FIFA World Cup: Biggest missing links on football’s premier stage

A host of club superstars have not played the FIFA World Cup. Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale will be the biggest absentee in Russia.

On the verge of being an European champion with Real Madrid for the fourth time in five seasons, it would be an understatement to say that Gareth Bale has had a fairly successful stint with Los Blancos. Despite his injuries, Bale has had solid contribution to Real’s European conquests.

Two years back, Bale followed up his Champions League success with prolific showings for Wales as they surprisingly reached the semi-finals of the 2016 European Championship. This summer, however, the talismanic winger won’t be seen strutting his stuff in Russia.

With Wales failing to qualify for the World Cup, Bale joins a list of other greats to have never played at the tournament. He, of course, will have a shot at erasing his name off it in four years’ time, but he will be approaching 33 by then and it remains to be seen if Wales remain strong enough to qualify for Qatar 2022.

Bale’s new national team coach, Ryan Giggs, will be able to empathise with him.

At Manchester United, under Alex Ferguson, Giggs rarely had seasons when the club failed to win a major trophy. Thirteen league titles, two Champions League crowns and a host of other titles made him one of the world’s most decorated footballers.

Such level of success was impossible to replicate with perennial underdogs Wales, as Giggs found out. It was a similar fate to that of Ian Rush, Giggs’ senior teammate in Wales during the United winger’s younger years.

Rush had won five league titles and two European Cups, among other trophies with Liverpool, but Wales couldn’t make it to a major tournament.

International football has been a tough terrain to conquer for some of the sport’s most prominent faces. In 1993, Abedi ‘Pele’ Ayew inspired Marseille to an unprecedented Champions League triumph, the only occasion a French club became European champions. But while Ayew tasted international success with Ghana at the African Cup of Nations, the country couldn’t make the World Cup grade during his career.

Former Germany midfielder Berndt Schuster is another great to have never played in football’s showpiece. His absence, however, had less to do with the country’s football prowess. At the age of 24, Schuster quit international football due to disagreements with the country’s governing body, subsequently missing out on Germany’s 1986 and 1990 World Cup campaigns. When the tournament reaches Qatar, Bale will be hoping to make his way out of the ill-fated list.

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