7 Great Footballers Overshadowed By Superstars

when we think of great football teams from throughout the years we often think of the era defining players at the heart of them so with the great iacs and netherlands teams of the early 1970s we tend to think of johan cruyff when people reflect on hungary's golden generation during the 1950s their minds go straight to ference pushkash and for all of the talent at fc barcelona over the past 10 to 15 years their greatest era is synonymous with the unbridled genius of lionel messi it is understandable we have a fixation in sport with creating icons and legends and beyond the emotions they were all truly sensational footballers and the best players in those aforementioned scenes there is a danger however that if you play alongside one of football's small number of bona fide superstars your talents and contributions can be overshadowed by them it's a bit like the novelists aldous huxley and c.s lewis both of whom died on the same day as president kennedy was shot and killed in dallas texas had they died at almost any other time they would have received the top billing from most news organizations but lee harvey oswald the fbi the cia the kgb fidel castro the mafia ancient aliens or whichever theory you prefer to believe killing the us president knocked them so far down the pecking order the years later people still didn't even realize they'd died it's a bit of a strange analogy but i think it gets the point across well to be clear though i'm not just interested in anyone who played alongside say diego maradona or lionel messi and therefore was rarely the star man the likes of javi and iniesta would fall into that category but i wouldn't really describe them as having been overshadowed by messi since i still think they are largely recognized for their talents and contributions maybe someone like sergio busquets who was overshadowed not just by messi but also by javi iniesta and even the likes of cess fabregas and evan rakitic to a certain extent for much of his career would be a better candidate and indeed he did make my shortlist but not quite my final seven without further ado then because i'm rambling again here are seven great players who were overshadowed by superstars robert perez maybe the most underrated legend of the premier league era robert perez is among the finest wired players to have graced the english game but was constantly overshadowed at both club and international level by thierry henry it goes without saying that thierry henry is one of the finest footballers of his generation and he was better than rob epers so it's right that he should receive so many plaudits but it's also worth noting that henry benefited greatly from having perez alongside him something which he would be the first to admit i have no doubt although henry was outstanding even in his debut campaign at arsenal the gunners still finished an enormous 18 points behind manchester united in the premier league table in his second season playing alongside perez they cut that gap to 10 points and the following year the gunners finished 10 points ahead of the red devils throughout those glory years of 2001 to 2006 which just so happened to be the exact years that robert perez was at the club arsenal had the most terrifying left flank in all of world football with ashley colmer roaring forward from left back robert perez typically occupying that left flank and sierra on ray simuli always drifting naturally out towards the left which is where he had played before signing for arsenal arsene wenger's men were almost unstoppable down that side perez himself was graceful light-footed and intelligent in addition to being one of the most prolific wide players in the division at the time he scored 87 goals in 287 games for arsenal he made the premier league team of the season in three out of his six seasons in england and he won the fwa footballer of the year award in the 2001 02 season a season in which he scored nine goals and made 15 assists in only 28 premier league matches you could certainly make a case that perez was overshadowed not only by thierry henry but also by dennis bergkamp at club level and zinedine's at an international level and whilst there are certainly worse players to be overshadowed by i think that is a key reason why perez is so rarely cited as being one of the premier league's greatest white players and one of the finest anywhere in the world in his pop claudio marquezio i think there are a couple of reasons why claudio marquezio rarely receives the credit that he so richly deserves outside of italy at least one of which is just the type of player that he was and the other being the fact that he was always overshadowed in midfield at both club and international level marquisio's debut campaign juventus was actually played in syria b following the old ladies in forced relegation due to the culture poli scandal despite a number of departures that season he's still lined up alongside the likes of pavel nedved and mauro cameron asia midfield when uva finally got their hands back on the skedeto in the 2011-12 season it was the new boys of arturo vidal and particularly andrea perlow who took most of the headlines then came the arrival of the phenomenal paul pogba in charrin followed by miralem pianic and before you know it marquisio's career is over without him ever have been the star man in juventus or italy's midfields marquisio's career did end quite swiftly and quite early due to chronic knee injuries which saw him join zenit saint petersburg in 2018 age 32 before being forced into an early retirement following only 15 games of the russians whilst marquisio was not a better footballer than andrea perla of course or even paul pogba at his best he was arguably a greater servant to juventus than both a tireless runner with excellent technique marquisio was a master at making the difficult looks simple