world soccer magazine - talent spotting

i was clearing my very messy bookshelves and found a whole stack of world soccer magazines that i used to read religiously, though it was an expensive hobby for a teenager back then. but i would like to highlight their october 1998 edition, sometime after the hype of the france 98 world cup died down. it had a feature article called, talent spotting - 20 stars for the next world up, and it was an amusing read. here are the supposed future stars, pseudostars if you will, of the article in random order.....

1. felipe (brazil, vasco da gama) - touted to be roberto carlos's understudy. as far as i remember, roberto carlos played in korea japan 2002. poor felipe.
2. daisuke ichikawa (japan, shimizu s-pulse) - who?
3. edgar (portugal, real madrid) - no idea who he is. to quote the article, ...benfica did not seem fully to appreciate his potential and allowed his contract to run out this summer. real madrid stole to sign him on a free, and promptly increased his salary ten fold. the wages will surely prove to be money well spent.". oh dear me.
4. dennis serban (romania, steaua bucharest) - apparently succesor to hagi. seems like romania will forever be remembered as dracula nation rather than a footballing nation, no thanks to poor predictions by world soccer magazine.
5. vladimir but (russia, dortmund) - erm....
6. juan riquelme (argentina, boca juniors) - finally a familiar name. he didn't really star in korea japan 2002 but he's happily banging in the goals with manchester united favourite, forlan. no one could have predicted that.
7. andres oliviera (uruguay, defensor) - top scorer for uruguay at the u-20 world cup held in malaysia. i googled his name and perth glory was all over the search result page. oh dear. the new a-league has a star, what a boost for the marketing bastards.
8. mustafa dogan (germany, fenerbache) - according to the article, he made history by being the first turkish born to represent germany. wow, that's all fine and dandy but i've never heard of him.
9. peter ofori-quaye (ghana, olympiakos) - was top scorer for ghana in the u-20 world cup held in malaysia. the malaysian jinx strikes again, though he's better off than poor andres oliviera, he's currently playing in the mls. not much better though, small consolation.
10. pablo contreras (chile, colo colo) - he does ring a bell. but obviously didn't make it to korea japan 2002. wrong again.
11. robbie keane (ireland, wolves) - pop the champagne and call your mummy! a correct prediction by world soccer magazine at last.
12. laurent sanda (cameroon, udinese) - his little snippet on the feature article makes depressing reading. something about not seeing any action whatsoever for a whole year because udinese at that time had more than enough non-eu players, he didn't even get reserve team action. poor bugger. some talent he is then, even adrian loo can make it at udinese's reserve team.
13. michael owen (england, liverpool) - you didn't think this list would be complete without him did you? did you? did you? did you?
14. ivan de la pena (spain, lazio) - the little buddha has only recently been drafted into the spanish first team. "come 2002, de la pena seems sure to be challenging for a key world cup role". erm, yeah.
15. ole tobiasen (denmark, ajax) - zzzzzzzzzzz
16. nicolas anelka (france, arsenal) - his talent is undeniable, but who would've thought he would be such a cry baby. would probably have featured in korea japan 2002 if he behaved himself, or if his mother continued to breast feed him.
17. adil ramzy (morocco, willem 2) - suffered the same fate as the unfortunate laurent sanda by not getting any first team action whatsoever in udinese. however, he was loaned out to willem 2. could potentially have played alongside adrian loo at the udinese reserve team had he not been loaned out, and if adrian loo had bothered to go for trials at udinese reserves.
18. kenneth zeigbo (nigeria, venezia) - who the fuck are these people!? i've never heard of him either. said to be wooing the crowds at legia warsaw before joining seria a.
19. igor tudor (croatia, juventus) - did i tell you guys that the word "igor" is forbidden? i refuse to comment on this player.
20. francesco totti (italy, roma) - pure class. as uneducated as wayne rooney, but these people let their feet do the talking.

and that's that, the pseudostars to watch out for in 1998, that's a long time ago. in 1998, the fake ronaldo has probably only begun to discover the joys of masturbating to geriatric porn and finding out what underwears are. he has only just discovered the joys of wearing them. slow learner, but what can you do.

further input to those abovementioned players are appreciated. perhaps you've heard of most of them, feel free to drop a comment or two and enlighten me.