Fleeting Epiphanies, T-Pain and More Inglorious Bastards

I arrive to Friday in contemplative mood folks,

After wheezing my way through a five-a-side game in UCD last night there was a faint feeling of guilt over the judgement ODF hands out to players considering some of the open goals I missed and also my reliance on team-mates over the age of 40 to ‘do the running’ for the side.

Of course, it was a fleeting moment and in between doing some articles for work and preparing for an interview with this fuppin crazy Yank for State.ie this evening, I drew my attention towards those midfielders and strikers who flattered to deceive and who would join the ranks of yesterday’s Inglorious Bastards.

Without the resolve to go into as much detail as yesterday (and judging by a lack of comments I’ll say most of ye will be glad of that;o) here’s my list of men who were once heirs to throne but now mere jesters for the serfs. Who said the feudal system wouldn’t come in handy one day eh?

Midfield

Jamie Redknapp: Injuries blah, blah, blah. Bad team-mates yadda, yadda, yadda. Sorry Jamie, you looked like you’d be a top top player© but look back at that career and you had as much wasted talent as any midfielder I can think of. Brilliant at times, but all too often when he was actually fit he got his arse handed to him by better central midfielders. God that felt good.

Mark Kennedy: Irish and Liverpool connections again but this guy could have been fantastic but became part of the chip sandwich brigade at the ‘Pool. Burst on to the scene with Millwall, was a transfer record fee for a teenager, even scored a cracker for Ireland against Yugoslavia but never ever lived up to the initial hype.

Kleberson: Arrived at United with a World Cup medal and a 16 year-old for a wife (he was due to go to Leeds halfway through the previous season but he couldn’t leave Brazil with her as she was underage). Left United with a battered and bruised reputation and stunk it up at Besiktas for a few seasons before arriving back in the homeland. Terrible.

Georgi Kinkladze: 106 appearances and numerous wonder goals for Man City had people comparing the Georgian to Maradona circa 1986 (that’s you Alan Hansen, surely up there with ‘you win nothing with kids’), ended up at Ajax where he was compared with Maradona circa 19 stone. He ended his playing career with a team called Rubin Kazan, who I think is one of the code names in Mission Impossible. Possibly.

Strikers

Claudio Caniggia: Blast from the past. Lit up a terrible World Cup in 1990 before years of mediocrity in Serie A and even a few seasons in the footballing graveyard that is the SPL. Just beats Totò Schillaci to this one because while the Italian too was a flop in his post-Italia ’90 career he does like a pint of Smithwicks, which marks him out as a decent human being.

Mark Viduka: Certainly not a decent human being, the extremely rich but not often fit Viduka was shit-hot at Celtic and unbelievable in his first two seasons at Leeds. The guy now skulks around Newcastle hoping nobody finds him on match day lest he has to get his socks dirty. Big shame. Very big shame, ahem.

Have a good weekend folks, JJ