World Cup 2010: Didn't he used to be rubbish? Oguchi Onyewu of the USA

The heaviest USA defender since Ironman, the mighty 6ft 4in centre-half Onyewu cunningly dented England's morale in Rustenburg by the simple tactic of ensuring all the significant chances fell to Emile Heskey and Shaun Wright-Phillips. Such defensive vision was not much in evidence when the titanic American joined Newcastle United on loan from Standard Liege in January 2007. At St James' Park his central defensive partnership with Titus "Bumble" Bramble provided the sort of comedy slapstick normally associated with The Chuckle Brothers – and the Toon Army found it just about as funny. Even those raised on a diet of Jean-Alain Boumsong were traumatised by the knock-kneed ineptitude and the pairing was broken up after 11 matches. Remarkably, given Bramble's reputation for bungling, the Magpies' boss Glenn Roeder saw Onyewu as the man to blame. When Sam Allardyce arrived to take charge in the summer of 2008 he didn't hesitate in sending the American back to Belgium. Onyewu appeared to be set to return to England with Birmingham City in 2009, but was eventually rejected by Alex McLeish and forced to go off and play for obscure Italian outfit Milan in a league where high quality defending is not much valued.