Don’t Believe The Hype – Three Stars Who Never Were

The swashbuckling displays of Brazil at these summers Olympic Games, and in particular, the new wave of young talent at their disposal, has set pulses racing around a European football society previously uninitiated with their talents. Scouts from the continents top clubs have nodded in approval too, with Oscar becoming the latest part of Roberto Di Matteo’s Chelsea reconstruction and Lucas Moura snubbing the advances of Manchester United to hop on to the PSG gravy train.
Such eye-catching displays at this level are, however, not always a prerequisite to cracking it at Europe’s top table. The Olympics, like the U20 World Cup and European Championships, are by their very nature development tournaments. Players come into these events often with little first team exposure to their names and are instantly thrust into a global spotlight. In the cases of Lionel Messi, Samuel Etoo and Andrea Pirlo, these early international forays proved to be just a glimpse of the talents we where going to become accustomed to.  

Building on the momentum gained in these tournaments is often a key factor. Leo Messi came off the back of scooping the Player of the Tournament gong at the 2005 U20 World Cup to starring for Barcelona in pre-season, forcing himself into the first team for his breakthrough season. Sergio Aguero blasted 6 goals on his way the Golden Shoe two years later, setting the tone for a season in which he would fill the void left by Fernando Torres, scoring 27 times for Atletico Madrid. Lost momentum is often an impossible thing to regain, especially in the sink or swim environment of the European game. This, coupled with injuries, bad career decisions and over anxious media hype can all be a contributory factor in a player’s decline, something the following three players can all resonate with, with very different reasons.

Eddie Johnson

The accepted narrative positions Johnson, now 28, as the what might have been man of US soccer. While the States recent success at World Cup level proves that they are no longer members of the football backwater, the one ingredient they still strive towards is the development of a top class centre forward. Clint Dempseys recent form at Fulham proved he has an eye for goal, and Brian McBride was always a capable player in his days in England, but a big, bustling, Drogba-esque finisher that would be ready made for the European game has eluded them. One possible reason being simply that in the US, the strong and the fast are pushed into American Football from an early age and thus lost to the world of soccer.

Eddie Johnson looked the man to buck this trend when he burst onto the scene at the turn of the decade. The youngest player ever to sign with Major League Soccer, it was his stunning form at youth level for the USA national side that first caught the attention. He blasted his way to 23 goals in 25 U-17 appearances before scooping the Golden Shoe at the World Youth Championships of 2003. Success continued at senior level, with a goal on his debut followed up by a hat trick in his second appearance against Panama. After 7 goals in his first 6 competitive matches, the USA had found their striker.

Along the line however, Johnsons career, and life, began to unravel. Talk of a big money move to Benfica never materialised, leading to a frustrating last two seasons with Kansas. When he finally did win his big move to Fulham in 2008, a club well known for being kind to U.S. players,  he was a disaster. Johnson never scored for the Cottagers and was loaned out to both Cardiff and Preston North End in the Championship, as well as a temporary stay at Greece’s Aris Thessaloniki. When his contract with Fulham expired last summer, he’d tallied just seven goals in three-and-a-half years abroad. During this time, his cousin and close friend had died suddenly, affecting Johnson immensely. This coupled with a troubled marriage severely dented the big strikers confidence. The aggressive, confident way he would run at defenders was gone, leaving behind an unsure and tentative figure. He scored the last of his 12 international goals in 2008 and now appears to be firmly out of coach Jurgen Klinsmanns plans. A return to MLS last year with Seattle Sounders, away from the glare of the Premiership has brought about an upturn in fortune for the player, and there is hope yet that Johnson can force his way back into the reckoning for the World Cup in Brazil, he will be 30 and at what should be the peak of his powers. It does however seem that the opportunity has passed for Johnson, and the wait for the USA for there number 9 goes on.

Ismail Matar

Including Matar in this list may be slightly harsh on the player, given the strength of his scoring record at his club Al Wahda in the United Arab Emirates. Since his early days, the little playmaker had always been a precocious talent, who forced the world to sit up and take notice. And the question asked by many ever since he was named MVP at the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship was whether he was good enough to play in Europe.

Matar won the Golden Ball at that particular tournament, eclipsing future stars such as Barcelona idol and Spain’s World Cup winner Andres Iniesta and Brazil and Villarreal striker Nilmar. All this was achieved despite the UAE only going as far as the quarter-finals. Matar joined the likes of Argentina legend Diego Maradona as winners of the award, but initial talk of stardom never materialized into a move to a big club in the same way the it did for the South American idol.

