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“What if” is one of the most favourite games humans like to play. What if this, what if that… we constantly cling to the paradoxical worlds of intricacies in an attempt to…well, we have no idea why we do it.
Come to think of it. The past can never be changed and the future is an unseen phenomenon. Yet, we make scenarios in our brains. Why we do it? We will never know. Sometimes, it makes us feel better only to throw is in the arms of sorrow when we realize the reality—which is quite far from what we think.
However, we will still go down the “what if” road and weave a world of our own—perhaps this is why we do it, we create something, a new world, within our mind.
In football, there are so many ifs and buts that all the galaxies in all universes combined will fall short of it. We will add one more to the equation as we try to decipher which star player a top club would sell if they HAD to choose from their best…
#1 Karim Benzema
This is the obvious choice. Despite considering Cristiano Ronaldo for this position, the final verdict of who among the BBC—Bale, Benzema and Cristiano—would be sold had the necessity arrived, is Karim Benzema.
For starters, Gareth Bale is indispensable because he rose to the occasion in a number of big games and delivered when it mattered the most—something he has done a lot this season. Also, being just 26-year old gives him the edge over the 28-year-old Karim Benzema.
And then there is his huge price-tag.
With Cristiano Ronaldo, the decision would be more sentimental than anything else. The Portuguese is the all-time top-scorer of Real Madrid and has consistently scored 50 goals in every season since the 2010-11 one.
He might be in his 30s, but he is still scoring like a goal machine and it is likely that he would continue to be the main man for a quite a while.
And that leaves us with Karim Benzema. If it were up to me, he would be the first one to stay in the team, but given the way Florentino Perez thinks, it is likely that the Frenchman would get the cold shoulder even after playing his best football this season.
#2 Neymar
I can already hear a lot of people abusing me in their minds for naming him. After all, he was Barca’s best player last season and perhaps the only footballer ever who can say that he was on par with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo when these two were at the peak of their powers.
However, if someone from the MSN had to be sacked, it would be him. The reason is simple: Lionel Messi burgeoning reputation and Neymar’s controversial surroundings.
The Argentine was brought to Barca when he was only 12 years old and has become the heart and soul of the team. Selling him would incur an outcry that would shake the entire football fraternity. He is off-limits and can only be sold if he himself wanted to leave.
In Neymar’s case, he is much younger than Luis Suarez and has the potential to be the best player in the world—which he actually was in 2015, at a time when Lionel Messi was constantly battling niggling injuries.
However, if push comes to shove, he might be the one who could be shown the door. The reason for this is his unfortunate ability to court controversy, directly or indirectly.
His Barca career began with raging debates because of the way he was signed. Then came tax allegations, his tantrums and the constant links with Real Madrid. These factors, at the end of the day, would account against him.
#3 Hugo Lloris
Mauricio Pochettino has turned the fortunes of Tottenham Hotspur. Ever since he took over as manager, the club are improving slowly and steadily.
For a club to be a successful one, it should have a world class goalkeeper—and the Argentine was lucky that he already had Lloris at his disposal when he arrived. Right now, the club have quite a few star players in the form of Christian Eriksen, Harry Kane, Delle Ali and the France captain.
Among these four, if the absolute necessity arrived, it would be Hugo Lloris who would be sacrificed. A number of factors are in play here, with age being the prime one. Even though goalkeepers tend to have longer careers, Spurs wouldn’t likely let go of their young English talents.
Whereas Christian Eriksen is almost irreplaceable because of his unique repertoire while the abundance of classy goalkeepers in other leagues make the former Lyon man expendable. However, it has to be said that there are only a very few goalkeepers as good or better than Hugo Lloris.
#4 Jamie Vardy
This will be another controversial choice, but a logical one nonetheless. Leicester City made history by winning their maiden Premier League—beating odds of 5000/1 while doing so.
And Jamie Vardy’s goals were one of the biggest reasons why the Premiership trophy now resides at the King Power stadium. However, he wasn’t the only one—both Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante played major roles in Leicester’s reality-defying achievement.
If Leicester City had to let go of one of these three players, Jamie Vardy is the most likely to be let go. There are two reasons for this: age and replacement. Both N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez are younger than the English forward and tactically more difficult to replace than him.
Vardy is an incredible finisher, but Mahrez was the one who pulled the strings and also scored some wonderful goals when his partner couldn’t. And N’Golo Kante was the reason they won the Premier League. His presence in front of the defense was like that of a mountain among molehills.
Which brings us to the conclusion that finding a replacement for Vardy would be much easier--given the amount of good strikers out there--than it would be to acquire the successors of the Algerian and Ivorian.
#5 Alvaro Morata
Juventus are a team filled with star players. This, in itself, is an incredible achievement given that they could muster only mid and lower table finishes prior to Antonio Conte’s arrival. While some Juventini might dislike him for the way he left, what can’t be denied is that he stamped his authority with the club and changed the Old Lady for good.
Right now, this team consists of a number of big-name players that are being coveted by the other European elite clubs. Sizing it down to 3, Alvaro Morata, Paulo Dybala and Paul Pogba, it won’t be too wrong to claim that they are the youth pillars on which Juve stand now.
However, if they had to let go of one of them, it would be Alvaro Morata. Why? The buy-back clause in his contract means that Juve are susceptible to lose him to Real Madrid at any time. Hence, this would be a no-brainer of a call.
