As the saying goes – what goes up, must come down. Sometimes when a footballer appears to be destined for greatness, the wheels come off and they tumble back to earth.
We looked at 7 footballers who had the world at their feet and then fell apart.
7. Mesut Özil
Mesut Özil is 33 years old, so I would accept that in the space of five years, from being a 28-year-old, you might expect some degree of drop-off from most elite level players. With that being said, Özil is someone who has never been renowned for his physical prowess – in fact, he is famed for his lackadaisical mannerisms, nonchalance, and for being built like a sheet of A4 paper – which means that we might expect for him to perform just as well at 33 as he did at 28. Even if you were being extremely charitable, it is evident that Özil’s fall from grace since 2017 is not, primarily at least, because of his age, even as the second oldest inclusion in this seven.
Özil was pretty much at the peak of his powers, in terms of his time at Arsenal, in 2017. No player created more chances during that calendar year in the Premier League, and only Kevin De Bruyne had more assists, than Mesut Özil. He even chipped in with 12 goals during the 2016-17 campaign, making it the most prolific season of Özil’s career.
However, Özil was never short of critics during his time in England, both internally and externally, and things started to go downhill for the German following Arsene Wenger’s departure. When Alexis Sanchez departed for Manchester United in January 2018, Özil stayed on, but perhaps it would have been better for everyone if he too had left the club.
Özil’s game time reduced under Unai Emery and then drastically under his former team mate Mikel Arteta, who eventually left Özil out of his Premier League and Europa League group stage squads, which some linked to his criticisms of the Chinese government and their treatment of Uyghur Muslims, a claim which Arsenal publically distanced themselves from. I’ve no idea whether that was related to Özil’s accelerated Arsenal departure, which would be disgraceful but not unbelievable were it true, but Özil certainly wasn’t pulling up any trees on the pitch at the time. A little over a year ago, Özil left Arsenal in a move to Fenerbahce in the Turkish Super Lig, a league which is ranked 20th in UEFAs league coefficients, where he has only managed nine goals and three assists in 37 appearances, and last month, he was excluded from their squad as well.
Essentially, in the space of just five years, Özil has gone from being probably the second best playmaker in the Premier League – to one who has been banished to the wilderness by a Turkish Super Lig side in crisis, and I don’t think that is primarily down to the fact that he’s 33.
6. Samuel Umtiti
It often tends to be flair players and forwards that suffer the most dramatic falls from grace, whilst defenders tend to chunter along a bit more gradually. The highs may be slightly lower, but their careers are less likely to go up in a big ball of flames. I don’t know if you could say that Samuel Umtiti’s career has gone up in a ball of flames just yet, given that he is still, for now, contracted to FC Barcelona, but he has certainly suffered one hell of a fall from grace when you think of where he was five years ago.
A sensation at Lyon, Umtiti joined Barcelona in 2016, aged 22, by which stage he was already a senior French international. An instant success at the Camp Nou, Umtiti immediately slotted in alongside Gerard Pique to form a really impressive partnership which combined youth and experience, size and athleticism, and two contrasting styles that just clicked. Umtiti made more than 40 appearances in each of his first two seasons in Catalonia, and he even made the FIFPro World XI squad in 2017. In 2018, Umtiti was one of France’s main men at the World Cup, where he scored a crucial winner against Belgium and started in every game other than France’s final group game, when Didier Deschamps rotated his team.
That summer, Umtiti signed a massive new five-year contract with Barcelona, but it was at that point that things started to go pretty rapidly downhill for the Frenchman. Prior to the World Cup, he had sustained a knee injury that could have been fixed by surgery, but he chose not to operate so he could feature at the World Cup. The following season, repeated recurrences of that knee injury limited Umtiti to only 15 first team appearances.
Umtiti hasn’t played 20 games in any season since 2017-18, now aged 28, and he was rather unfairly blamed by some supporters for Lionel Messi’s departure from the Camp Nou due to his reportedly very high wages. Despite wanting rid of Umtiti, Barca gave him a new deal this season until 2026, which – by stretching his wages out over a longer period of time – gave them the freedom to sign Ferran Torres.
It’s the type of inventive accounting trick that landed Barca in such grave financial trouble in the first place, and now there are rumours that Umtiti is refusing to leave, saying that he wants to prove his fitness in Catalonia first. That may prove to be tricky with a broken toe, which is why Umtiti is currently sidelined, but even when fit he is way down Xavi’s defensive pecking order. At 28, Umtiti should be close to the peak of his powers as a centre-back, yet over the last five years, he has gone from being one of the most highly regarded defenders on the planet to an unwelcome albatross around Barcelona’s neck.
