7 Supposed 'Flops' Who Were ACTUALLY Good 

I've always said it, Zlatan was never a flop at Barcelona, he just had personal issues with his manager.

Video suggestion: 7 players who played in the wrong era

7 players who everyone thought he was good but was an actual flop

I don't know why, but I find it insane that Owen was only 24 when he signed for Real Madrid. I know he was so young when he broke through, but the fact that he joined Newcastle at 25 therefore feels weirder.

Spurs fan here and we truly do look back at Lamela as a character player who embodied an era of our team but also see him as someone who would probably stab someone for Spurs, the badge meant a lot to him and it was visible

lukaku to man united also wasn't that bad of a transfer he was brought in for 75m euros and sold for around 60-65m euros which isn't that bad given that he had 55 goal contributions in 96 games with a goal contribution less than 2 games and was a part of a few memorable games for man united in recent years like scoring a brace in the comeback of paris, scoring a brace on his debut, he missed like 9 games because of injury in his 2 years at old trafford (in all competitions), scored or assisted in all rounds of fa cup in 2018 (except the final)

I feel like James Rodriguez at Bayern gets labeled as a flop a lot when I found him to be pretty exceptional in his first season at a minimum

With Neymar it is also important to note that he significantly boosted the league's profile which no doubt boosted PSG's revenue as well

Griezmann at Barcelona was played out of position during all his stay and still got like 50 goal involvements in 2 years

Alfie thought we would forget about the "7 best center forwards in the 2000s" video

Could maybe even make a case for Et'o being in last week's under rated video, he was absolutely fantastic and probably didn't get the credit he deserved, also the 20 million valuation as part of the Zlatan deal is criminal, he was worth at least twice that at the time

Zlatan is unique and i don't think there will ever be a second Zlatan maybe a better striker but there won't be a personality like Zlatan ever in this era where you need Massive balls of steel to go against Pep

Nasri is such a good pundit in France now. He always speaking his mind, no bullshit, a huge smile and a friendly guy overall. Coming from a Parisian, that should tell you how good he is. He has a lot of things to tell about his career and this city squad and it's always interesting

Pogba at man utd deserves an honourable mention. He scored several massive goals for us including a brace in a Manchester derby and a goal in a Europa league final. Got in to the premier league team of the season whilst with us and finished in our top 3 scorers and assisters in the same season (the only player to do this in that season). If not for injuries he would have achieved even more, but there was a constant scapegoating of him and unwarranted attacks about things which had nothing to do with his football performance such as his haircuts and dancing. In reality only Bruno Fernandes and possibly Juan Mata (in terms of midfielders) could be argued to have done better for us in the post fergie era than pogba imo.

The idea that Crespo at Chelsea was a flop is a bit of a football paradox. I dunno if it's just my experience but despite it being an accepted thing, when you talk to people about it (Chelsea & non-Chelsea fans) it's never hard to reach a consensus that he wasn't bad at all. He seems to have hit to perfect combination of high expectations & acceptable (not great) performance, and again acceptable (not great) return on investment contrasting with the players bought around the same time. I think having two separate spells with differing expectations plays into that curious paradigm as well, and it's interesting that you brought up Morata here as I think he had potential to have fallen into the same weird space lol. Lets say Atletico couldn't afford him & he had to come back but as an established no.2 (behind Abraham it would've been), if he'd have returned the same passable numbers but as a rotational option this time, I reckon the perception of him at Chelsea would've looked different today.

To this day I'm still baffled by how often Ibra's Barca season is labaled as a flop, given how prolific his scoring remained despite the stacked team. Guess all what is really remembered is the Guardiola falling out which soured the whole thing.

The Micheal Owen Story is definitely the England Curse nowadays… always have a plethora of attackers under 25 that all look “as good as the Golden Generation” and then in the next World Cup/International tourney usually none of them are to be found with either bang average performances or injuries beyond belief

Alfie, Can you do a video on the a league? The league recently released over half there staff, spent 30 million on an app they’ve given up on and half the leagues clubs are running on a negative

Pogba to United first three seasons he was immense- actually averaged the highest rating of any prem player in that time- scored in semi final to take us to Wembley and scored in the Europa final and got player of tournament. Was motm in Fa cup semi in 2018 too plus stopped city winning league. In 18/19 he was by far our best player and our top scorer, then the injuries hit. 19/20 in NHS era, him and Bruno were unreal. 20/21 when he was fit he was fantastic also, then after that it was just too injury plagued

Owen's move to Madrid was in a decent size part down to Raul making a point of treating him like shit as a result of Owen having replaced Raul's mate Morientes. I'm pretty sure I saw that he refused to speak to him and shit like that, not to mention the amount of different coaches they had

@PatrickvanStokken: "7 players who played in the wrong era" ☝️ I want this to become a reality

I've never seen any City fan call Nasri a flop. He wasn't David Silva or KDB, but he was electric on his day and scored some crucial goals en route to City's first two PL titles.

Alfie, completely unrelated to the video you just made but a couple years ago you made a video about the Tajikistan league. There national team just made the quarterfinals of the Asian cup. You should do a video on what's gone right for there national team. P.S. Your contents amazing. You and footy adventures inspired me to make my own soccer channel on RU-vid. Keep up the great work

Your videos are so good mate. Thanks

Juan Veron at united. He had some great games (especially European) was underrated in the prem. And we mad our mojey back

Neymar was a good player, even at PSG, but they overpaid for him. That and injuries didn’t exactly help!

Imo just Zlatan came at the wrong time. I don’t understand why buy him if pep wanted to use Messi in the false 9 position. We could’ve gone for a natural winger like Di Maria or promote from the academy but thankfully we got David Villa who adapted to the role despite being a striker

Di Maria at United was an interesting one, I was always excited watching him play and we would now kill for him in place of our current wingers. But I think the weight of expectation that comes with the number 7 shirt and comments made by di Maria since leaving United combined with the ongoing hangover from the Ferguson at the time resulted in his spell there being cast in a negative light. His performance against Leicester in September 2014 had me so excited for what he might become

Most Barca fans who watched Ibra during first half of that season do not think he was a flop. Guardiola was an awesome manager but his mistake was the romantic idea to play false 9 which worked in the league but not the CL. He under appreciated Eto’o as well who was an extremely effective goal scorer.

Always love your videos!!!

Neymar might be the most underrated player ever by the way some people view him, they didn't watch him week in and week out, he was always immense

Conveniently forgetting Tammy and Giroud in the intro there eh Alfie! Although a youth product and a bargain buy (strange to say 17m is a bargain!) would hardly count as flops even if they didn't produce much, but both were our best strikers since Costa. Shame Tuchel seemed to think Havertz was better as a false 9! Probably was the right time for Giroud to move on though.

R9 at Ac Milan and Rivaldo at AC Milan come to mind too, R9 actually averaged a goal every other game at Milan and was part of the squad which won the 2007 Champions League, though he was cup tied and couldnt play or receive a medal. He would go on from there to score 25 goals to lead Corinthians to a League and Cup double at 34.

This honestly just a fantastic video. Top level

Video suggestion: players/managers loved by rival clubs, eg glenn Murray for Brighton and palace or Brian Clough for derby and forest

Not related, but I remember when Modric signed for Real Madrid from Tottenham, he struggled the first season and was even named the worst signing of that transfer window. And then he became a legend of the club.

