Underrated Players

[Nymzee]

I will one day, Think I had about 30 players done and was aiming for around 50. Players like Lajos Detari, Magico Gonzalez and Jurgen Croy.

The problem with "Great players you have never heard of" is getting usable information on them to pad it out a bit, especially the likes of African players, Central Americans etc.

Yeh I can imagine it's hard work.

 

[paultheblue]

Kevin Phillips

Always thought a top club could have taken a chance on him.
The biggest club he played for was Villa( apologies littlesue ) but through illness it never worked out.

 

[cpfc1905]

always thought Mark Noble was really good in possession but it was fun to make fun of him so I wasn't exactly shouting it from the rooftops

 

[Simon Buttle]

This fella.

Vassilis Hatzipanagis, played in Greece and had all the talent in the world, built like Maradona.

Was half Greek and half Russian which kind of messed up his chances of being seen on the world stage as there were issues with his nationality.

Would shoot from corners, float in penalties, dribble past players effortlessly and gave wonderful through balls (which has team mates would usually then sky over the bar.)

I actually started to write a book about underrated footballers who people have never heard of a few years back but never got round to finishing it.

That sounds like an awesome project bro, you should get it going again. Did you have Robin Friday in there? he is one that get's mentioned a lot as a lower league version of George Best.

 

[Bungle]

I always liked Recoba at Inter, understandably overshadowed by Ronaldo being in the team at the same time but enjoyed watching him.

 

[Duncan’s Pigeon Loft]

For us I’d say Pienaar and Osman. Never understood why Osman got so much flack. He was brilliant in tight spaces. Pienaar - people would point to lack of goals and assists but it was often him who’d start the moves off and keep them going linking up. Good work rate as well

 

[gonetomorrow]

I always liked Recoba at Inter, understandably overshadowed by Ronaldo being in the team at the same time but enjoyed watching him.

Another Uruguayan of that period at Inter and Lazio was Ruben Sosa - like Recoba left sided midfielder with great skill and drive and a powerful shot.

 

[twoblue]

Papin

Not massively underrated I suppose but never gets spoken about in the same way as other strikers from that era.. personally I thought he was a terrific player

Over head kicks every week on trans world sports

 

[twoblue]

Another Uruguayan of that period at Inter and Lazio was Ruben Sosa - like Recoba left sided midfielder with great skill and drive and a powerful shot.

Linked with us in the mid 90s

 

[twoblue]

Georgi Kinkladze for me. Poor Man City side and international allegiance side hid a fantastic talent.

 

[DualityNSNO]

Dimitar Berbatov. Doesn’t get half of the plaudits he deserves and was even considered to not be an elite striker at points whilst at United. Easily the most technically gifted player I’ve ever seen and a lot worse players get a lot more credit than him

Nah, there's many reasons they get more credit than him.

Technically brilliant most of the time, attitude and physically just not there. Most/all of us will never forget how he abandoned the national team when we needed him the most because he was too much of a star to play with plebs.

Also got kidnapped while at CSKA, as a bit of trivia.

Underrated Bulgarians are more or less Stan Petrov (recently) and from before - Balakov, Letchkov, Sirakov, Trifon Ivanov (RIP)...

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Nah, there's many reasons they get more credit than him.

Technically brilliant most of the time, attitude and physically just not there. Most/all of us will never forget how he abandoned the national team when we needed him the most because he was too much of a star to play with plebs.

Also got kidnapped while at CSKA, as a bit of trivia.

Underrated Bulgarians are more or less Stan Petrov (recently) and from before - Balakov, Letchkov, Sirakov, Trifon Ivanov (RIP)...

94 world Cup team? Ivanov was a beast, proper beard before beards were worn by hipsters. No idea he passed away.

 

[nsno-chris]

Michael Laudrup
Zvonimir Boban
Gheorghe Hagi
Hristo Stoichkov
Matthias Sammer
Fernando Redondo

Don’t think any of these get the plaudits they should deserve

 

[DualityNSNO]

94 world Cup team? Ivanov was a beast, proper beard before beards were worn by hipsters. No idea he passed away.

Yeah, all of them from there. We haven't had any who were individually good outside of Bulgaria pretty much other than Stan Petrov, Martin Petrov or Berbatov since 94 lol

He passed away in 2016, aged 50.

 

[Nymzee]

Michael Carrick too.