named thus far have won something (not familiar enough with Mark Chung). This is truly a tough one to crack. To have an international career, the player will have had to distinguish himself on the club scene. If he didn’t find any success with his club, ambition and notoriety would probably have caused him to join a bigger club, thus likely winning something at that level. I thought about Gascgoigne, but he won an FA cup. I’m thinking it will probably be a relatively recent S.American player who left his country before winning anything and is still awaiting. Has Zanetti won anything? Maybe the question itself is an oxymoron...can a great player have won nothing? I'll keep trying.
Didn't Gascgoigne also bag a scudetto with Lazio? If you want a renound name for the sake of being contemporary I'd have to say Christian Vieri. The guy has scored soooo many goals in his career but has nothing to show for it.
Gascoigne didn't win a scudetto, but he did win three (or two) scottish titles with Rangers and the 91 FA cup with Spurs. Did Vieri not win a scudetto at Juve before he went to Atheltico, I had though he had. One name that comes to mind is Matthew Le Tissier of Southampton.
We should put Gascoigne and Zico off the list. Zico, I believed, also won a Toyota Cup(at least won a Copa Libertadores). Gascoigne won so many titles in Scotland that I think he went there so that he can win something. Vieri has a Serie A title with Juventus in 1996/97. Zanetti won a UEFA Cup with Inter. It is a very tough question. In the older days, players stayed with the same club in his entire career. If his club happens to be a weak side, he might never win anything. Now, the poor clubs will either sell the player for money. Or he can move to a bigger club for money or glory??? Even for South American players, all the top clubs will snap them up before they head to Europe. It is hard to imagine a former River Plate or Boca Junior player never won anything at home. How about Socrates? I knew nothing about his club career. Or Falcao?
According to one search I did, Socrates "played most of his career for Botafogo and Corinthians for whom he won three Sao Paulo state championships. Socrates also played for Flamengo winning a Rio state championship before ending his career in 1990 playing for Santos." I believe Falcao won (at least) the Scudetto with Roma in '83.
Erm - so basically what you're saying is that any player who hasn't won a World Cup has won 'nothing'? Well that accounts for the vast majority of players in the game, great or otherwise. My god - the amount of people who know nothing about football, yet constantly try and make clever posts on sites like this never ceases to amaze me.