James at Bayern was pretty good as well, although many people view him as a 'flop'

Yes. I personally think that people who think Neymar flopped never watched the bloke play

Great video 🤙🏾

thank god someone with a platform is defending Morata’s transfer. I’ve been saying this for years and everyone ignores me. Chelsea even managed to break even when selling him to Atletico despite him being a ‘flop’

Ayyy, we here. Alfie Gang 4 life 🖤 kudos from Chile 🇨🇱 Still waiting for a mention of us Chileans that's not Vidal being a G or Alexis Sánchez being one of the biggest transfer flops ever in the PL 😹 Tbh, jokes aside, your videos keep me sane in some really rough times. The grounded political views and criticism of these fucking sport succubus and witty comments/sarcasm is life fuel and never stops to crack me up 🫂

Chelsea catching strays this early in the morning is hilarious

Matthijs de ligt is a shout. He got critisized for everything after his unlucky start in the preseason for juventus, but if you would ask any juve fan they would say he was their most consistent defender in those years. Even for bayern he has been fantastic, just unlucky with injuries.

Very cool analysis

Broski really Shat on Chelsea in the intro😭

5:40 "Both willing and able" Why do I feel like I know where you got that one from :))

Di Maria is labelled a flop because he started out incredible with 3 Goals and 4 assists in his first 6 games, then only managed a single goal against Yeovil after October, and 8 more assists across the whole rest of the season

Pep Guardiola not being able to deal with Zlatan and Louis van Gaal at Man Utd being in this video makes me think of managers who are great if they can shape the team exactly like they want to, like Guardiola, Van Gaal, but above all Dinamo Kyiv's legendary Valeriy Lobanovskyi vs managers who are great at getting the best out of any player group, however big the characters. (No idea who would be the best example of that type.)

Seeing Lukaku and Hazard, just makes you look back and see how that Belgian team wasted their golden generation.

Day 11 of asking a "What Went Right for Stade Brestois?" Video This is currently, by far, the best season in club history, one which could result in their first ever qualification for Europe in over 70 years of existence. There's a fascinating story to tell, from going bankrupt and slowly climbing back, to various great names that played there such as Ribéry, Makélélé or José Luis Brown, to the story of the Brest president going up against the Colombian drug cartel. Plus, you can have a lot of Brest related puns. Following a 2-2 draw against Paris, the first time they haven't lost to them since the Qatari takeover, the supporter's bus was pelted by rocks. This is the second time this happened this year. Maybe there's something else worth investigating here.

Nice video, really loved Michal Owen's inclusion here.

Glad you put Neymar in this video. I've defended him a lot over the years, especially after the 2018 world cup where I felt the criticism for him was a bit over the top, although I've given up now with his move to Saudi.

The irony of Di Maria being a "not that bad" non-flop is that he is probably United's best transfer of the post-Fergie era. Certainly, he's the player who has had the best post-United career of anyone because he's one of 2 people in the last decade that United has sold for any meaningful amount of money, and one of the few who wasn't completely ruin by their time in Manchester. People scoff at this, but think about it. United largest ever transfer is Ronaldo from 2010. And their 4th biggest is DAVID BECKHAM for 37.5m euros in 2003.

Hello Alfie, can you speak about AFC Asian Cup and why the competition is consider was below par from World Cup and Euro.

Crespo is still one of my favourite ever strikers. That goal to make it 3 0 against Liverpool is one of the greatest pieces of art that I ever witnessned live. Kaká's pass adds to that of course but it was also a magnificent finsh!

Nothing you say about Zlatan in Barca is wrong, but it needs a bit of context. He had an amazing start (the best of any new Barca signing until that point) with 6 goals and 2 assists in his first 7 games in La Liga. Then a few weeks later he got injured, came in vs Real and scored 5 minutes after he was subbed in after quite some time after being injured. Its impossible to know all the details, but when he played for Barca, with Xavi and Iniesta, he produced numbers which is comparable to Messi numbers if it weren't for his injuries (or something else?). One thing for sure is that you want Messi to play as well as he can, but Zlatan played better on the pitch than Messi when the two of them were on the pitch. Not at all a flop, but just a casualty to injury at the wrong time with the wrong manager who believed in another player. Unfortunately for him, that player was Messi and the manager was Guardiola, who both have proved, without a doubt, themselves to be quite capable football players and manager.

