When Your Star Striker Goes Missing: Tony Pulis and the Ricardo Fuller Saga

International Breaks: Every Manager's Favourite Nightmare

International breaks are the bane of every club manager's existence. You spend weeks drilling tactics, building momentum, getting your squad firing on all cylinders, and then FIFA rocks up and scatters your players across the globe. Most come back intact. Some come back injured. And occasionally, one just doesn't come back at all.

Tony Pulis knows this particular brand of chaos better than most. The former Stoke City, Crystal Palace and West Brom boss has been sharing the tale of how Ricardo Fuller went AWOL ahead of one of the biggest matches of Stoke's 2007-08 promotion campaign. It's a story that somehow involves Jamaica, a Miami customs headache, and one of the most spectacular goals you'll ever see.

The Setup: A Season on the Line

It was February 2008, and Stoke City were in the thick of a Championship promotion battle. Fuller, the Jamaican international who would go on to net 15 goals that season, had been called up for international duty. Nothing unusual there. The problem? He reportedly ran into visa complications flying back through Miami and didn't make it home on schedule.

Pulis, understandably, was livid. The match looming was Wolves away at Molineux on 9 February, a packed-out grudge match with 25,373 crammed in and both sides scrapping for their top-flight futures. Mick McCarthy's Wolves were desperate for points, and Pulis needed every weapon in his arsenal available and accounted for.

Fuller was neither.

The Gamble That Paid Off Spectacularly

When Fuller finally surfaced, Pulis had every right to leave him out entirely. The manager was furious, and making an example of a player who'd let the squad down would have been the textbook move. But football is rarely about textbooks.

Enter Dave Kemp, Pulis's assistant, who talked the boss into at least putting Fuller on the bench. The logic was simple: this match was too important for pride to get in the way. Pulis, to his credit, listened.

The match itself was pure bedlam. Rory Delap gave Stoke an early lead in the fourth minute, but Wolves hit back through Edwards just before half-time. Two minutes into the second half, Keogh put Wolves ahead. Liam Lawrence equalised almost immediately to make it 2-2, and then Leon Cort nudged Stoke 3-2 up on 74 minutes.

With the game deep into stoppage time, Fuller was on the pitch. And what happened next became the stuff of Stoke City legend.

That Goal

In the 94th minute, Fuller picked up the ball and embarked on a solo run that left Wolves defenders trailing in his wake. He buried it to make it 4-2, sealing the win in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. The goal was later voted Stoke's Goal of the Season, and watching the footage back, it's easy to see why.

The Bigger Picture

Stoke finished second that season and earned promotion to the Premier League, ending a painful 23-year absence from the top flight. Fuller, who scored 50 goals in 208 appearances for the club between 2006 and 2012, also bagged 76 caps and 10 goals for Jamaica across his international career. He even scored Stoke's first-ever Premier League goal the following season. Not bad for a bloke who nearly got himself binned for missing the team bus.

Pulis's story is a brilliant reminder that management isn't always about rules and discipline. Sometimes it's about knowing when to swallow your anger, trust your staff, and let talent do the talking. Fuller was in the wrong, no question. But benching him entirely could have cost Stoke a result that helped define their entire season.

It's the kind of anecdote that makes you appreciate the human side of football management, the judgement calls that never make the tactics board but can shape a club's history.

Read the original article at source.