World Cup 2018: 10 Players Who Don't Deserve To Be Going Home

The 2018 World Cup group stages have come to an end and we now know the identities of all the teams that will be progressing to the latter stages, as well as those who are out of the competition and heading home.

The teams that finished third and fourth in each group just weren't quite good enough to progress to the round of 16, but some of the individual players from those teams might feel like they deserved to go a little further.

Sometimes, outstanding individual players just happen to be born in countries with very small populations or a lack of investment in football training and development, resulting in national teams that have little hope of ever winning any kind of major tournament. These players do their best and often carry their country's hopes on their shoulders, but can't win matches all by themselves.

Other times, great footballing nations manage to fumble at the first hurdle, with one or two individuals doing their best but being dragged down by the feeble performances of their squadmates. We've seen several examples of great players featuring in sub-par teams so far this World Cup, and they'll surely be thinking of what might have been if their teammates had stepped up to their level.

Plenty of Senegal players could make this list, with the African nation being desperately unlucky not to make it to the latter stages. Senegal played really well and were Africa's best hope of seeing a team reach the knockout round, with the likes of Ismaila Sarr and Kalidou Koulibaly standing out for their impressive performance, but it's M'Baye Niang who perhaps most deserved to go the distance.

Many of the Senegalese players stood out for their willingness to run all over the pitch and give all they could for their country, and nobody exemplified that better than Niang. The tall Torino forward was always looking to get involved and make things happen for his team, creating chances and tracking back to win the ball as needed. He contributed with an assist and a key goal in the win against Poland to give his country a lifeline.

Sadly, Niang's hardworking attitude also contributed to his team's elimination. In the end, Senegal were eliminated on yellow cards after tying with Japan in every other statistic. The Africans finished the tournament with two more yellows than their Asian counterparts, and Niang picked up two yellows during the tournament for overzealous play.