6 great footballers who had debuts to forget

Your first time is always special. Your first love. Your first kiss. Your first motorbike. Your first job. And if you are the kind of lucky soul that makes a living kicking a ball around a green pitch, your first game. Always special! Whether it is your first ever professional appearance or your first appearance wearing the colours of your new team.The opposition will always attack you – be it Spurs fans yelling “Who are ya?” at a young Wayne Rooney (they know now!) or Leicester fans needling Rio Ferdinand and Leeds United fans over his exorbitant transfer fee (the Foxes won 3-0 that day). Even your own fans will have their doubts regarding your quality and will be wondering whether their club made the right choice in giving you a shot. So, everyone remembers their debuts. Some, though, however great they have become, would do anything not to bring back memories of their first day at the job. We take a look at six great players who had debuts that they would very much like to forget!

#1 Fernando Torres

Match: Chelsea 0–1 Liverpool (6 February 2011)

When Roman Abrahamovic and 50 million quid came a-calling, Liverpool cult hero and legend-in-the-making Fernando Torres decided to leave behind the Merseyside docks and move South via the M6 and the M40 to the plush environs of Fulham (the borough) and Chelsea (the football club).

As that most remarkable of scriptwriters, fate, would have it, El Nino’s debut for the Blues’ came against his former club, Liverpool. Despite having just recovered from a major knee surgery the past summer and suffering from a resultant (and quite natural) dip in form, expectations were pretty darn high for the charismatic Spaniard.

Walking out to chants of “We’ve got Fernando” from the Stamford Bridge faithful and banners of “He who betrays will always walk alone” from the travelling Merseysiders, Torres delivered the sort of performance that Chelsea would become accustomed to over the next couple of years – the underwhelming sort.

A shot that went handsomely high and wide of Pepe Reina’s goal after having been presented the ball by a wayward Liverpudlian pass (and having only the notoriously shaky Martin Skrtel in front of him), a spurned chance (this time, admittedly, due to a brilliant tackle from the indefatigable Jamie Carragher) and a couple of wayward passes that ended promising Chelsea counter-attacks were the stand out incidents in an insipid performance – much to the delight of the travelling contingent.

Even then, though, few would have guessed that it would take Torres another couple of months and 903 playing minutes before he bagged his first goal in a Blues’ shirt – the first of only 45 goals in 172 matches for the Londoners.

Liverpool meanwhile spent the fifty million quid on the remarkable genius of Luis Suarez and… erm, Andy Carroll.

#2 Jonathan Woodgate

Match: Real Madrid 3-1 Athletic Bilbao (22 September 2005)

Although not of the same calibre as the names mentioned on this list, it would be a crime to omit Jonathan Woodgate’s Real Madrid debut from any list that includes horrible debuts. Woodgate had become one of the most highly rated names in British football after several inspiring performances in Europe in the famous black and white of Newcastle and was being touted as the future of the English national team.

Real Madrid, in the midst of Florentino Perez’s madcap spell, eyed him as the latest addition to their Galacticos set and bought him in the summer of 2004. It would be 13 months however before he could put on a Real jersey in a competitive fixture having spent the time sidelined after the recurrence of his frequently occurring injury problems.

“F**k me, what a debut” is all Woodgate had to say after his first match. A spectacular own goal (a diving header) saw the Englishman throw himself into some fairly lusty challenges in a bid to atone for his mistake. As could be predicted with dead-eyed certainty, Woodgate collected two yellow cards and was sent off with a third of the game left to play.

Even though the performance had little effect on the end result, it would prove to be a harbinger of the times to come as the man from Middlesbrough played just eight more times for the Spanish giants and spent the rest of his career battling injury and poor form back home in England.

#3 Henrik Larsson

Match: Celtic 1-2 Hibernian (3 August 1997)

The football-loving congregation of Celtic Park has seen many a great player turn out in the immortal green and white of their beloved Celtic Football Club, but not many were expecting a dread-locked Swedish journeyman striker named Henrik Larsson to enter their hallowed league of cult heroes when they signed him in the summer of ‘97.

His first appearance for the Bhoys came on the opening day of the season against Hibernian, coming on as a late substitute with the game tied at 1-1. With his first touch for the Glasgow giants, the Swede unwittingly passed the ball to Hibs’ Chic Chanley, who rather obligingly hammered in what would turn out to be the match-winning goal.

“Dread Loss” yelled the headlines in Glasgow the next day as the Parkhead top brass were lambasted for the signing of yet another dodgy foreigner with no credentials and seemingly no future. Larsson’s European debut didn’t do him or the aforementioned brass any good either – as he ended up scoring an own goal in an eventful 6-3 victory over Austria’s FC Tirul Innsbrock.

Within the year, though, the green and white half of Glasgow would be chanting his name with a passion and wholehearted affection only reserved for the best loved – he ended up top scorer for the club that season and amassed an amazing 242 goals in 313 appearances over 7 glittering years at the club. Truly hall of fame material, that.

Hibs, meanwhile, were relegated at the end of the 1997/98 season.

