The Worst Football Debuts in History

Having your dream debut by racing off onto a pitch and scoring a winning goal only seconds later is what dreams are made of. However, things can, at the same time, go horribly wrong with a footballer fumbling every chance they get or even scoring their own goal.

Unfortunately, there have been countless occasions when debuts went wrong. Some footballers simply could not cut it and fell under the pressure of the biggest stage, ruining the very first chance they got. We rarely overlook the worst football debuts and don’t forget them easily. So here are a few situations where things didn’t go as planned.

Jonathan Woodgate (Real Madrid)

Regarded as one of the worst debuts in football is Jonathan Woodgate’s first appearance for Los Blancos. At the time, he was one of the few Englishmen playing outside the Premier League and was given a chance to play for one of the best teams in the world, Real Madrid.

Unfortunately, various problems and injuries delayed his debut for 17 months. After finally getting to the pitch, he scored his own goal and received two yellow cards, all in 66 minutes of play time. He has only appeared 13 more times for Real since then. In fact, Marca even voted him the worst signing of the XXI century.

Worst Football Mistakes

Henrik Larsson (Celtic)

By all accounts, Henrik Larsson is one of the best players that Celtic has ever had. He played in over 200 matches and scored 174 goals for The Bhoys. But his Celtic debut was something that he would rather forget. In fact, he made not one, but two worst debuts for Celtic.

In his first-ever game, after entering the pitch in the final minutes of the game, he made one of the worst football mistakes which led to Hibernian scoring the winning goal. The very next game, he made his European debut for Celtic where he scored an own goal. Luckily, Henrik became one of the most lethal strikers in Europe. He even managed to get back to form after suffering one of the worst injuries in football ever seen.

Jason Crowe (Arsenal)

The name of Jason Crowe may not ring many bells, even with the fiercest football fanatics. But Gunners’ fans definitely remember his name after having probably one of the worst Premier League debuts in history. It took time for Crowe to finally make his debut for Arsenal. He finally did after the subbing of first-choice right-back Lee Dixon.

However, it took Crowe only 33 seconds on the pitch to make a reckless tackle, prompting a direct red card. It went down in history as the fastest sending-off debut in history. Crowe played very little after that and eventually ran out of his contract to join Portsmouth.

Worst Premier League Debuts

Lionel Messi (Argentina)

In hindsight, no one can say that Lionel Messi could have become the worst footballer playing for Argentina. But after making his La Albiceleste debut, many got the impression that he may not be able to rise to the ranks of the legendary Diego Armando Maradona that everyone predicted he would be.

The little Argentine received a direct red card only 40 seconds after his Argentina debut. An inadvertent elbow to the face of Vilmos Vanczak in the match versus Hungary was not how Messi envisioned his debut. Luckily, he recuperated himself years later by helping them lift the 2022 World Cup.

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