PLAYERS WHO HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL BUT NEVER MET IT

[0:00]Players who had so much potential but never met it. The year was 2016, and 18-year-old Renato Sanches had just helped Portugal win Euro 2016, becoming the youngest player to ever play in a European Championship final, while also winning the best young player award, the Golden Boy award, and earning comparisons to Dutch legend Clarence Seedorf. Bayern Munich saw enough and paid 35 million for him, making him the most expensive Portuguese player to ever leave the domestic league. But what happened next was one of the biggest downfalls in football history. In his first season at Bayern, Sanches played 25 matches across all competitions and recorded zero goals and zero assists, starting just four league games while competing against Xabi Alonso, Thiago, and Arturo Vidal for minutes. He couldn't speak the language, couldn't settle in, and couldn't get on the pitch. But instead of fixing things, Bayern made it worse. They loaned him to Swansea City, where he was so miserable that he later talked about sitting alone in his apartment watching the rain. He didn't score a single goal, got injured in January, and his manager publicly said he had stopped developing the moment he left Benfica. But here's where it gets really sad. And before this last part, if you're getting value from this video, please hit the follow button. He bounced back to Bayern, then to Lille, PSG, Roma, Benfica, and now Panathinaikos in Greece. The player Bayern once valued at 80 million is now worth less than 2 million at 28 years old, on his seventh club since leaving Benfica, having been loaned out four times by PSG alone.