Bolo Zenden enjoyed an 18-year top-flight career which saw him play at the highest level in the Netherlands, Spain, France and England.
The talented midfielder earned league titles with PSV and Barcelona before his 2001 move to the Premier League, where he enjoyed stints with Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Liverpool.
His time in England, however, was often a tale of injuries and near misses.
Bolo Zenden on his Chelsea and Liverpool regrets
Zenden was signed by Chelsea for £7.5million in the summer of 2001 and would score his first goal for the Blues just nine minutes into his debut against Newcastle United.
But he soon picked up his fair share of injuries, meaning his two-season stay at Stamford Bridge was often a stop-start affair.
“I suffered a nasty thigh laceration, which is pretty rare, in a League Cup tie with Spurs – a tackle from Teddy Sheringham – and was out for four months,” the Dutchman recalls to FourFourTwo.
Zenden would spend the 2003/04 season on loan at Middlesbrough, where he would score the winner in Boro’s League Cup success over Bolton, before joining the team on a free transfer in 2004.
A year later, he would join Liverpool on a free, only to suffer more bad injury luck.
“Then in my first season at Liverpool [2005/06], I damaged my cruciate knee ligaments in a Champions League game against Real Betis,” he continues. “The day the squad flew to Japan for the Club World Cup, I was heading to the US to get my ACL done.”
His Reds team-mates were at the Club World Cup following the Miracle of Istanbul win over Milan, which came shortly before Zenden’s arrival.
The 54-time Netherlands international was then part of the side that faced Milan in a Champions League final rematch two years later, only for the Reds to come up short, handing Zenden another of his toughest career moments.
“Everyone recalls the win over them in Istanbul two years earlier, but this was the one I remember for all the wrong reasons,” he admits.
“People say semi-finals are the toughest losses to take, but I disagree – losing finals are the real sickeners because you’re really, really close. The greatest prizes of all are the World Cup, the Euros and the Champions League. All the top players set their sights on winning at least one and I came closest in the latter.
“I’m proud to have reached a final, but do you know something? That Milan defeat still hurts me today. It was a missed opportunity.”
