Every professional athlete has had failures. Someone was losing the game offensively, and someone conceded a ridiculous goal after a clumsy mistake. But there are athletes who follow bad luck throughout their careers.
One of these is Sebastien Bassong from Cameroon. The biography of the defender is unique in that he flew out of the top 5 strongest leagues six times. Bassong holds an anti-record in European football for this indicator.
Relegation in the debut season
Things have gone awry for Bassong since his first season in senior football. The defender was brought up in the academy of the French «Metz», breaking into the main team of the club in the fall of 2005. In his debut season, the young defender played 24 matches, but could not save the team from relegation to League 2.
The guy decided not to leave his native club in the second division and helped him return to the elite. True, the «Metz» did not gain a foothold in Ligue 1 and in the spring of 2008 they flew out again. For the second time, Sebastien did not dare to save the team and moved to Newcastle.
The Magpies started the 08/09 season with four points in two starting rounds, but then the results began to sag. Bassong played in the starting lineup. The team was in the relegation zone by the end of the season, and club legend Alan Shearer was appointed coach. Unfortunately, he did not cope with the task — Newcastle were relegated from the English Premier League (EPL) for the first time in history.
Norwich was then a lift team. They were able to return to the Premier League in a year, but were relegated again. For the sixth time Bassonga. So far, in the major leagues, no one has been able to “beat” this anti-record.
It's amazing, but Sebastien is not the main loser of the Premier League. He has four demotions in the class. However, there are two players at once who have left the top flight of England five times.
Wales striker Nathan Blake did it alongside Sheffield, Bolton and Blackburn, winning promotion three times. And the Icelandic defender Hermann Hreidarsson managed to fly out with five different clubs.
Bassonga's career has a unique year associated with entering the Premier League. He spent the first half of the 2014/15 season at Norwich and the second at Watford. Both clubs played in the Championship and were promoted to the Premier League at the end of the season. «Loser» helped two teams at once.
Sebastien each time reacted heavily to the departures, calling them a real tragedy. Already during the last season at Norwich, fans launched the hashtag #MrDowngrade on social media. Probably, this attitude influenced the player's early departure from football.
Bassong ended his career at the age of 32 in the Greek club «Volos». The last couple of years, he practically did not appear on the field. But after leaving the «Norwich» Sebastien never flew out, requisitioning a terrible «curse».