5. Max Meyer
It should be noted that there are some players who some of you might have anticipated featuring in this seven, whether that me Daniel Sturridge, Mario Gotze, Shinji Kagawa, Jack Wilshere, Mario Balotelli, Ross Barkley, and maybe even Anthony Martial and Gareth Bale, who – whilst they have certainly fallen further since 2017 – had already entered into a period of decline in terms of their careers five years ago, hence why I have left them out. The same, some might suggest, could be said of Maximilian Meyer, who was probably at the height of his renown when he broke through at Schalke as an 18-year-old, enjoying a sensational debut campaign in which he earnt comparisons with a teenage Lionel Messi.
By 2017, a year in which Meyer turned 22 years old, Domenico Tedesco had begun playing him in a much deeper role, in defensive midfield, where he flourished, playing a pivotal role as Schalke finished as Bundesliga runners-up in the 2017-18 season. That seems like a long time ago now. Meyer also won the U-21 Euros in 2017 as a key man for Germany, still playing in a more advanced role for the national team, and thus displaying his wide range of talents. It is perhaps for that reason that when Meyer and his agent fell out with Schalke’s hierarchy in April 2018, and decided to run down his contract, they felt confident a super club would be keen to sign Meyer on a free.
It wouldn’t quite turn out like that, at least given Meyer’s wage demands, and still without a club within a week of the season starting, Meyer signed for Crystal Palace. It was seen as a major coup for Palace, but again, it wouldn’t really turn out like that for them either. Meyer’s flair and invention never seemed like a perfect fit within Roy Hodgson’s rigid and conservative Palace team, and so it proved. Hodgson clearly didn’t trust the German, and after just 56 appearances in two-and-a-half seasons, his contract at Selhurst Park was terminated by mutual consent.
In 2021, Meyer joined Koln, followed by Fenerbahce, and he is currently on-loan from the Turkish crisis club, who also employ Mesut Ozil, at Danish side FC Midtjylland. Maybe Midtjylland is where Meyer will rediscover his best form, but for a 26-year-old, who outshone Leroy Sané at Schalke when both were in their teens, to now be on-loan at a team in UEFAs 18th highest ranked league from a club in UEFAs 20th highest ranked league, without any major injuries during that time, that is some fall from grace.
4. Alexis Sanchez
I am in danger of becoming bored of talking about Alexis Sanchez, given that this is the second successive HITC Sevens video that he has featured in, but there is no way that I could leave him out of this seven. The calendar year of 2017 was Alexis Sanchez’s last at Arsenal, where he made 125 goal contributions in 166 matches in total, and he enjoyed a similar output during his final calendar year, bagging 24 goals and 11 assists in 47 appearances, which gave him more combined goal contributions in 2017 than Mauro Icardi and Kevin De Bruyne. Indeed, in the league alone, Sanchez had more goal contributions in 2017 than Cristiano Ronaldo.
That is likely what convinced Manchester United, as Sanchez had just six months left on his deal at Arsenal, to strike early and sign the Chilean before he became available to everyone on a free. They weren’t alone, Pep Guardiola seemed keen on being reunited with Sanchez at Manchester City, but it was Mourinho’s side who were willing to stump up the heftiest wages, and – crucially – the £5 million in agent fees. If you sign for Manchester United, after 2013, you are likely to be a failure. That is true in 99.9% of cases, but the extent of Sanchez’s decline at Old Trafford, immediately after signing on the dotted line mid-season, does seem to me to be somewhat inexplicable.
Having averaged 0.75 goal contributions per game at Arsenal, Sanchez only managed 0.31 goal contributions per 90 minutes at Old Trafford, where he became the highest paid player in the Premier League. In 2019, Sanchez joined Inter Milan, initially on-loan and then on a permanent, with Manchester United still subsiding a significant chunk of his wages. Now aged 33, whilst Sanchez has had his moments at the San Siro, he remains a shadow of the player he was at Arsenal and Barcelona, and certainly the player he was in 2017.
3. Radja Nainggolan
This might seem like an unusual or harsh inclusion, given that between 2017 and now, Radja Nainggolan signed for Inter Milan – and doesn’t he look delighted, where he spent three years, before returning to his hometown of Antwerp in a move to Royal Antwerp, aged 33, as the oldest player in this seven. That might be the perception of Radja Nainggolan’s career from a distance, but those of you who follow Serie A football will be well-aware of the Belgians dramatic post-2017 decline. A tremendous box-to-box midfielder at his best, it is no exaggeration to say that Nainggolan was one of the best midfielders in Europe in the 2016-17 season, bossing the midfield as Roma finished the season as Serie A runners-up, four points behind Juventus.
Nainggolan made 20 goal contributions that season, winning the Player of the Season award in the Italian capital. The following season, he was outstanding yet again, making the Serie A Team of the Year for the fourth consecutive season. This was a footballer at the peak of his powers and at the peak of the sport, hence why Inter Milan were willing to fork out €38 million on him, plus both Davide Santon and outstanding youngster Nicolo Zaniolo, despite the fact that Nainggolan was already 30.
