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#3 Adriano
Adriano made his name as a precocious striker who was touted to be the long-term successor of Ronaldo Nazario but inconsistency and indiscipline laid waste to his incredible talent.
The Brazilian enjoyed prolific spells at Parma and Inter Milan, winning four consecutive league titles with the latter, as the world seemed to be at the feet of the mercurial striker. However, he threw it all away.
In his prime, L’Imperatore could bulldoze past defenders and score left-footed screamers. However, the death of his father in 2004 spelled the death knell for his football career at a time when it should have hit a crescendo, and Adriano was never the same player again.
The player partied late into nights and arrived sleepless for training sessions.
“At that time, I only felt happy when I drank,” Adriano said in a 2017 interview. “I could only sleep if I drank. My [Inter] coach, Roberto Mancini, and my team-mates noticed that I was hungover when I arrived for training. And I feared arriving too late, so I didn’t sleep and went to training still drunk. I slept in the medical department and Inter had to tell journalists that I had muscular pain,” recalled Adriano.
Having tried as hard as they could, his Inter teammates couldn't help Adriano come out of depression.
"'Adri, you’re a mix of Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Are you aware that you could become the best player ever?’ But we didn’t ever succeed in pulling him out of depression," Javier Zanetti recalled saying to his embattled teammate.
The player soon returned to Brazil. He went back to Italy for a spell with AS Roma before retiring in 2016 after a spell in the MLS.
#2 Bojan Krkic
Bojan Krkic rose up the ranks at Barcelona's La Masia academy, scoring goals galore for various youth teams, before making his first team debut at the age of 17, netting an impressive 12 goals in his debut season in 2007.
Comparisons with a certain Lionel Messi were inevitable. However, Messi had set the bar so freakishly high that just about any player would falter in the quest to emulate the Argentine's exploits. Krkic proved to be no different.
His goal returns dried up and under new manager Pep Guardiola, Krkic fell down the pecking order. In 2011, he was shipped out to AS Roma, where he endured familiar struggles Spanish players face in Italy: time on the ball, which becomes a premium.
The player subsequently turned up for the likes of AC Milan, Ajax, Stoke City, Mainz and Alaves, but Bojan Krkic was never the same player again as he also got afflicted by mental issues like anxiety attacks.
"At 17 my life changed entirely. I went to the Under-17 World Cup in July and no one knew me; when I came back, I couldn’t even walk down the road. A few days later I made my debut against Osasuna, three or four days later I played in the Champions League, then I scored against Villarreal, then Spain called, " rued Krkic in a later interview.
Krkic was indeed at the right club but at the wrong time. In another era, he might have had a flourishing career at the Camp Nou, but that wasn't to be in Krkic's case.
#1 Alexandre Pato
It is not uncommon for a talented Brazilian striker to evoke comparisons with the legendary Pele.
However, Alexandre Pato seemed destined for great things when the then 19-year-old scored a brace in a Brazil's friendly against Sweden to commemorate 50 years of the country's 1958 FIFA World Cup triumph against the same opposition, a game in which a 17-year-old Pele had also scored a brace.
Brazil's then-manager Dunga remarked after the game about Pato:
"His style of play is similar to that of Ronaldo. I don't think he is a normal talent.'
A few months ago, AC Milan had splashed out €24 million for the services of the precocious teenager. Pato racked up consecutive 10-plus-goal league seasons, the third of which helped the Rossoneri win the 2010-11 Scudetto.
Soon, injuries and loss of form meant that Pato struggled to score goals, and Milan sold him off to Corinthians in Brazil.
Like with Milan, Brazil and Corinthians, Pato also scored on his Chelsea debut (albeit on loan), but the stint at the London club proved to be short-lived. Pato then enjoyed a resurgence of sorts with Tianjin Quanjian in the Chinese Super League, for whom he scored 30 goals in 47 games.
Incredibly, the 30-year-old, who plays for Sao Paulo now, still has age on his side to make a comeback and return to one of the top-five league clubs in Europe. Whether he has the desire to scale the heights he once reached remains to be seen, though.
