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It seems almost quaint now to remember that last summer, the fallen wonderkid Xherdan Shaqiri at first rejected, before accepting, the bejeweled life raft Stoke City tossed him in order to rescue him from Inter’s bench and the career obsolescence that loomed dangerously close. Stoke are a mainstay in the biggest, best-paying league in the world, and would be so overjoyed at having a well-pedigreed forward like Shaqiri on their roster that they’d give him every single opportunity to succeed on the pitch—a proposition nowhere near guaranteed for him at any of the bigger clubs around Europe he presumably thought were more befitting of his talents—and yet he prevaricated. Shaqiri eventually did bring himself to take the great gig Stoke were offering, joined the Premier League, and got every chance to show what he could do, and what he did wasn’t all that impressive. Maybe “lowly” old Stoke was close to his actual level, after all.