and the simple seem like second nature he could play in holding midfield in a boxster box role attacking midfield or even out wide and rarely did he drop anything below a seven and a half out of ten his lack of step overs and 40 yard screamers meant marquisio rarely received the plaudits he deserved outside of syria but every juventus fan knows just how good he was and there were few more consistent midfields in europe for more than a decade michael carrick somewhat in a similar vein to claudia marquezio where the italian had his compatriot andrea perlow casting rather a large shadow over him for a number of years for michael carrick it was a fellow countryman all of his own in the form of paul skulls one of a number of outstanding academy graduates at west ham in the mid to late 1990s carrick broke through at a similar time to the likes of frank lampod joe cole and rio ferdinand which meant that he was never really even the star man at west ham in fact in his penultimate season with the club the hammers were relegated from the premier league and after a single season in the second tier of english football he joined tottenham hotspur for 3.5 million pounds two years at whiteheart lane was all that it took before manchester united signed carrick for a potential 18.6 million pounds as a replacement for ikea that was a hefty fee at the time but carrick rapidly justified it and then some an incredibly gifted and composed midfielder carrick had a fantastic first touch footballing iq and weight of pass he was a no thrills player in many respects in the sense that he didn't score many goals go on marauding runs and he didn't even make all that many assists just 40 in 481 premier league games that's because carrick spent almost his entire career playing as a deep-lying playmaker whilst the likes of frank lampard paul scholes and steven gerrard did bomb forward particularly in their early years carrick's game was much more consistent despite having an international crew which spanned some 14 years carrick only won 34 caps a shockingly low number for such a talented midfield operator undoubtedly among the most underrated english players of my lifetime at least pep guardiola once called carrick one of the best holding midfielders i've ever seen in my life and holding midfield is an area where the man city boss is pretty well versed rui costa without doubt one of the most gifted midfields of his generation rui costa was good enough to be the talisman in just about any team it's rather unusual then given that he had a fairly lengthy and illustrious career that he never really was you could bake cases for the 1993-94 benfica season or fiorentina's 1998-99 campaign but even then you had joel pinto taking a lot of the limelight in the case of benfica and most people would point to gabriel batistuta as fiorentina's starman at that time at ac milan meanwhile costa was just surrounded by stars whether that be kaka shevchenko nesta perlow maldini or crespo even in the portuguese national team where he would have been the star man in almost any generation he just so happened to be worn in the exact same year as luis fico portugal's greatest player in over three decades and a ballon d'or winner i think that has almost certainly detracted from the fact that rui costa is a man who was born to play football a scorer of great goals whilst not being all that prolific costa was famously unselfish and one of the best pass of a ball over short and long distances in all of world football his technique boarded upon being flawless he humiliated some of the best defenders on the planet during an era of defensive excellence and few could get near him on his day costa's greatest rival aside from some of the brilliant players who sometimes took the limelight away from him was himself for all of his talent costa never seemed to be the most driven of characters he was not ruthless in front of goal and he could reasonably be accused of being routinely inconsistent nevertheless he was a truly special player who would have been a star man in most teams and is therefore a very worthy inclusion in my eyes angel di maria i know what some of you will be thinking angel di maria he gets loads of praise well i'm here to tell you that he doesn't or at least not enough di maria is often thought of in a uniquely poor light here in england due to his reputation as having been a flop at manchester united but even that isn't really a fair assessment of his single season in the premier league di maria was brought to old trafford after an outstanding season at real madrid where carlo ancelotti successfully converted him from playing out wide to running for a full 90 minutes in central midfield and he backed that up by being one of the standout players for argentina playing in the same position at the 2014 world cup louis van gaal however didn't seem to be quite sure where to play him but even then di maria still had the third most assists in the division before departing for psg in paris di maria has once again been one of the most relentlessly brilliant and consistent players within the european game in addition to scoring the goal which clinched argentina's first major trophy in 28 years in the final of the 2021 copper america and no i don't consider the olympics to be a major trophy in football it has an age limit and teams are severely weakened so yeah di maria has been comfortably among the best wingers if not just players outright in world football over the past decade but here in england at least and i think more broadly outside of supporters of the teams that he has played for i don't think he is recognized anywhere near enough i suspect that is in no small part due to some of the incredible talent that he has played alongside with argentina of course there has always been lionel messi who is now also his teammate at psg alongside both neymar and killian umbape throughout his entire