5 instances when world class players failed to click with each other

There have been many partnerships throughout footballing history that have clicked immediately. Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke at Manchester United is a prime example of when two players are on exactly the same wavelength. It is instinctive and can be poetic at times. But what of those double-acts that didn’t work? And not just any old players; world-class exponents who tried and tried but just couldn’t hit it off. Just because today’s exponents are paid millions of pounds for their services, it still takes nous to fuse together the best elements of a football team to turn them into a team of world-beaters. We take a look at five instances when world-class players failed to click with each other.

#5 Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard

Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard – England’s biggest midfield mystery with one simple solution

English football fans could never understand why the two best midfielders of their generation – Liverpool talisman Steven Gerrard and Chelsea legend Frank Lampard – looked ordinary when paired together for England. The devil is in the detail, of course.

Both players liked to play much the same role and it was never going to work trying to get one to sit and hold whilst the other burst forward at every given opportunity. Goalscoring midfielders par excellence, in Lampard’s case he became Chelsea’s greatest ever goalscorer before departing for MLS. That Gerrard should join him there is one of those strange football oddities.

As each England manager tried and failed to integrate the pair, not one had the foresight to play either Lampard or Gerrard. Of course, the England manager’s job is a poisoned chalice at the best of times, and media and fans alike would never have forgiven, whomsoever was in charge for dropping either player.

Sometimes you have to look sideways in order to move forward.

#4 Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero

Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero – the pride of Roma and Juventus but failures for Italy when played together

An Italian national side with Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero in situ is a marriage made in heaven right? Wrong!

The stars of the Bianconeri and the Giallorossi would become the focal point of the Azzurri or so everyone thought. Each time that they started a game together, which wasn’t too often in truth, they were largely ineffective.

Despite explicit and clear instructions from the manager, neither player could carry out the same effectively. It was chiefly the reason behind the surprising omission of the duo as a pairing for the most part in the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.

Giovanni Trappatoni had the option of seeing them spearhead the charge for Euro 2004 but instead went with Christian Vieri as the target man. It soon became clear that one or the other would always miss out, and football was the poorer for never seeing the best of them on the world stage.

#3 Miroslav Klose and Mario Gomez

Mario Gomez and Miroslav Klose never got going for Germany when

There isn’t too much that German World Cup winning manager Joachim Low has got wrong in his career. His teams are often the benchmark in terms of functionality and swiss-watch like precision in play. A little too robotic for some, his sides are winners nevertheless.

He has made one ricket in his selection of forwards though. Fortunately for him, it was one that went largely under the radar.

Mario Gomez was the bright young thing in German football and Low wanted to pair him with the experienced Miroslav Klose. It was an unmitigated disaster from the beginning.

It wasn’t that the youngster could be described as being out of his depth, it was just an experiment that was destined to never work. Gomez was so poor alongside the Polish-born striker that arguably Low’s insistence on one up front ever since came about as a result of the failure of the two to work together.

Some you win...

#2 Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Zlatan Ibrahimovic was never going to be the main man at Barcelona with Lionel Messi in the side

Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s pairing should have been one of the most explosive of recent times, but it failed for a variety of reasons. The primary reason was because Pep Guardiola went against Barcelona’s age old philosophy and brought in a target man.

Ibrahimovic has much more in his locker, of course. But ostensibly his height and physicality were to be the order of the day. Barca would do things a little bit differently from now on.

It started well enough with Ibrahimovic netting in his first five league matches – a Barcelona record. But things started to unravel quickly when the big Swede realised he wasn’t the main man.

A big personality in every dressing room that he had been a part of, Guardiola made it clear to everyone that Messi would be top dog in his setup. Some other big goals aside, including a thunderous winner against Real Madrid, Ibra was like a fish out of water and didn’t really fit the template in any way, shape or form.

A hugely expensive mistake.

#1 Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane

Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry never combined regularly – both at Juventus and for France

If there is one thing that Zinedine Zidane doesn’t “do” it is fail. And it must be said the way in which his partnership with Thierry Henry never took off at Juventus can probably be more attributed to manager Carlo Ancelotti than anything else.

Things didn’t start well for the Italian when he took over a fading “Old Lady,” and rumours of Zidane’s dislike of his manager’s rigidity tactically only added to the sense of woe in Turin at the time.

Allied to this was playing new boy Henry out on the wing, a position that in truth many had thought of as his natural habitat. Only Arsene Wenger saw the potential of playing the Frenchman as a “nine”. But for Ancelotti, keeping him out on the wing was the way forward. Except it wasn’t.

Having Henry shuttling back and forth up the left side, meant little interaction with Zidane and a huge opportunity missed. Juventus’ loss was very definitely Arsenal’s gain.

Zidane and Henry didn’t click for the French national team either. In fact, the only goal-assist combination featuring the two legends was Henry’s goal from a Zidane free-kick in France’s 1-0 win over Brazil in the 2006 World Cup quarter-finals.