For all the passion and joy football evokes, it can often be a cruel game, especially to players thrust into the limelight after a successful season only for them to be unable to live up to their own hype. One disappointing season can turn into another and a career can be over before you really realize what’s happening.
With the beautiful game’s growing international profile and 17-18-year-olds being often burdened with immense responsibility that forces them to mature, there’s always the risk that players will fail to live up to their potential and never again be able to attain the standards they set themselves at an early stage of their career.
In this article, we will look at the players whose careers have seemingly stalled their progress this season:
Mario Balotelli
In truth, Balotelli hasn’t been doing too well for more than a couple of years. He struggled at Liverpool and often looked like a square peg in a round hole. He was never really suited to their high-intensity style of play and failed to adjust his game accordingly.
A return on loan to Milan was supposed to inspire him but unfortunately that never really happened. There was a lot of promise and endeavor in his initial performances but after he missed a series of games through injury and returned he never really made a mark. 3 goals in 23 games make for depressing reading for a player of his caliber and he wasn’t even seriously considered for Conte’s 23 man Euro squad.
Balotelli still has the talent, but at 25 years old he has a lot less time to begin to express his potential than before.
Jackson Martinez
A year ago, Jackson Martinez was being chased by some of the biggest clubs in football. He was being courted by Milan before Atletico swooped in and paid an enormous transfer fee to bring him to Madrid. The Rojiblancos had rarely ever gone wrong in their picks for Center Forward.
Diego Forlan, Sergio Aguero, Fernando Torres and Radamel Falcao had all done magnificently at the Calderon and Jackson Martinez was expected to follow that lineage.
Things didn’t go according to plan though and with 2 goals in 15 league games, Martinez found himself leaving for China in early February. It’s not surprising that he’s not been called up for Colombia’s Copa America squad and at 29 years of age, one can only wonder how many more international caps he’s going to be able to win.
Andrea Bertolacci
Bertolacci was supposed to be one of the key cogs of Milan’s Italian contingent. The club paid a very generous 20 million euros to Roma for the midfielder and expected him to orchestrate the play in their midfield.
Bertolacci had just come off an impressive season for Genoa, on loan from the Romans and had distributed the ball across the pitch and linked up with the attackers in equal measure.
He found himself in a sea of confusion though at Milan and drifted in and out of the first team. His performances were never out of the ordinary and he did in fact miss several one on one’s throughout the course of the season. He was never signed for his scoring exploits of course, but his playmaking also left a lot to be desired.
Christian Benteke
When Benteke was banging in goals at Aston Villa, he had the adulation of a whole host of the biggest clubs in the world. Juventus were apparently scouting him, as were the most illustrious teams in the Premier League.
So when Liverpool paid his release clause of 32.5 million pounds, making him their second most expensive signing of all time, they certainly mustn’t have expected an underwhelming return of 10 goals in 42 games.
There are serious doubts over whether Benteke will really be able to fit in Jurgen Klopp’s system or he might have to seek a transfer elsewhere to relaunch his career.
Stevan Jovetic
Stevan Jovetic is a lot better than the 12 goals in his last 48 games for Inter and Manchester City would suggest. His tendency to often get injured though is something that has annoyed a series of managers.
The Montenegro international gave some sparkling performances for City, a brace and man of the match performance against Liverpool and several other crucial goals during the course of the season. Unfortunately, for a major part of his career, he has been afflicted with a plethora of short-term injuries that seem to disrupt his momentum in the first team.
The fact that every top team tried to keep two good players for every position in their squad means that whenever he was fit again, he was hardly ever immediately reinstated to the first team. Inter’s experiments with different formations haven’t helped either and whether the Milan-based club is really the place that can relaunch Jovetic’s career is questionable.
Additionally, players like Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) , Nemanja Matic (Chelsea), Danilo (Real Madrid) and Mirko Valdifiori (Napoli) are players who have had immensely disappointing seasons immediately after having lit up their teams the season before.
It’ll be imperative for them to return to their best form or they could easily find their careers stalling as well.