Ibrahimovic is arguably the biggest overlooked player of all time. IMO he's among the top5 CFs of the modern era

Glad you had Micheal Owen here. Always felt like his time at Madrid was viewed unfairly

On point again. Especially the first three. I've always said 'they weren't that bad' when someone calls them flops in these particular clubs.

Owen was a success over here, and scored often off the bench. He was harshly judged by the press back in the UK. Love this video, as a whole, though. Some very strong selections x

Great choices, Alfie. I think that some of these players are rated as flops for two reasons; 1 - overexpectation due to inflated transfer fees, 2 - a disappointing season for the team after the signing, which is blamed on the signing rather than the team/management. Anyway, I've an idea for a future 7. The seven worst career outcomes for players who actively engineered their departure. As an AFC Bournemouth fan, I'd nominate Ryan Fraser (refused to play in order to avoid injury before his contract ran out under Eddie Howe - ended up at Newcastle before Eddie Howe took over, and is now on loan at Southampton with little chance of returning to St James' Park) and Joshua King (who was released by Everton after signing for a nominal fee, and then by Watford after a free transfer and is now winding down his career at Fenerbahçe). There must be better examples.

*Video suggestion:* Most appearances XI or 7 footballers with most appearances (latter would probably be mostly GKs)

Manchester United fan here....i think that Veron, Di Maria weren't that bad(and I'm born in 2000) and even Maguire is not a bad player, just not for 80 or 90 mil! Also, nice videos as always❤. Love from Bulgaria 🇧🇬 ❤️

Pogba to United, our best player when fit for most of the six years

The word flop was upgraded when zlatan was put into the conversation and then apologized personally to zlatan

I hope to see nunez on this list in a few years time

To be honest though, the fact that Morata has done better than his successors at Chelsea says more about how bad they where rather than any indication of how good Morata is.

You can say that zlatan is not a goat or a lion or one of the greatest players that football has seen recently. Everyone has the right to be wrong, but call him a bad signing for any team ? That just goes to show some people don't know football

Lukaku to Man United as well as Pogba to Man United. Both weren't as bad as people said for Man United. It almost gets to a false narrative that Lukaku was a Premier Legue Flop despite scoring over 120 PL goals. Same as Pogba which more of his issues were to do with his relationship to Jose Mourinho and his Injury record. He put out number ofn G&A better than Bruno Fernandez on his best season with the club.

That Michael Owen description is just *chef's kiss*. I hope it gets used for his obituary (hopefully not any time soon.)

Been saying that neymar wasn't a flop he literally played insane whenever he wasn't injured while at psg and dragged them to a champions league final where he played one of his best games against a stacked bayern. People love to crap on him for leaving barca but guess whos been to more champions league finals since he left...

I would also do fabregas at barcelona. For some reason many thinks he was a bench warmer when infact he was brillian and a starting xi player who created tons of goals

Pogba was definitely not a flop at United. The guy was definitely their best player 90% of his time there

I'd like to see an all time premier league worst 11 minimum 50 or more games played that would be interesting to hear your thoughts on that

nunez will be here one day if he isnt already.

Idea for next video: 7 players who started bad at the new tean, but turned out to be club legends, e.g. Luka Modric

I can't believe Alfie said Santi Carzola the way he did. Needs to do a whole video on him now.

When he mentioned flop i was expecting a 50 min dissertation about the AFCON.

