https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeuuTVk256w Fabio Paim is probably better known as star in the Football Manager games than in real life, but the games are famed for spotting potential, and at one stage the young Portuguese winger really was expected to be a world beater. He played in the same Sporting Lisbon youth side as Cristiano Ronaldo, who said of Paim: "if you think I'm good, just wait until you see Fabio Paim". High praise indeed, considering Ronaldo doesn't think anyone is better than him. Unfortunately for Paim it didn't work out as planned. He never made an appearance for Sporting but was instead farmed out on loan numerous times, most notably to Chelsea in 2008, but he failed to impress for the reserves and the move was not made permanent. At the age of 28, he's turned out for 16 different teams but played just a handful of times. Most recently he's played for Mosta in Malta, FK Nevezis in Lithuania and Union 05 in Luxembourg, who terminated his contract in 2015 for unspecified "unprofessional behaviour". Paim was expected to play alongside Ronaldo in the Portuguese senior squad, but has never been capped. He declared for Angola, the birthplace of his parents, but even they declined to give him a call up. Better than Ronaldo? He's never even come close.
David is an office drone and freelance writer for WhatCulture and Moviepilot, among others. He's also foolishly writing a serialised novel on Jukepop and has his own irregularly updated website. He's available for freelance work. Reach out on Twitter to @davefox990