10 Players Who Didn't Fulfil Their Potential At Newcastle

6. Hugo Viana

The Portuguese international came to Tyneside riding a wave of hype after a fantastic U-21 Euro 2002 performance: Portugal were eliminated during the group stages, but Viana was remembered for managing to score against England in the final group game to knock them out too. He signed for a whopping ‚12m from Sporting Lisbon at just 19 years of age and his career looked to be full of promise; when Viana signed for Newcastle, he was European Young Footballer of The Year. But once again, Newcastle put a stop to all that nonsense. Viana featured fairly heavily in his first season at Newcastle, but was by no means one of the key players of the team. His involvement then dropped in the 03-04 season and the season after that he was loan back to Sporting Lisbon, and ultimately he was sold to Valencia in 2005 and between then and 2010 featured about as much as he did for Newcastle. This was a classic case of jumping the gun after seeing one good tournament - though Viana was a legitimately highly-rated talent at the time - a crime that every team in the Premier League has committed. Viana did find more success back in Portugal for Braga and is currently playing in the middle east for Al-Ahli: certainly not the career path people were expecting when he played in the U-21 Euros.