Of course there are. My point wasn't that you can't see potential, its that it usually goes absolutely nowhere. Most players that have been labelled "the next Messi" end up forgotten about outside of forum threads where someone says "remember so and so, where did he end up?"
Its very easy to look back in hindsight. Chelsea sold De Bruyne and Salah. I watched Salah at Chelsea and you can argue he wasn't given a fair shake but nothing suggested he would become one of the best players in the world.
Its simply survivorship bias. You see player X who has made it to the very top and you look at his route and say "why didn't you see this coming". You don't see the other 98% of people who had exactly the same path and trajectory but didn't end up at the very top. Perhaps Gyokeres doesn't go to Sporting under Amorim and just ends up another Championship level player. Perhaps he makes a big money move to another side this coming summer and turns out he isn't quite as good outside of a system that suits him perfectly.
There are very few dead certs in football and with the amount of data and the worldwide nature of things these days, if someone comes out of seemingly nowhere to appear at the top, chances are good that they are a massive outlier.