#4 Jaap Stam

Match: Manchester United 0-3 Arsenal (9 August 1998)

“Where the faithful had expected a tower of strength, they discovered he was rather too comparable to the one at Pisa” wrote Nick Townsend in the Independent. “Alex in Blunderland” screamed another newspaper. It appeared to all the world, and certainly the British sports press that Sir Alex Ferguson had made a monumental blunder in convincing the United board to shell out £10.5 million on the hulking figure of PSV centre-half Jaap Stam.

Stam had been thrown in at the deep end in his debut for United, charged with marshalling a back line in transition against the turbo-charged attack of Arsenal in the ’98 Charity Shield (now known as the Community Shield).

He had spent the entire match walking around looking as dazed and helpless as a man dragged by his fiancée to watch a premiere of 50 Shades of Grey with the jet-heeled Marc Overmars and the frighteningly quick Nicolas Anelka giving him a torrid time.

His apparent lack of pace had been exposed brutally on his first day at the job. United were hammered 3-0, the third of which saw Anelka screaming past the lumbering Dutchman, leaving him dead in his tracks - the last nail on Stam’s debut day coffin.

Sir Alex, however, as was his wont, stuck by his big man and as the season progressed it became obvious why. Stam became the lynchpin of the formidable defensive unit upon which Fergie led his United side to that unprecedented treble.

Stam would become the most feared defender in the land – as the Old Trafford faithful loved reminding the opposition during the giant gladiator’s three years at United.

“Jip Jaap Stam’s a big Dutch man, get past him if you f**king can. Try a little trick and he’ll make you look like a prick. Jip, Jaap, Jaap Stam”

#5 Lionel Messi

Match: Argentina 2-1 Hungary (17 August 2005)

La Masia was going agog over a pocket-sized, moppy-haired Argentine who had been sweeping aside all in front of him. Barcelona’s famed academy had seen a number of world-class graduates, but something told the watching world that this one was rather special.

The Spanish football federation was soon at the young man’s door, asking him to join La Furia Roja’s U-20 side. That wasn’t to happen, however. Barcelona may have been the city that made him what he was, and Spain may have been where he and his friends lived and played, but Lionel Andrés Messi knew only one home. Only one team. Argentina – La Albiceleste.

Two years after the Spaniards had approached him, Messi donned the beautiful, timeless, blue-and-white of the Argentine senior national football team for the first time as he replaced Lisandro Lopez late in a friendly against Hungary.

A debut against Hungary, just as another Argentine teenage sensation had made in 1977 – some bloke by the name of Diego Armando Maradona. The heir to Maradona’ s throne was following in his footsteps – this was all meant to be.

Receiving the ball in the opposition’s half, he embarked on the trademark pitter-patter of a scuttling dribble that the world would soon grow used to seeing (and loving) day in and day out. Running along with him, or trying to, was Hungarian defender Vilmos Vanczák, who suddenly after a couple of yards, dropped down like a tree in a Canadian forest during lumberjack season.

Replays later showed a flailing arm from Messi that grazed the Hungarian’s face. Markus Merk, the German referee in charge of this encounter decided that the arm had been intentional and gave the young Argentine a straight red.

44 seconds. That was all it took. The most anticipated debut in modern footballing history had fizzled out like a damp firework. Vanczák hasn’t really done much to be in the limelight since (or before, if we were to talk about it).

That Messi kid, meanwhile, has turned out to become a half-decent player, hasn’t he?

#6 Lilian Thuram

Match: Monaco 0-2 Metz (17 October 1991)

When you are out there on the field, it helps to have your fellow footballers giving you little pieces of advice, quick little shout-outs along the lines of, “Look out! Man behind you!” or “Leave it! My ball!” These are never more welcome than when you are making your debut in a high voltage match in front of 10,000 screaming opposition fans.

So, when a highly-talented defender – a certain 18-year-old named Lilian Thuram – heard a mature, seasoned voice yell “Give it to the keeper”, he complied immediately, relieved to return the ball to his experienced goalkeeper Jean Luc-Ettori and let him start off yet another Monaco attack.

That relief didn’t last for too long though. François Calderaro, the mercurial Metz striker who had scored his team’s first goal had been the one who had “helped” Thuram out with that little shout-out and as Thuram sank to his knees, wishing the pitch would open up and swallow him whole, Calderaro wheeled away in celebration – pure, wicked glee plastered on his face.

Thuram would be substituted 10 minutes later (64’) but his manager, showing an eye for young talent that has served him rather well over the years, stuck with him and soon guided the young defender to become the bedrock of his defence - Arsène Wenger sure got that one right.

Thuram would go on to become one of the greatest defenders of the modern era – winning domestic honours in France, Italy and Spain along with the small matter of lifting the World Cup and the European Championship as part of arguably the best French defence of all time.

Calderaro, talented as he was, would enjoy a quietly successful career in Ligue 1 and 2 without ever troubling the guys whose job it was to print the names of the players on the backs of Les Bleus’ jersey

Guess we know who got the last laugh, eh?