Soundoff: The Most Disappointing Teams In World Football.

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Do we need an excuse to post The Steven Gerrard Face? Probably not, but here’s one anywho.

This may be the best ten seconds of video to come out of European football this season. It may or may not have been justified, the right call, but there is no mistaking the look plastered across Stevie’s face, a look which just about defines their year.

But this isn’t to poke fun at Liverpool or anyone else, but rather to get a look at those who’ve face-planted right in the face of expectations. There are certainly some big teams enjoying forgettable seasons, with Liverpool & Juve enjoying the most press, but this isn’t about the schadenfreude in lights – it’s the schadenfreude flying under the mainstream radar. Or those not enjoying weekly jokes at its expense. (Jokes, however, always welcome.)

For me, it’s AZ and by some margin. Sure, they lost Louis van Gaal, but their rise-to-fall must certainly put any other team in world football to absolute shame.

In ‘07-08 they finished 11th, 29 points from the top (with LvG at the helm and offering his resignation, mind you).
In ‘08-09 they finished first, winning – and dominating – the league with an 11 point gap.
As of today they stand 5th, but 23 whole points from the summit with 10 losses, whilst no one in front has lost more than four.

Due a stumble, surely, but this rise and fall causes motion sickness just watching from afar.

Of course the disappointment isn’t so much in AZ the footballers as it is in AZ the management for employing Ronald Koeman, who ushered them to 7 losses – 3 more than they’d enjoyed all last season – in 16 games before finally being relieved of their duties. It took nearly two months to shake the Koeman hangover (it’s a nasty one), a hangover which included a lot of losses, before finding steady feet with a run of 7-1-0 in their last 8. Good, but a bit – nay – way too late.

AZ, of course, are but one of many. So who’s your most disappointing team this year?

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Category: World Football