Benchwarmers XI for the 2014/15 season

Who doesn’t like making bucket loads of cash without having to put in a lot of hard work? I’m pretty sure there are very few who wouldn’t like that. Football players are paid heavily for their services, especially those who play in the best leagues across Europe.Don’t believe me? In the time you took to read up to this part, Radamel Falcao would have made at least £1. Every time he sits on the United’s bench and thinks over what happened to his career over the course of a full game, he would have made nearly £3,090!Such astronomical figures give us a small explanation as to why many star players don’t make a fuss when they are used to warm the bench or substituted into the game just to waste time. All jokes apart, we have seen many big names playing for several of Europe’s big clubs struggle for game time this season due to different reasons and a team of these players would probably be good enough to compete against many top sides.Here is a XI of the big names who have spent more time on the bench than on the field. 

#1 Goal Keeper: Petr Cech

Jose Mourinho created a furore when he benched Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas and this season once again he showed that he doesn’t care about a player’s past endeavours after he dropped a keeper of Petr Cech’s stature to the bench. To quote the famous meme, “One does not simply bench a long-serving goalkeeper unless his name is Jose Mourinho”.

Cech went from being named in the PFA Team of the Year to being named on the Chelsea bench on a regular basis in the space of a few months. To be fair to the Czech international, he hasn’t put a foot wrong.

In the past, other veteran keepers have also suffered the same fate as Cech. For example when Liverpool signed a young and promising Pepe Reina, they immediately benched their Champions League hero Jerzy Dudek. Even then very few would have foreseen Cech in such a scenario.

Knowing Cech, it was obvious that he wouldn’t rest on his laurels and make life easy for Thibaut Courtois. The 32-year-old has still made 15 appearances with a majority of them coming in cup games.