What do Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, Eusebio, Johan Cruyff, Zico, Michel Platini, Karl Heinz Rummenigge, Mark Van Basten, Roberto Baggio have in common, apart from stellar football talent? They never managed to lift the trophy won by the World Cup winner.They won all continental championships, Champions Cups, Ballon d’Ors, national championships, top scorer titles… They were the idols of the masses, with showcases full of trophies, medals and photos of celebrations, but without the most important, most prestigious, title of world champion.Leo Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar seriously risk being in the company of the mentioned greats, not only for their quality and the mark they left in football, but also because their careers will be left without the most important crown.The shock of all shocks! Saudi Arabia soar high and inflict the most humiliating defeat upon Messi’s ArgentinaThe World Cup in Qatar is the last chance for Messi and Ronaldo and probably for Neymar – bearing in mind the downward trajectory of the Brazilian whose career started to descend faster than expected due to his lifestyle – to not enter the company of the big “ten” and strikers who did not crown their dreams.Of course, there are more drastic examples. George Best never made it to the World Cup with his Northern Ireland despite the epitaph: Pele is good, Maradona is better, George is Best, while Di Stefano was at the World Cup in Chile, but due to an injury he did not play a single minute.Di Stefano missed the World Cup in 1950 because Argentina’s football federation decided to withdraw from the qualifiers due to a disagreement with the football association of Brazil. The alpha and omega of Real Madrid, with two Ballon d’Ors and five Champions Cup titles, changed allegiance when it comes to the national teams, but failed to qualify for the World Cup in Sweden in 1958, while his compatriot Helenio Herrera took Di Stefano to Chile as a “tourist” because he got injured right before the start of the championship.Arab commentators in a trance! (VIDEO)Puskas, Cruyff, Rummenigge, Baggio are in the group of big winners-losers, stopped a step away from football heaven. The Hungarian ace excelled at the World Cup in Switzerland in 1954. The irony of fate is that the victory of Hungary over Germany in the group stage 8-3 due to an unprecedented football charade is more mentioned in the annals, and remembered in the collective consciousness, than the final the Hungarians lost 3-2.The Germans didn’t just leave Puskas without the planetary scepter, but they did it again, twenty years later, with Johan Cruyff. The flagship of Dutch total football, the three-time consecutive European champion with Ajax, was stopped by the proverbial German pragmatism and football cynicism.Rummenigge was the champion of Europe, he also won the Ballon d’Or, but Paolo Rossi and the Azzurri prevented him from climbing to the football roof of the planet in Spain. Die Mannschaft’s whirlwind wing can serve as consolation that Rivera, Platini, Van Basten (all European champions, all Ballon d’Or winners and all without the title of world champion) had the same bittersweet fate.ONE OF THE BIGGEST SHOCKS IN WORLD CUP HISTORYArgentina’s 36 match unbeaten run is over at the hands of Saudi Arabia! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/rbqQtbenUo— SPORTbible (@sportbible) November 22, 2022 Roberto Baggio was in a trance, carried by a promise made by his father when he was three years old – only later will his father admit that he made it all up and that he could not have given him any promise as young as he saw the disappointment on his face after losing to Brazil in the World Cup final in 1970 – that he would bring the title of world champion to Italy, beat Nigeria, Spain, Bulgaria practically by himself and with one foot. In the end, that magical right foot “betrayed” him in the penalty shootout with Brazil.Eusebio and Michel Platini stopped in the semi-finals at the world championships where Portugal and France deserved much more, Platini even twice (in Spain and four years later in Mexico).Zico and Marco Van Basten led the most romantic and poetic selections of Brazil and the Netherlands. Seleção was the absolute favorite at the World Cup in Spain in 1982, until their seductive samba was interrupted by Paolo Rossi, while the “Flying Dutch” at the 1990 World Cup, decorated with the title of European champion, were too self-absorbed. For Van Basten, but also for Gullit and Rijkaard, even Koeman, if you will, as well as for Cruyff and his generation, the Germans were fatal.Roberto Baggio missing that penalty during the 1994 World Cup Final. pic.twitter.com/JNMhymISsN— 90s Football (@90sfootball) July 25, 2017 Leo Messi and his Argentina didn’t get off to the best start to the final tango, but all is not lost. The loss to Saudi Arabia can be turned into a springboard and a strong motivation for the flight to the trophy that has been lacking in Messi’s generation and that has been lacking for the Gauchos for 36 years. Unlike Ronaldo and Neymar, who stopped in the semi-finals of the World Cup, the Portuguese Ronaldo in 2006 and in 2014, Messi played in the finals in Brazil, but he, like other greats, from Puskas, Cruyff to Van Basten, was stopped by the Germans.Cristiano Ronaldo no longer has the athletic predisposition he had four or five years ago, but a solid generation of Portuguese footballers has grown up in his shadow. If Santos finds the right winning formula in which Ronaldo will be an added value for the Navigators and not their ballast, nothing will be forbidden and unattainable for CR7 and his comrades. Otherwise, a great career could end up in “saudaz” and fado.⏪ On this day 40 years ago, Paolo Rossi scored a hat-trick as Italy beat Brazil at Spain ’82.The game was called the ‘Match of the Century’ by some, and Italy would lift their third World Cup days later 🏆 pic.twitter.com/7KNpFwDsfM— Italian Football TV (@IFTVofficial) July 5, 2022 Neymar always gave much more in the national team than in the clubs he played for or plays for, whether it was Barcelona or PSG. His talent in the national selection did not vary like Messi’s or Ronaldo’s in Argentina and Portugal, but he could be in Qatar something between what Bebeto and Romario were in the United States in 1994.In any case, only one of the three will escape the “curse” of the big players of the past, and maybe none. It remains to be seen.QATAR 2022 WORLD CUPGROUP CSaturday, Nov 26th16:00: (1.63) Poland (3.80) Saudi Arabia (5.70)22:00: (1.62) Argentina (3.70) Mexico (6.00)***odds are subject to change***##SPECIAL_STANDINGS_Group C##
