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There is just a day until the end of the year and if you are a football fan, then it has been one hell of a ride.
We witnessed some truly exceptional displays and saw the rise of some players who shone like a million stars, catapulting themselves from relative obscurity to becoming global superstars instantly recognizable anywhere on the planet.
The year also threw up some wonderful surprises for us. We witnessed AS Roma spectacularly overturn a 4-1 deficit against Barcelona to progress to the UCL semi-final for the first time ever, while Liverpool shocked everyone with their final run in the same competition.
It was also a World Cup year and the greatest spectacle in the world sure lived up to its billing, as Russia served us one of the most memorable World Cups in recent memory, with lots of shocks and entertaining football on display.
France triumphed for the second time in their history, while Belgium and Croatia finally lived up to their promise.
While many teams performed at the level expected of them, a lot of other football teams disappointed, failing to match expectations and disappointing on the stage where it matters most. In this piece, we take a look at 10 teams (both club and country) who were the most disappointing in 2018.
#10 PSG
With four trophies won (including a domestic treble), it is easy to argue that PSG had a wonderful year. However to opine that would be to dismiss the fact that they are significantly much stronger than the rest of the competition in the French league.
The PSG squad is one of the priciest in all of Europe and currently boasts of having the two most expensive players of all time within its ranks, so it is all but a foregone conclusion that they are to conquer all that comes before them in France, with their current lead in the league as well as the fact that they have won six out of the last seven league titles helping to buttress that point.
It is on the continent where their aspirations most lie, as billions of pounds have been spent to make the club competitive with the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. However, despite all the money spent, the club still falls a long way off being on par with these European heavyweights.
Their 6-1 capitulation to Barcelona having held a 4-0 first-leg lead in March 2017 is still fresh in the mind and this year they came up against defending champions Real Madrid, losing both legs in rather shambolic fashion to once more exit the Champions League at the round-of-16 stage.
This season, they once more toiled in the Champions League, posting just one victory from their opening four group stage matches but ultimately did enough as they rallied to top their group.
While 2018 might have been a successful year on the domestic front for the Parisian moneybags, on the continent they faltered massively and their fans would hope they can write that wrong this season.
#9 Spain
Heading into the 2018 World Cup off the back of an impressive 21 matches without defeat, La Furia Roja were one of the genuine contenders to triumph in Russia.
Then manager Julen Lopetegui had infused a perfect blend of youth and experience, playing enthralling football which got the fans believing in the once dominant force again.
However, disaster struck just two days to the start of the mundial when Real Madrid announced Julen Lopetegui as their new manager (to rather disastrous consequences) without the consent of the Spanish football authorities which infuriated RFEF (Spanish FA) boss Luis Rubiales so much that the 41-year-old flew down to Russia to announce a press conference terminating Lopetegui's contract as national team boss despite protest from the players.
Former captain Fernando Hierro stepped in and expectedly, there was disarray in the team, as there were just two days for him to work with his players and this showed in the results, as the Spain team which was previously full of swagger showed signs of confusion.
The 2010 champions barely qualified from their group but capitulated in the next round, bowing out on penalties to hosts Russia in a match they were expected to win.
Even though some calm has been returned since the appointment of former Barcelona boss Luis Enrique, Spain still failed to make it to the semi-final fo the Nations League and that capped off a rather pooor year by their usual high standards.
#8 Monaco
Monaco had a fairytale in 2017 which saw them make a surprise run to the semi-final of the Champions League as well as thump moneybags PSG to the French Ligue 1 crown.
That campaign birthed the likes of players like Bernardo Silva, Kylian Mbappe, Benjamin Mendy among others. Most of those players have moved on to bigger clubs and left Monaco floundering in their absence.
This campaign, it has been a disastrous one for the principality outfit, who have been beleaguered by injuries and find themselves struggling in Ligue 1.
Their poor form led to the termination of Brazilian manager Leonardo Jardim's contract with former French striker Thierry Henry announced in his stead.
