5 Of the world’s best uncapped football players

#1. Aymeric Laporte

Aymeric Laporte is the most expensive uncapped player in the world

It is almost impossible to believe that Manchester City’s principle centre-back Aymeric Laporte has still not earned a cap for France. The 25-year-old defender was signed for a then club record fee of £57 million from Athletic Bilbao and has cemented himself as one of the best in his position.

Laporte, in his two years in England, has won two Premier League titles, two League Cups, one FA Cup and two Community Shield trophies. After his brilliant 2018/19 season, he was also named in the PFA Team of the Year.

Laporte broke into the senior team at Bilbao at a very young age and went onto play for six years with the Spanish outfit. He made over 150 league appearances for the club before his big-money move to Manchester City. During his time in Spain, he was linked with a host of top European clubs including Barcelona.

The Frenchman is a textbook Pep Guardiola centre-half because of his immaculate passing, ball-playing ability, vision and defensive stalwartness.

He has quickly become one of City’s most reliable defenders at the back and his long-term knee injury at the start of the season was one the key reasons for their downfall this term. Despite Laporte’s consistency at Athletic Bilbao and Manchester City, he has still gone unnoticed among the France football team bosses who have still not handed him a senior cap.

Laporte represented the youth teams over 50 times but is yet to feature in Didier Deschamps’ side.

France did finally call him up in August for their Euro 2020 qualifying excursions against Albania and Andorra, however, his knee injury, unfortunately, occurred just two days later.

There was also talk that Laporte could feature for the Spanish national team but he squashed those rumours stating that he ‘did not apply for dual citizenship because he is French and wants to fight to play for France’.

With the defender back in contention at City, we could see him return to his usual world-class standards during the remainder of the campaign.

Laporte will hope to finish the season strongly if he is to have any chance in making France’s squad for the upcoming Euro 2020 Championships.