It would turn out to be a terrible piece of business for both Inter and Nainggolan. During his debut campaign, Nainggolan was fined and suspended by the club for turning up late to training. In the 2019-20 season, Inter sent Nainggolan on-loan to Cagliari, who he looked to be on the verge of joining on a permanent basis, only for Cagliari’s inability to pay him a satisfactory salary scuppering that deal. Following a disappointing return to Inter, who by this stage had more midfielders than they knew what to do with, Nainggolan went back on-loan to Cagliari, where he played more games than he ever did at Inter, before agreeing to terminate his contract with his parent club. Nainggolan’s homecoming in Antwerp is a romantic one, but it is as much a tale of a player who has been in steep decline since 2017 as it is a fairytale.
It should be said that in 2019, Nainggolan’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, which obviously will have had a big impact on him. Thankfully, since 2020, she has been in remission, and that is of course far more important than any success Nainggolan could have had over the last five years within the game.
2. Dele Alli
So close to taking top spot, of all the falls from grace in football since 2017, Dele Alli’s is perhaps the one that I least anticipated. It might be easy to forget now, but Dele Alli is one of the finest young players to have graced the Premier League. At the age of 23, he had scored far more Premier League goals than the likes of Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, and Steven Gerrard, as countless graphics on social media illustrated, despite the fact that he had already played two-and-a-half seasons of football in League One with MK Dons before signing for Spurs in the summer of 2015.
I can vividly remember being at Wembley when Alli scored a sensational goal from range against France on his England debut, and that was just the beginning. In the 2016-17 season, Alli scored 22 goals in 50 games, and in 2018, CIES analysts ranked Alli as the single most valuable midfielder on the planet, with a valuation in excess of £170 million. Playing in tandem with Harry Kane, it appeared as though the sky was the limit, and that Alli was England’s future.
In the 2019-20 season, however, and particularly after Mauricio Pochettino was sacked, Alli’s form fell off a cliff. Different managers have tried to play Alli in different positions, but the reality is that he looks lost when he isn’t played really high up the pitch, running beyond a centre-forward, and looking to score goals. Even if a team was built to his strengths, which neither Tottenham at the end nor Everton now remotely are, Alli’s confidence has been shot to pieces, and he looks a shell of the player he once was.
In 2017, when he was 21, Mauricio Pochettino said that Alli could go on to win the Ballon d’Or. Now he is 26, he has scored just five goals in 53 games across the last two seasons, and hope is fading of an Alli renaissance. As one of only four players to ever win the PFA Young Player of the Year award twice, alongside Robbie Fowler, Ryan Giggs, and Wayne Rooney, Alli’s fall from grace has been quite stunning and saddening to watch from afar.
1. Eden Hazard
Speaking of former PFA Young Player of the Year winners, Eden Hazard received that accolade in the 2013-14 season, followed by the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award in 2014-15 and the PFA Fans’ Player of the Year award in 2018-19. Hazard also made the PFA Team of the Year in four out of his seven seasons in the Premier League, including the 2016-17 season, as well as making the UEFA Team of the Year in 2017 and 2018. In other words, Eden Hazard was very good at Chelsea, and everyone knew it. When the Blues were good, he inspired them to titles. When they were bad, he ensured that they were always a threat.
There were, at most, ten players in all of world football who were better than Eden Hazard in 2017, and you could argue that there were none in the Premier League. In 2019, aged 28, Hazard’s time in West London came to an end, as he made a mammoth potential €146.1 million move to Real Madrid. It seemed to be at the very upper end of what even someone as good as Eden Hazard ought to be worth at that age, but one thing that you could guarantee was that Hazard would strengthen Madrid, and that they had signed one of the best players in the world.
Or so we thought.
In reality, Hazard has been startlingly ineffective in the Spanish capital. Whilst his first two seasons were plagued by injuries, Hazard had been largely injury free until March this season, yet he played only 22 games, scoring just one goal and making only two assists, two thirds of which came in the Copa del Rey. There’s no doubt that injuries have disrupted Hazard’s time in Madrid, but his difficulties appear to run much deeper than that, and the form of Vinicius Junior in his position means that it is extremely difficult to envisage any kind of future for the 31-year-old at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Given where Hazard was in 2017, and where he is now, personally I don’t see any way in which he couldn’t top this seven.
That is it… Bale, Pastore, Emre Can, James Rodriguez, Douglas Costa, Yevhen Konoplyanka, and especially Isco, who came 12th in 2017 Ballon d’Or voting, ahead of Luis Suarez and Kevin De Bruyne…
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
