Part 3 - Special Feature: Top ten wasted talents in football
Winston Bogarde is also another special character as far as talents in football go. Once a mighty beast of a defender just like Vidic and John Terry are today, Winston was a lean defending machine. It was sad though how his career
disintegrated just because of his lust for money and riches. Winston started his career at SVV in Holland but his first silverware came at Ajax in 1995 when a Clarence Seedorf led Ajax Amsterdam side brushed aside all others to gain a European Cup win in the
1994-1995 version of the tournament. Winston was indeed a part of that legendary Ajax side which then went onto win the Dutch league in the 1995-1996 season.
After his transfer to Barcelona in 1996, Winston won the Spanish League for two straight seasons from 1997-1999. Not only that he also won the Spanish Cup and the UEFA Super Cup in 1997. In 2000, Winston was bought by Chelsea from
Barcelona for an undisclosed transfer fee but Bogarde’s weekly wages were a more important factor as Chelsea had agreed to give the player 40,000 pounds per week. What followed such a contract has lived long in memory since; Bogarde only played nine matches
for Chelsea in four seasons from 2000 till 2004. Most of his time at Chelsea was spent with the club’s reserve team squad or the youth team squad.
During this time, the club expressed their wishes to sell him to several buyers but Bogarde would not budge an inch from his contract and he in turn revealed his ambition to see out his contract. It was a case of clear greed as
Bogarde was a talented individual but not so talented that he would get a 40k a week contract at any other football club in the world. Winston is on record to have said “Why should I throw fifteen million Euros away when it is already mine? At the moment I
signed it was in fact my money, my contract”.
He also is reported to have said “This world is about money, so when you are offered those millions you take them. Few people will ever earn so many. I am one of the few fortunates who do. I may be one of the worst buys in the
history of the Premiership but I don't care”. Bogarde was subsequently ridiculed in media for his selfish behavior but it had no effect on the Dutch defender who retired from football in November of 2005 after failing to find any suitors for his services following
the conclusion of his contract at Chelsea.
Where Bogarde is hated by many Chelsea and football fans in general, Carlo Cudicini is held in high esteem. No doubt, the current Tottenham goalkeeper is a massively talented footballer but during his time at Chelsea, Carlo did
nothing but leech off his wages while sitting on the bench. After Chelsea bought Petr Cech in the summer of 2004, Carlo was going to be the second choice goalkeeper because of the vast gulf of quality between the two men.
Therefore a more ambitious man would have opted for a move away from Chelsea and no doubt Carlo possessed the talent that was needed to make it at another club but he stayed at Chelsea for another five years before moving to Tottenham
to gain another spot on the bench due to Heurelho Gomez’s first team presence.
Another wonderful kid to brace this list is Adriano. Upon his arrival in European football back in 2001, Adriano was labeled as the “next Ronaldo” due to his youthfulness. Adriano at first joined Inter but the men in blue and black
loaned him out to Fiorentina where he was absolutely phenomenal. In the 2002-2003 season, he scored 17 goals for Parma; a club that shared Adriano’s playing rights along with Inter and Fiorentina. In 2005, he scored 28 goals for Inter in 41 games in the Serie
A season.
However as everyone soon found out, scoring goals wasn’t the only thing that interested Adriano. He indulged deep into drinking problems and from thereon in there was no way back for the Brazilian. Inter then sent him back to
Brazil to get his head sorted out but that didn’t work out well, lately Roma bought Adriano from Flamengo but in doing so they have taken a huge risk which hasn’t paid off as yet due to Adriano’s injury riddled start to the season.
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