It’s been a memorable World Cup, but not every team has lived up to expectations. Which players – and managers - fluffed their lines most spectacularly on football’s biggest stage? ITV Sport’s Les Roopanarine runs the rule over 10 of the worst offenders.
Fabio Capello
Going into the tournament, the England manager was widely perceived as a man who knew his own mind. Capello was decisive. He picked players on the basis of fitness and form. His preparation was meticulous, his tactics unquestioned, and he ruled with an iron will. Four matches later, Capello’s world had been turned upside down. Here was a manager seemingly undecided about the identity of his first-choice goalkeeper. A man who took fitness gambles on Ledley King and Gareth Barry, whose vaunted methods were found wanting against the USA, Algeria and Germany, and whose reputation as a disciplinarian was undermined by a very public show of discontent by John Terry.
Kaka
This time last year, the Brazil playmaker appeared to have the world at his sumptuously gifted feet. Real Madrid had just shelled out a world-record fee to whisk him away from Milan, where his trophy haul included Serie A and Champions League winners’ medals and the 2007 European footballer of the year award. Further honours seemed certain to follow. Instead, though, an injury-afflicted Kaka failed to shine in La Liga, and carried the same disappointing form into the World Cup, where Brazil crashed out to the Netherlands in the quarter-finals amid accusations of a lack of creativity. Not good news if you’re the man entrusted with the number 10 shirt once worn by Pele.
Italy
Despite a distinguished World Cup pedigree that includes four tournament wins, few expected the ageing world champions to go all the way in South Africa. What no one expected was that the Azzurri would fail to win a single match and finish bottom of Group F below 78th-ranked New Zealand.
Cristiano Ronaldo
The world’s most expensive footballer managed 33 goals for Real Madrid last season, but could muster only a solitary strike against North Korea – albeit one that ended a two-year international drought – as Portugal went out tamely to Spain. A captain’s campaign it was not.
Patrice Evra
Another less-than-inspiring skipper. Having failed to rouse the troops for the dour draw with Uruguay, the France and Manchester United left-back was left trailing in Pablo Barrera’s wake as the Mexico midfielder surged into the box to win a penalty in a 2-0 defeat. Evra emerged as a central figure in the subsequent players’ revolt, prompting coach Raymond Domenech to drop him for the 2-1 defeat to South Africa which condemned the 1998 champions to bottom place in Group A.
John Terry
A week before England’s campaign ended in ignominy against Germany, the former captain sought to quell rumours of divisions within the camp by suggesting at a press conference that clear-the-air talks were needed. “If we upset the manager or any other player, so what?” asked Terry. he also called for Joe Cole’s return to the team, claiming he was one of only two players in the squad capable of unlocking defences. It won him few friends, and as an exercise in bridge-building it fell spectacularly short of the mark.
Ivory Coast
To be drawn in a group of death in successive World Cups may be regarded as a misfortune. To fail to show greater ambition in a crucial 0-0 opener with Portugal – who, lest we forget, required a play-off win against Bosnia-Herzegovina just to qualify – smacks of carelessness, particularly when you are the standard-bearers-in-chief for an entire continent.
Wayne Rooney
Sir Alex Ferguson was quick to blame Rooney’s disappointing form on the burden of expectation. Fair enough, but there was plenty expected of the striker at the start of last season, as Manchester United entered the post-Ronaldo era. Rooney rose to the challenge magnificently, scoring 34 goals and drawing an unrelenting stream of praise, culminating with the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award. How England could have done with the same player in South Africa.
Raymond Domenech
Let’s get this right: the behaviour of the France players in turning on the manager following Nicolas Anelka’s expulsion from the camp was disgraceful. But there can be no excuse for Domenech’s failure to show more backbone, nor for presiding over a campaign that yielded just one goal and one point. His refusal to shake hands with the South Africa manager Carlos Alberto Parreira brought the curtain down on his unpopular reign in particularly unsavoury fashion.
Lionel Messi
By any normal standard of evaluation, the Argentina maestro’s inclusion in this list would be hugely controversial. Unfortunately, it is impossible to judge Messi by normal standards. Not when he was supposed to be the player who single-handedly won Argentina the World Cup. Not when he failed to match the stratospheric standards he has set himself at Barcelona. And not when his undoubted genius failed to conjure even a single goal.