time at real madrid he and everyone else at the santiago bernabeu lived firmly in the shadow of cristiano ronaldo and a manchester united where he could really have become the star man at a mega club for the first time di maria was deemed fairly or unfairly to be a flop i think history will be kind to him or at least i hope it will because he has been a tremendous servant to the sport willem van gaal extremely unfortunate not to take top spot when i was drafting up this seven villain van gaan again was the first name on my shortlist and the first name that popped into my head it is ironic in some respects i suppose that a netherlands team that was built on the principles of total football where every player is interchangeable and the system reigns supreme that it should be so synonymous with a single exponent who didn't even win 50 caps for the netherlands and played no part in their run two and highly controversial defeat in the final of the 1978 world cup in fairness to johan cruyff he is the greatest dutch footballer of all time by some distance he was the best player in that team before retiring from international football and he pioneered total football alongside arenas meekles just as much off the pitch as he did on it but that doesn't mean that we should overlook the myriad of wonderful dutch players from that generation whether it be rude kroll piet kaiser or the so-called other johann namely johann niskins there was arguably no greater dutch player other than cruyff than villain van hanegan though who might not have been quite as staggeringly brilliant in an offensive sense as cruyff but was certainly more complete a central midfielder first and foremost but capable of playing just about anywhere van hanegan was the beating heart of a european cup winning feyenoord side and he was crucial to the netherlands run to the final of the 1974 world cup though far from the quickest across the ground there have been few footballers who have been as quick of thought as van hanegan a masterful passer of the ball a tireless runner and almost impossible to dispossess due to his ability on the ball if johan cruyff had never existed i have little doubt that villain van hanegam would have gone down as one of european football's all-time greatest players in reality he is all too often overlooked outside of his homeland coutinho given everything that i've just said about villain van hanegan it would probably be safe to assume that it would take something or someone fairly special to top him in this seven and indeed it does antonio wilson vieira honorio better known simply as coutinho is one of the greatest center forwards to have ever lived but you will rarely hear his name mentioned outside of brazil when it comes to such conversations that might seem strange given the fact that cucuna scored 368 goals in 457 games for santos despite the fact that his career was effectively over by the age of only 25 and officially ended before he had even turned 30. those are pretty remarkable statistics that probably take a little bit of time to truly wrap your head around cucinio was a lethal center forward short sharp and brilliant in the box his close control composure and ability to carve out half a yard of space inside of the box were almost without pair a child prodigy he made his debut for santos at the age of only 13 a record which still stands in brazilian football to this day and hence why he was able to score quite so many goals before turning 25 though perhaps come to think of it that is also why his knees were ruined by the age of 25. the reason cucino was never the star memphis santos or brazil was because he played alongside a forward you may or may not have heard of called ed cenarante's don nacimento who was better known simply as pele three years as junior whilst the 1958 world cup had been pele's crowning moments as a teenager the 1962 tournament could have been the same for cucino he was expected to lead the line for brazil aged only 18 only to be sidelined for injury right before the tournament began as brazil ran out as winners without both him and pele it would be outlandish to say that coutinho could have been as good as pele without injuries for that is a very high bar to set anyone and there is simply no way of knowing but he was one of the most lethal strikers in the world for a number of years before most players have even reached their peak and pele himself described coutinho as being better than him inside of the penalty box coutinho was offered a second chance to feature in a world cup in 1970 following an injury scare to tosto but already semi-retired and heavily overweight by that stage he turned the offer down coutinho died in 2019 age 75 and whilst he is often overlooked elsewhere he isn't today and not on this channel a worthy top spot in this seven as far as i'm concerned that is it for today's video but shout outs go to karen benzema wayne rooney sergio busquets pepe also of santos and brazil giugia nikki butt garincha and many other players who made my shortlist but didn't quite feature in my final seven thank you all very much as ever for watching it is thoroughly appreciated i hope you enjoyed today's video if that was the case feel free to hit the like button let me know your thoughts down below in the comments and make sure you're subscribed and have notifications turned on for hitc sevens you can also find me on twitter or on instagram by the username at hrtc7s on both should you wish to do so

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 91,895

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Great, Players, Footballers, Overshadowed, Superstars, Lionel Messi, Angel Di Maria, HITC Sport, Premier League, Legends, Manchester United, Champions League, Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Underrated, Overlooked

Id: uNu8bmS98qE

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 03 2022