As a Pool fan: Naby Keita was my first thought for this list. His injuries dragged him down and potentially made him a flop, and he’s bottom or near bottom of a lot of Liverpool signing lists, but he was actually pretty good when he played just never could play

6:03 🧸⚽️Bear in mind this Video Suggestion: 7 Active Players with the Lowest Career Goals

On Crespo being more prolific than Drogba... Drogba was a great striker for his hold up play and giving the opposition centre-backs a difficult game in many ways. Drogba wasn't actually that prolific a goalscorer, although he was a big game player who scored important goals. Crespo was a world-class poacher. Decent finishing, but his only really outstanding attribute was his 6th sense for where to be in the box. For the type of striker he was, he really needs to score more goals than a Drogba type of striker, we can't compare what they offer the team based on goal stats. It's like Utd fans comparing Cantona to Van Nistelrooy based on goals. Van Nistelrooy with a goal rate almost double, but Cantona won 4 out of 5 Premiership titles, and that likely would've been 5/5 if not for the long suspension after the Palace incident. Van Nistelrooy on the other hand won just 1 Premiership medal in 5 seasons...

Alfie - how about a video on the players who've played for both Barcelona and Real Madrid.

I think I’m the only the only Liverpool fan who thinks Benteke really wasn’t that bad for us. I get why klopp would sell him because those kind of strikers really aren’t for him. 10 goals isn’t great for the whole season but most of those goals were either winners for equalisers

Lebron James sending Zlatan a Jersey and him signing it then giving it back will always be funny

Lamela is straight-up "Streets won't forget", and I ain't even a Spurs fan. I'm a Liverpool fan: and I will say Crespo was unlucky to have scored 2 in the UCL 2005 final but not win. His 2nd in particular was, with that Kaka assist, the best goal in a cracking game. And it troubles me not at all to say it.

The Morata one I think is slightly misleading he scored 5 goals in his first 3-4 games if I remember correctly and 3 of those came against Stoke who finished 19th that season.

#thepeopleschannel a video on the Bangladesh premier league and the rise of Bashundhara kings would be good A team who went into the top flight after promotion and won the last four league titles now! Are they the next Newcastle? Are they a team to keep a eye on next few years? Thanks Alfie 😊

How do you adjust for football specific inflation?

I'm surprised you didn't include Veron at Man Utd

Whats happened to your upload schedule? You used to upload every other day but it seems to be longer and longer between videos now. Have i missed a message or has this just happened? Not complaining just asking

Haven’t watched the video yet but I have a feeling this is how we will look back on Darwin Nunez

I think of Luis Chavez. A Mexican who was originally seen as a waste, later included only by Gerardo Martino as a third choice in WC 2022 before he turned out to be Mexico’s newest superstar with the free kick that dumped Saudi Arabia out.

Messi in PSG and Ronaldo in United (second spell ) are the biggest flops ever.

The most criminally underrated footballer i can think of is Alberto Gilardino. Man literally won every cup competition he played in, only thing he didn't win was Serie A. Won Serie A Footballer of the year, Italian Footballer of the year, and Serie A young player of the year. Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and the World Cup.

Give us that 7 Best Strikers Video lmao.

A flop is relative to the expectations people had for players. Kaka or Götze for example were considered flops but if you look at their stats and actual performances, they were pretty good. People simply expected far more from them. Götze was considered the most talented German player of his generation. Some Germans even thought he might win the ball on'dor in the future. And Kaka of course came as a ball on'dor winner. So even though he wasn't bad at all, people simply expected way more from him. And maybe rightfully so.

João Felix at Atletico Madrid played 7837 minutes across 131 games, and registered 52 goal contributions (34 goals and 18 assists). That's an average goal contribution every 151 minutes. While he fell under expectations, mostly because of his transfer fee, that is in no way bad numbers. Especially because he kept being played out of position, mainly at right midfield

3:33 minute long intro is crazyyyy

Suggestion, flair players who had the flair coached out of them by modern "militaristic" coaches, e.g. CR7 when young at Man U to Mourinho times at Real. Gone are the days when if MARADONA wasn't on the pitch for Napoli you had another flair player like Zola or if Ronaldo 9 was injured you had Rivaldo, Adriano, Kaka, Robinho etc for Brazil

i think the goals / minutes thing might be less useful than like turning up for big games and scoring?