Henry's appointment has not improved and they currently find themselves second from bottom on the table, having picked up just three wins from 18 matches and are in real danger of being relegated to Ligue 2 which is a real shame considering their high flying performances just a year ago.
#7 AC Milan
Another team who have fallen a long way off their previous standards, AC Milan was once unarguably the biggest club in Europe, boasting a host of marquee world class players in all positions and winning multiple titles on different fronts.
The Rossoneri have however come a long way from those highs and recently found themselves battling mid-table mediocrity in Serie A which is a shame, considering that they were European champions just about a decade ago.
Large investments were made into recruiting players who could spark Milan's climb back into the upper echelons, but the wisdom of the spending has been questioned, as large sums of money was spent on mediocre players, with there being only very few decent players in the current Milan squad.
Former midfielder Gennaro Gattuso was hired as manager to salvage the club's fortunes, but despite early signs of improvements, the club has more begun to falter.
They crashed out of the Europa League group stage and currently find themselves in 6th spot on the Serie A table, which is a far cry from what the club's fans are used to.
#6 Arsenal
Arsenal had a tumultuous year in 2018, having parted ways with Arsene Wenger after over two decades in charge of the North London club.
They finished outside the top four for the second consecutive season, having made it in each of the previous 20 and had to play Europa League football as a result.
Unai Emery was appointed as his replacement and despite initial signs of improvements with Arsenal going on a 22-match unbeaten run in all competitions, there have been snags in recent weeks.
Arsenal have just one win from their last four Premier League matches and ended the year with a debilitating 5-1 defeat to Liverpool which put further dents on their quest for a top-four finish as they currently find themselves in 5th spot, five points behind Chelsea in 4th.
Unai Emery's appointment was supposed to be the springboard to take The Gunners back to greatness, but so far it has not worked to plan and fans of the great club would hope 2019 would bring about better fortunes
#5 Fulham
Having finished in third place in last season's Championship and won the play-off, Fulham owner- Iranian billionaire Shahid Khan invested heavily into player recruitment in a bid to make the club competitive ahead of its return to the Premier League.
Money to the tune of over £100m was spent on new arrivals, with the likes of the highly sought after Jean Michel Seri, Max Meyer, Andre Schurlle amongst others arriving Craven Cottage.
The Cottagers were expected to make an impact in the upper half of the table while also playing attractive football, but were faced with the harsh realities of Premier League football and found themselves some way off their targets with their porous defense proving to be their undoing.
They parted ways with manager Slavisa Jokanovic and replaced him with Claudio Ranieri, but the club still finds themselves in the relegation zone and have just two wins from 19 matches, which is rather shameful considering how much money was spent.
#4 Brazil
Unarguably the most popular and successful footballing nation in history, Brazil has blessed us with some of the greatest players in history to ever grace a football field.
The Samba Boys (as they are affectionately called) are expected to not only win every tournament they participate in but to win convincingly and in style.
However, for all the swagger and poise of past years, Brazilian football has hit a rough patch in recent years, as they struggled to impose their joga bonito style on opponents. The result was that the country failed to stamp its authority in this decade unlike times gone by which culminated in 2014's Maracanzo.
Brazil has won five World Cups, and is widely regarded as the home of football (never mind that the English invented it), so when the country won the rights to host the 2014 World Cup, many saw it as the chance to redeem themselves on the global scene.
It ended in anguish, as Brazil capitulated in front of their fans, losing by the rather embarrassing scoreline of 7-1 to Germany right there at the Maracana in the semi-final of the World Cup.
Lots of coaches came and went in that time, but it was not until the appointment of Tite in 2016 that a semblance of calm began to return to the home of the Amazon.
Under Tite's guidance, Brazil became a force once again, embarking on a winning streak which saw them top the CONMEBOL qualifiers at a canter and become the first team other than the hosts to book their spot at Russia.
With superstars like Neymar, Coutinho and Gabriel Jesus coupled with their impressive form, Brazil went into Russia as genuine favourites to win their sixth crown, but it turned woefully sour.