Matar did go abroad, but only a few hundred miles away to Doha on a brief loan spell when Qatar’s Al Sadd sought his services for their 2009 Crown Prince Cup quarter-final with Doha rivals Al Ahli. In that match, he came off the bench with 20 minutes gone and his side down 2-0, a man short and staring defeat in the face. Matar’s formidable and indefatigable presence saw Al Sadd eventually emerge winners on penalties after the match ended 3-3 at the end of extra time thanks to an assist and a spectacular goal from the Emirati.

There have been offers, with a a bumper five year contract at Al-Wahda not set to expire until 2015, and with the player enjoying near biblical status in his native land, it’s unlikely that he will be seduced by the lure of European football as his career enters its peak. Similar to Matt Le Tissier at Southampton, he has put his own loyalty above the glamour of playing in the big leagues, and seems more than content with his decision.

 

Nii Lamptey

Perhaps the most famous ‘could have been’ of them all, the name Nii Lamptey has become synonymous with young super-talents that succumb to the pressure and are unable to live up the high expectations placed upon them by managers, media and fans. One of the driving forces behind the Ghanaian youth teams that was hugely successful on the international stage in the early nineties. Ghana won the U17 World Cup in 1991, the African Cup of Nations U20 Edition in 1993, finished runners up in the U21 World Cup in 1993 and grabbed a bronze medal during the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Despite the presence of talents such as Juan Sebastian Veron, Josep Guardiola and Allesandro Del Piero at these tournaments, Lamptey was the one deemed the greatest of them all. Having watched him star in these tournaments, Pele himself declared the 15 year old as “my natural successor”.

His fast feet, speed of thought, and clever interplay with team-mates made him an attractive target for European clubs. Dutch coach Aad de Mos signed Lamptey as a 15-year-old and brought him to Belgian giants R.S.C. Anderlecht. Just to ram home how exceptional a talent he was deemed back then, the age limit rules in Belgium were changed specifically to allow him to debut at the age of 16 for Anderlecht. Two successful seasons in Belgium won him a move to PSV. In a highly successful side, Lamptey continued to drive home is glowing reputation as a superstar in the making, and the assumption was he would soon be on his way with another big move.

When that move came, it took everyone by surprise, as big Ron Atkinson brought the then 19 year old to Aston Villa in the summer of 1994. Questions where asked why such a prodigious talent would take what was considered as a step down from playing in Europe with PSV to joining the perennial mid table Villa. Revelations would come out in later years that Lamptey had signed with a shady Italian sports management company. Naïve in his belief that the organization would  act in his best interest, he was effectively paraded round Europe to whatever club would give the biggest agents fee, taking advantage of his poor grasp of English and lack of parental support to advise him. Lamptey was never accustomed to the hustle and bustle of English football, and played just a handful of games for Villa before a similarly unhappy spell at Coventry. He then embarked on a nomadic existence across the world, turning up in Italy, Turkey, Argentina, Germany and Japan amongst others, never settling and never making anywhere near the impact his early talent had promised.

Lamptey's case is often cited as an example of the dangers of hyping a teenager too much, but it is far more complex than that. His talent was indisputable, however so were his demons. His childhood was horrific, abused by both parents, fleeing to Europe not so much for the riches but to get away from his childhood. Upon leaving England, he suffered the death of his first child at just two months old to an undiagnosed respiratory illness. Four years later, he lost another child to the same illness. On top of this, cross-tribal marriages had seen the little family he had left disown him.

And so his wanderings continued, to China and Dubai. Eventually, in 2006, he returned to Ghana, and won a league title with Kotoko in 2006. The win was however, tinged with sadness, as he knew he should have been in Germany at the time, playing for his country at the World Cup. He had not been capped by Ghana for 10 years at this point, he was still only 32.

Everywhere he went, Lamptey was plagued by bad luck. Injuries, greedy managers making money of his back and personal tragedy, Nii Lamptey has seen it all happen to him and his family. We exist in a time where, with the internet and wall to wall satellite TV coverage, it is very easy to overhype young talents. The tragic case of Nii Lamptey proves that sometimes there is nothing that can be done to save those lost to the game. Lampteys own theory behind his demise hints at dark forces at work, believing there may have been two spiritualist curses put on him, one because he left his Muslim team to go to Europe, the other because he chose a wife from what his own family deemed the ‘wrong race’. In a rare interview with the European press, he explained further.

“Things began to go wrong with my first international for Ghana, away to Togo in 1991. It was there. I can’t hide it. I was vomiting blood on the pitch. So it is there when people want your downfall. I know if it was me alone and people had left me to be the way God created me and wanted me to be, for sure I should have been playing for Madrid now.”