Misery loves company and Roma superstar Edin Dzeko will certainly have plenty of it after Bosnia & Hergezovina were knocked out of Euro 2016 by the Republic of Ireland.
Joining Dzeko to watch the tournament from home will be members of over two dozen other unlucky countries along with Christian Eriksen from Denmark after the country lost on aggregate to Sweden in the playoffs.
It’s a shame that so many superstars are going to be forced to watch the tournament from the sidelines, so we’ve compiled a Dream XI of the footballers that will miss Euro 2016:
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GK: Tim Krul
How does a team with 17 goals – more than five teams that qualified for Euro 2016 – miss the tournament? By having Tim Krul as their goalkeeper.
DF: Branislav Ivanovic
Bad luck and poor performance have been the story of Ivanovic’s 2015 – for Serbia and for Chelsea.
CB: Ron Vlaar
The Dutchman was Holland’s first choice centre-back at the World Cup, but is now without a club and won’t be heading to France next summer either.
LB: Aleksandar Kolarov
It takes a lot of work to get penalized twice in a single minute, but Kolarov pulled off the rare feat representing Serbia – and his country was ejected from the tournament afterwards.
CB: Sokratis Papasthatopoulos
The star defender on the seventh ranked team in the world coming into the qualifiers, Greece would finish with just six points – dead last in Group F behind Finland and the Faroe Islands, and fewer than 40th ranked Albania.
MF: Henrikh Mkhitaryan
The Borussia Dortmund star managed just one of Armenia’s five total goals in the five-team Group I. Meanwhile, he already has over a dozen for his club.
MF: Memphis Depay
Yet another member of the Dutch team that won’t play in Euro 2016, Man United’s expensive winger failed to build off his big World Cup performance, scoring just once for his home country.
MF: Martin Odegaard
The Norwegian starlet dragged his country as far as he could, but fell short at the playoff stage.
MF: Christian Eriksen
Eriksen may be the driving force at Tottenham, but his magic touch sadly didn’t extend as far as his country, who also fell short at the playoffs.
MF: Shaun Maloney
Scotland’s second-leading scorer in the qualifiers, the 32-year-old Maloney may have missed one of the last chances he’ll get to win a major tournament.
FW: Edin Dzeko
Well, he lost his starting job at Manchester City and at least one chance to get back in the World Cup. But at least he’s still on a competitive Champions League Team!