Brazil could only manage a quarter-final appearance, losing to Belgium with their players facing criticism for not stepping to the plate, with Neymar in chief bearing the brunt for his theatrics and shenanigans.
2018 started with so much optimism that Brazil would lift her sixth world crown, but by the middle of the year, that hope was dashed which was a rather disappointing end to a story which began with so much promise.
#3 Manchester United
2018 could not end quickly enough for the average Manchester United fan, as the club had descended to such lows that they had become the subject of banter and taunts by rival fans.
One the biggest club in England, United have fallen some way off their perch since the departure of Ferguson, with the team struggling to reestablish itself in the upper echelons of English football.
For all their shortcomings in recent years, 2018 was arguably the nadir, as under Jose Mourinho, United descended to new lows, breaking all sorts of unwanted records almost on a weekly basis, with the brand of negative football played at Old Trafford also coming in for heavy criticism.
There were also numerous cases of disharmony in the side, as Mourinho squabbled with his players, with his feud with Pogba especially gaining negative press. The Portuguese tactician also clashed with the United board and media which made the atmosphere at Old Trafford rather disdainful and hostile.
Expectedly, United terminated Jose Mourinho's contract in December which was Poetic justice, as it offered a chance for the club to start the new year on a clean slate.
There have been massive improvements in the few weeks since Ole Gunnar Solksjaer took over and while United fans would hope that this would spark a return of the feel-good factor to Old Trafford, it takes nothing away from the horror show that characterized their performance in 2018.
#2 Argentina
How a side boasting the likes of Mauro Icardi, Paulo Dybala, Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero, Javier Mascherano, Angel Di Maria and the 'ICON' himself has repeatedly failed to win a major title is so inexplicable that perhaps someday it would be used as a thesis project for higher institutions of learning.
Having qualified for the 2018 World Cup by the whiskers, curtsey Lionel Messi's hattrick on the final day of CONMEBOL qualifiers, Los Albiceleste were not classified as one of the favourites for the tournament based on form.
However, due to the quality of players within their ranks and more pointedly the presence of Lionel Messi, Argentines worldwide fancied their chances heading into the mundial.
As it happened, the optimism proved to be a false dawn, as Argentine kicked off their World Cup campaign with a shambolic goalless draw with Iceland, before putting in a horror show as they fell 3-0 to a Luka Modric inspired Croatia.
Just as in qualification, Argentina headed into their last group game against Nigeria facing the threat of elimination and with less than five minutes to go looked set to exit the competition until a late Marcos Rojo winner sent them through.
However, there is only so far that undeserved qualifications can take you and Argentina finally met their Waterloo in France in the round-of-16 when a youthful side led by Kylian Mbappe eliminated a more experienced Argentine side to once more end hopes of a trophy for an extremely talented group of players.
Messi would get another shot at international glory at next year's Copa America in no other place than Brazil and it would be the hope of his compatriots that he can fire them to glory to banish the horrors of 2018.
#1 Germany
World champions in 2014, mediocrity in 2018. It has been a heavy fall from grace for the most successful European footballing nations.
Owing to their status as defending champions and the caliber of world-class players on display, Germany entered Russia as joint-favourites alongside Brazil to triumph in the tournament but it all went horribly off-script.
In rather shocking scenes, the Germans failed to make it out of a relatively straightforward group, losing two of their group stage matches to mark the first time they had excited at that stage of a World Cup since 1938.
Joachim Low made the rather curious decisions to stick to his tested crop of players, despite evidence suggesting there were better options elsewhere.
The fallout from Germany's shambolic World Cup display was far-reaching, with Ozil bearing the brunt of criticisms which led to his retirement from international football.
It got progressively worse for the 2014 world champions, as they still struggled to post the world cup, breaking a host of unwanted records which ultimately culminated in their relegation to League B in the Nations League.
For a country so accustomed to winning, 2018 proved to be a disastrous year for Germany and was unarguably one of the worst years in their illustrious football history.
