You know the type of guff you and your mates chat about down the pub? Well, one piece of football trivia got Darragh Harkin thinking – and the result is Football’s Complete Chancers XI.
By Darragh Harkin
Football questions in the pub with a few mates always go down a treat.
Which player has played in the Merseyside, Glasgow and Manchester derbies?
Name three players to have won the Champions League, UEFA Cup, Premiership and FA Cup?
Name the player to have won five league titles with five different European teams and is still playing?
It’s this last question that I was asked the other day and though I guessed the answer I could hardly believe it. The player in question has always seemed to me a complete chancer and so it got me thinking of the other chancers who have graced the beautiful game in the last two decades.
(My chosen formation is a handy 3-4-3, by the way.)
Goalkeeper
Fabien Barthez
A chancer through and through. He may have won the World Cup and lots of club football medals but Barthez always seemed like a man who never wanted to be a Goalkeeper. He was good with his feet and maybe he could have had a decent lower level career as an outfielder but when its top level football you need to be able to trust the man between the sticks and not have him dancing around like a ballerina. With the exception of Laurent Blanc, I wonder did any defender ever really trust Barthez?
Defence
Ramon Vega
Vega was not a talented defender nor did he have an incredible amount of graft, instead he was a lad who could get stuck in and didn’t mind sitting on the bench. He also didn’t mind giving out a bit of Ramon style justice in the form of kicks and elbows, slightly dirty or just part of the game? Its tough to say but what’s not tough to say is that Spurs fans never took to him and were delighted when he left.
He did have a bit more luck in Scotland but not much and for me he’ll always be remembered by this quote from Bradford Manager Ron Coates; “when Ramon Vega comes on, you’ve always got a chance”. Ouch.
David May
Man Utd fans had a chant about David May – it went “David May, Superstar! Got more medals than Shearer”. And while his medal haul is impressive enough we all know that he was really a chancer. This is most highlighted in his over celebration of Manchester United’s Champions League win in 1999.
We have all seen that picture at the top of the page of David May on top of a bunch of victorious Man Utd players at the Camp Nou. These are players like Denis Irwin, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and Peter Schmeichel, men who deserve to celebrate. And up on top of their shoulders is David May. If you didn’t know the history of this man and saw this picture for the first time you would be forgiven for thinking he was the skipper when in reality he hardly got a kick all season.
Marco Materazzi
Absolutely useless while he played for Everton but a bit better in the much slower world of Italian football. Materazzi established himself as a complete chancer and a bit of a scumbag when he goaded Zidane in the World Cup final of 2006. Some choice words from Marco saw the great Zizou see red and a broad smile come across the Italian’s face. He took one for the team, a headbutt to be exact, but football history will not look back on him so kindly. Does he care? I doubt it and he has a World Cup winner’s medal to keep him happy.
Midfield
Vinnie Jones
Was he really a football player or did he just get lucky? Could he really have ever played for a decent football team? No he couldn’t have as all Vinnie wanted to do was kick people or in the case of Kenny Dalglish “Bite his f’ing ear off and spit in the hole”. Yes he played for Chelsea but they were no good when Mr Jones was on the books and sure he has an FA Cup medal but he was still a chancer. He is an Englishman who became captain of Wales, a Hollywood star and the man who tried to steel Paul Gascoigne’s balls. What a nice chap.
Tomas Brolin
At one point he seemed to be a very talented footballer, slick, skilful and very inventive but all this went out the window when Tomas went to England and decided to put on a few pounds. The sheer level of Brolin’s weight change when he was at Leeds would impress even Andy Reid and Christian Bale.
Christian Bale in The Machinist … Tomas Brolin’s polar opposite
Not content with being very poor for one club in England he decided to head off to Crystal Palace for a while and was even worse. Tomas would always be remembered by football fans for the wrong reasons but I hear the local kebab joints miss him dearly.
Alessandro Zarelli
The ultimate chancer footballer as he wasn’t really a footballer. Alessandro Zarelli somehow conned a few lower league teams in Britain to sign him on loan as part of an exchange programme from Italy. Why did they believe him? He had official looking papers from the Italian FA and a back up story claiming he’d played for Sheffield Wednesday and Glasgow Rangers. So it seemed he was a talented Italian playmaker the likes of which Bangor City FC and Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Premier League people were understandably impressed by.
Sadly Alessandro was a terrible football player, his back-story was a complete fabrication and he left each club bemused and staring at a significant hotel bill. Why nobody bothered to call Rangers or Wednesday to check his story out seems strange and even stranger is why a player of that level would even be trying out for a Welsh league team.
Alex Nyarko
Four letters would describe Ghanaian International Alex Nyarko’s career in England and they are AWOL. Not only did this man fail to turn up for training when expected he also failed to turn up on the pitch. One Everton fan was so disgusted with Alex’s lack of ability he famously stormed the pitch mid game and offered to swap shirts. This incident insulted the big man from Ghana so much people hardly ever saw him again. He was and probably still is a chancer of massive proportion.
Forwards
Mario Balotelli
The youngest man on the list by a long way and one who could very easily prove me wrong but right now in September 2011 he has all the hall marks of a grade A chancer. From driving into a women’s prison just for fun to this pre-match incident there is hardly ever a quiet day in the world of Mario.
He has talent, or at least we keep getting told that he has talent but a few impressive performances are not enough in the Premier League. There is a chance it will all click into gear for the young Italian and he could go on to be a very good player but that’s seems equally as likely as him retiring by 23. He might not be a fully fledged chancer yet but he’s certainly on the right road.
Ali “I’m George Weah’s cousin, I swear I am” Dia
Only Alessandro Zarelli comes close to the same level of chancer as Ali Dia. He is the man who convinced Graeme Souness and all the folks at Southampton that not only was he a quality footballer but he was also George Weah’s cousin. In 1996 he got a friend to call up Souness and pretend to be the then World Footballer of the Year, George Weah. This fake Weah recommended his alleged cousin so highly that Souness not only took him to the club he also gave him a premier league game.
In fairness the penny did drop a few minutes into his substitute appearance when he people saw his first touch, so Souness hauled him off and he was never seen in England again. This man managed 53 minutes of Premier League football with no ability whatsoever and can also tell his grand kids that he replaced the legendary Matt le Tissier. What a chancer.
Zlatan Imbrahimovic
A talented footballer yes but not the great player that many claim he is. In all the matches I’ve seen him play for Barcelona, Juventus, the Milan clubs and Sweden never once have I been impressed. Sure he has scored some cracking goals and pulls off a few ridiculous tricks every once in a while but that alone does not make him a great player. At one stage people mentioned him in the same breath as Messi and Ronaldo!
It’s for this reason that I believe he is a total chancer, and he is in fact the man who answers my pub football question. Five league titles with five different clubs. An impressive feat no doubt, but why does he only last a season or two at most of these top European clubs? Because he’s a chancer.
You may not agree with my list of eleven chancers and that is very understandable so I ask you to make your own suggestions in the comments underneath.
Here are a few lads who came close to getting into my starting eleven and who may find their way into yours.
Pierre Van Hooijdonk, Stan Collymore, Willian Prunier, Massimo Taibi, Francis Jeffers, David Bellion, Sergei Rebrov, Stephan Guivarc’h and last but by no means least Sean Dundee, a man who signed for Liverpool saying he was faster than Michael Owen. He wasn’t.
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