10 Football prodigies who didn’t live up to their potential

In football, people are quite obsessed with finding the future stars of tomorrow. Even at an early age, talented players are incredibly over-hyped and overloaded with expectations, many of which cannot be met. This leads to a number of top talents falling by the wayside, inevitably failing and disappearing into insignificance.

Of course, there are players who thrive under pressure, but for many, the “Wonderkid” label can actually be a career killer. In this article, we take a look back at 10 of the biggest Wonderkids who didn’t live up to the hype and couldn’t fulfill their potential to the extent they were thought or hoped to.

10. Ravel Morrison
The six-time Jamaican international hails from Manchester United’s youth system. In his early days, Ravel Morrison was predicted great things. He played for the Three Lions from U16 to U21 before opting for Jamaica. Partly because he didn’t stand a chance in England’s senior national team.

After an odyssey through England, Italy, Mexico, Sweden and the Netherlands, the central midfielder landed in the second English league in the early fall of his career. At Derby County, he was allowed to play under Wayne Rooney – a true soccer legend on the island.

9. David Bentley
David Bentley has seven senior caps for England to his name. However, the Arsenal youngster did not have the chance to make it big. He first moved from the Gunners to Blackburn for a small fee. Two years later, he returned to London – to arch-rivals Tottenham.

Spurs put a whopping 22 million euros on the table. However, the signing of the right midfielder turned out to be a bad investment. After numerous loan spells, which also took Bentley to Russia, he ended his career early in 2013.

8. Jose Kleberson
When you become world champion in your career (2002 with Brazil) and have 32 caps for your country, you can’t call it a bad career. Still, so much more seemed possible for Kleberson.

In Europe, he tried his hand quite unsuccessfully for two years with Man United and then with Besiktas. But it remained quite luckless, even if one or other title jumped out. Instead, the central midfielder played at home for long stretches of his career.

7. Alen Halilovic
Alen Halilovic was celebrated as the Croatian Messi in his homeland. The attacking midfielder moved from Dinamo Zagreb to Barça early on. But the breakthrough did not happen there – HSV was ready as a grateful buyer and paid five million euros.

But Halilovic flopped. As he did later with AC Milan. He has since been loaned out to Belgium and the Netherlands and now plays for Reading FC in the English lower league. Right from the start, comparisons with Messi were too much of a burden for the former super talent.

6. Samed Yesil
Samed Yesil was supposed to be the next great German center forward. In his teens, he was promoted to the professional team at Bayer Leverkusen before Liverpool FC paid a transfer fee of 1.3 million euros for the attacking talent in 2012. At the Reds, things initially seemed to be on a steep upward trajectory. But then injury struck hard and Yesil’s star faded.

He tried in vain to get back on his feet in Switzerland, Greece, Turkey and Germany. At the age of 27, the former junior national team player now only plays in the premier league.

5. Adnan Januzaj
In a dismal 2013/14 season, Januzaj was a glimmer of hope at Manchester United. The Belgian winger was considered extremely tricky and mixed up the youth teams. His debut promised United a bright future, but unfortunately he never really got going after being handed the number 11 jersey. In 2017, he left Manchester for Real Sociedad.

4. Royston Drenthe
When he threatened to sue Feyenoord to force his move to Real Madrid in 2007, Drenthe was in the spotlight. But the Dutchman flopped and in 2013 – after an interim loan spell at Everton FC – moved to Russia, Turkey and Abu Dhabi before briefly giving up soccer to play music in 2016. In the meantime, he only plays in the lower divisions.

3. Giuseppe Rossi
Rossi signed for Man United at the age of 17 and made his Premier League debut in 2005, coming on as a substitute for Ruud van Nistelrooy and scoring a goal in a 3-1 win. But injuries and fierce competition meant Rossi never really took off at United and left the club in 2007. The talented and promising striker subsequently had to contend with major injury woes – otherwise a world career would have beckoned.

2. Alexandre Pato
The young Pato had everything it took to mature into a world star: Flair, fearlessness, an ice-cold finish and pace. Only the most important thing, a healthy body, eluded him. After quite a few injury worries, he finally left Milan in 2013 and returned to Brazil. Since then, he has never come close to matching the form that briefly thrilled the world between 2007 and 2009.

1. Mario Balotelli
Let’s be honest: Mario Balotelli had all the prerequisites to immortalize himself in the history books as one of the best strikers. Yes, he could have even won the Ballon d’Or.

But what Super Mario got out of his assets was simply disappointing. At the beginning of his career he was strong, but he quickly dropped even more. While his initial clubs were Inter, Liverpool, Milan and Man City, he was most recently active with Brescia, Monza and Demirspor. It’s a shame how far the powerful Italian has fallen.

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