Would Bellingham be biggest World Cup squad omission ever? | OneFootball

There is a reverse clamour building for Jude Bellingham to be omitted from the England team for the World Cup. Would it be the biggest squad exclusion ever?

It is somehow an actual opinion that ‘Thomas Tuchel should leave divisive soloist Jude Bellingham out of his World Cup squad‘, with apparently ‘serious questions’ over his inclusion.

A bizarre agenda based largely on an elite-level athlete showing mild frustration at not getting more of an opportunity to state his case for a starting spot at a major international tournament it may be, but the discourse has been forced into reality.

Would Bellingham be the biggest ever omission from a World Cup squad? Just wait until he grows his hair or has an affair with the manager’s wife…

Mauro Icardi (2018 World Cup)

Jorge Sampaoli said Argentina would “bank on an attacking game” at the 2018 World Cup – and the inclusion of Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero and Paulo Dybala in his final squad reinforced that notion – but Serie A top scorer Icardi was left out.

Despite having outscored every player picked barring Messi, it was decided that Icardi did not fit into the desired template of “players that can do many functions to give us different characteristics”.

There were also whispers that Messi and Icardi didn’t exactly get on; Hernan Crespo suggested that “the national team is now made up of a magic circle” of the former’s friends and the latter was “not part of” it.

Ashley Cole (2014 World Cup)

Roy Hodgson described it as “one of the hardest” calls he had to make for his 2014 World Cup squad, picking between Cole’s experience, Luke Shaw’s youth and the middle ground offered by Leighton Baines.

It was certainly a controversy at the time but in hindsight a 33-year-old who had been deposed as Chelsea left-back by Cesar Azpilicueta might not have rescued an England campaign doomed to failure.

Esteban Cambiasso and Javier Zanetti (2010 World Cup)

If Real Madrid win the Champions League but Thomas Tuchel overlooks both Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold for the 48-team mess in the United States soon after, there would actually at least be a sort of precedent for such madness.

Is Diego Maradona the sort of example one should seek to follow? Perhaps not. But he followed up his vow to “never play in the way Mourinho’s Inter played against Barcelona” by leaving out two stalwarts of that Treble-winning side in Cambiasso and captain Zanetti.

Maradona called up a host of unfancied domestic-based players instead and mid-30 warriors in Juan Sebastian Veron and Martin Palermo, before suffering a humiliating and sack-inducing defeat to Germany in the quarter-finals.

Robert Pires (2006 World Cup)

Having accused manager Raymond Domenech of “stressing us out with his attitude, his words, his comments” before describing their relationship as “turbulent”, Pires openly accepted his chances of playing at a second World Cup was in jeopardy long before the final decision landed.

The Arsenal forward had reacted furiously to being substituted early in a World Cup qualifier against Cyprus after all, so probably should have been burned at the stake.

Pires had enjoyed a decent final season with Arsenal but it was never likely to be enough to salvage his international career after such vocal criticism of the coach. Although the biggest mark against Pires might actually have been his birthday.

“In France they say I had an affair with his wife!” the bringer of diving to England joked of his omission years later. “As for the astrology, he’s mad when it comes to that. He was saying you can’t have a Scorpio on the team.”

Domenech did indeed pick specifically zero Scorpios for the 2006 World Cup. He dismissed it a decade later and mocked how “people started thinking I wear a wizard’s hat on my head and gaze into crystal balls,” which is precisely what someone who wears a wizard’s hat on their head and gazes into crystal balls would say.

Romario (2002 World Cup)

A champion of the 1994 World Cup as Player of the Tournament, Brazil’s top scorer and that year’s Ballon d’Or winner, Romario missed the 1998 edition through injury. So when 2002 rolled around for a 36-year-old who had been plundering with his iconic reckless abandon for Vasco de Gama, it was taken for granted that he would make the cut.

But Luiz Felipe Scolari had other ideas, stemming from a perceived slight early in his tenure. The manager recalled how he “almost got fired” after Brazil flopped at the 2001 Copa America, with Romario’s decision to turn down a call-up, play some friendlies and go on holiday instead proving to be a bone of contention which essentially ended a remarkable international career.

It does help when you can just lean on actual Ronaldo instead.

Fernando Redondo (1998 World Cup)

When not tormenting Gary Neville in the defender’s self-confessed worst-ever performance, Redondo could be found taking a stand against one of the stranger modern managerial edicts.

“There are studies about this. They’ve done analyses of the players, the number of times they touch their hair when they have it long and when they have it short. Long hair is dangerous,” explained Daniel Passarella, whose other bans included homosexuality and earrings for reasons he inexplicably chose not to divulge or elaborate on.

It led to the ostracisation of Gabriel Batistuta for a time with a slightly shorter hairstyle, but Redondo “didn’t see what that had to do with playing football so I said no”. And honestly fair enough.

One of the most underrated footballers ever simply consoled himself with the first of two Champions League winner’s medals instead.

Paul Gascoigne (1998 World Cup)

If certain media types are to be believed, Bellingham is absolutely the sort of character liable to trash a hotel room “like a man possessed” after being informed he was surplus to requirements.

The decision caused shockwaves through the England football landscape but in hindsight it was the only call Glenn Hoddle could make and it had been coming: Gascoigne had struggled for form and fitness with Rangers and First Division side Middlesbrough, was battling personal demons and had been in and out of the international picture since Euro ’96.

Hoddle ultimately put it down to the 31-year-old’s waning fitness levels. If that seems harsh, consider Gascoigne’s defence published in an open letter in The Sun: