11 Players Newcastle Fans Wrongly Thought Were The Future

5. Kazenga LuaLua

If you are unlucky enough to follow Newcastle Reserve football as ardently as you do the first-team, there's a good chance you heard about Kazenga LuaLua well before everyone else did. The Congolese-born winger has been part of the 2005-06 youth team that made their way to the semi-final of the FA Youth Cup, having come to England along with older brother Lomana (though it was suspected for a while that he was his uncle or cousin or something - all very confusing). Some exciting, skilful performances for the youth side caught the attentions of the Reserve team watchers, and whispers that we might have a prodigy at the club started to surface. Clearly seeing the same sort of thing, Newcastle fast-tracked his move into the first-team and his first senior call up came when he had just turned 16 for the FA Cup tie against Birmingham City in January 2007. From there he flirted with the bench, earning calls from Newcastle fans to give him a chance thanks to his progressive style of play and happiness to take players on. Sadly, the club didn't deem him as big a potential star as some fans did, and though he impressed on loan for Brighton, a broken leg all but ended his Newcastle career as he was sent back to the South coast as soon as he was fit.