Ah, Marko Marin. Remember him?
Perhaps not, but rest assured that Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard very much do.
The German spent four years on the payroll at Chelsea, where he was teammate of both Lampard and Drogba. After failing to make a proper impact at the club, he eventually left on a permanent deal to Greek side Olympiacos a couple of years ago.
His name cropped up on Saturday as the BBC looked ahead to Belgium’s World Cup game with Tunisia.
Following a feature on Kevin De Bruyne, Gary Lineker asked Lampard and Drogba – both in the studio on punditry duty – how the Manchester City forward had failed to make an impact during his time at Stamford Bridge.
Many have pointed fingers at Jose Mourinho for failing to get the best out of De Bruyne, who left Chelsea to join Wolfsburg in 2014.
Lampard, however, disagrees. Instead, he explained that the depth Chelsea had in terms of attacking players prevented De Bruyne from making a big impression.
“I don’t think they missed it [De Bruyne’s talent],” Lampard said. “The talent was there. We were there at the time and technically you could see everything he had.
“The problem he had was there was an embarrassment of riches for Chelsea.”
Looking across to Drogba, Lampard then started to list the names of some of the players rivalling De Bruyne for a place in the team at that time.
“They had Hazard, Oscoar, Mata, Schürrle…” he began, only to be interrupted by Drogba.
“Marko Marin,” he added, enough for Lampard to start to laugh.
Lol. Poor Marko Marin pic.twitter.com/yZ7afDw2U2
— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) June 23, 2018
Poor Marko.
Plenty of those watching the coverage picked up this…
Lampard laughing when Drogba brought up Marko Marin as one of Chelsea's young talents… man, harsh!
— Muhammad Butt (@muhammadbutt) June 23, 2018
https://twitter.com/hdotjones/status/1010490813678276608
https://twitter.com/MarkHillaFFC/status/1010490773287161856
https://twitter.com/CianByNature/status/1010490440401944576
Lampard laughing at Drogba for saying Marco Marin 😂😂
— phillip james (@phillipjames4) June 23, 2018
Lampard laughing when Drogba mentioned Marko Marin kept De Bruyne out the Chelsea team 😂😂
— Luke Brown (@Luke_B21) June 23, 2018
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