Today’s Superstars and the Age of Maturity
We hear it countless times these days: “If he’s that good at this age how good will he be when he reaches his peak?”
And if related to a player at the club we support, we drool and wonder at the prospect. It has been a long-held belief (based on the relative truism of history) that something in the region of 28 years of age is when a player reaches his peak.
Yes, there are variations; goalkeepers arguably peak somewhere in their 30’s and can be very good value in their late 30’s. Top defenders can play at the highest level into their mid thirties and often peak later than the average. Midfielders tend to hit the average. But what, I ask, of forwards and wingers, or, to lump then into a single category, the pacey, flair players who tend to steal the headlines and scoop the awards?
There is a body of evidence building in the modern game that suggests a revision of popular opinion is needed. I should preface this point with a reminder of the circumstances and challenges of professional football as it is today.
Let me concentrate on the English Premier League to make this point. As a product, it bears no resemblance to what it was 20 or 30 years ago, and never will again. Those of us who are nostalgic for those times can but dream. The reality is that the game has moved on, and how.
The money involved, obviously, is a whole new dimension, as is the unprecedented media attention and associated pressure for all involved. So how does the young superstar cope with all this and does it have an impact on his longevity in the game? I believe that it does - it’s not a given, but the odds are now stacked against them.
So what are the factors I’m talking about? You become a teen sensation in football these days and the media glare is instant. Money and adoration quickly follow, along with the pressure to continue to produce at the highest level. More and more it doesn’t happen long-term and I believe we have to adjust our expectations. So let’s go to the body of evidence.
Robbie Fowler is a legend of the KOP, and rightly so. He arrived on the scene in his late teens and was a goal scoring sensation. Capped by his country 26 times, for a number of years he could do no wrong. By the time he left Liverpool his best years were behind him. A sensation between the age of 19 and 23, Fowler’s last 3 years at Liverpool highlighted his decline, as Emile Heskey and Michael Owen became the preferred partnership up front. He has been a journeyman ever since and a shadow of his former self.
Which leads us to Michael Owen. With close parallels to Fowler, other than temperament, at the tender age of 18 Owen was presented with the challenge of living up to his own (no pun intended) billing, following that wonder goal against Argentina, and did so manfully for several seasons thereafter. But following his departure from Liverpool at the age of 25 (ala Fowler) it’s all been downhill for Owen and it seems certain now that he will never regain his former greatness.
And what of Nicolas Anekla (Le Sulk)? A teenage prodigy with Arsenal at just 17 and (briefly) with Real Madrid he left his best years in the 18 to 22 zone, and while not a spent force in the same league as Fowler, has never been the same player since.
Ronaldo, the Brazilian original version, burst onto the world scene as a teenager to be unequivocally recognized almost instantly as the world’s greatest player, so much so that Brazil virtually wheeled him onto the pitch to face France in the 1998 WC Final, despite evidence that he should not have even been in the squad. Winner of 3 World Player of the Year awards at ages 20, 21 and 25, Ronaldo has been a makeweight, albeit a very heavy one, at the clubs he has represented for 6 years now and is clearly long since washed-up as a force.
Ronaldinho arguably arrived as a superstar a couple of years late but appears to have lived out his best years by the time he was 25, securing the World Player of the Year Award as a 24 and 25 year old. Man City have just had a real escape in my view… he looks done and dusted at this stage.
I’m sure you can come up with other examples yourself and some that contradict the point. Ronaldinho and Owen could yet prove me wrong but I’m not expecting it.
Which leads me to Cristiano Ronaldo. What chance is there of him ever reproducing the season he had last year? 42 goals, every individual award known to man and the PL and CL titles! People talk of him improving and reaching his peak but based on recent history is there anything to suggest we haven’t just seen it?
And what of Rooney? Blasting himself onto the world stage at Euro 2004, he stole the show before getting injured. At 22 there has been constant talk of how good he is going to get, but, in truth, has he improved since 2004? He’s an outstanding talent but I believe that if you think he is going to be 20% better when he is 26 or 28, then you’re just kidding yourself.
Kaka and Messi are two others whose progress will be interesting to follow in the coming seasons.
Of course there are many mitigating circumstances for the plight of the players I mentioned: injury, lack of discipline, greed, immaturity, and loss of focus or ambition. Apply them as you will. The truth is that all of these pitfalls await the young players of today in spades and, albeit that some are down to luck or personality, few can avoid the dangers.
Owen and Fowler are a good contrast. With Fowler it was lack of discipline and poor professionalism. Owen was/is a model professional but injury has taken its toll. Ronaldo (Brazil) suffered from both, bad knee injuries and poor discipline. Anelka was all bad attitude, poor advice and loss of ambition (that goes with being a multimillionaire and having access to riches).
Ronaldinho, the good life, or to be more artistic, la dolce vita.
The risks involved in hitting superstar status in your late teens are huge in the modern era. The pressure and expectation are immense, as is the media spotlight. The money, tempting you towards a hedonistic and seductive lifestyle, is unprecedented. You start young, get a big reputation, and with the consequential attention from opposition defenders, what’s the prognosis for injury being inflicted by overwrought attention, leading to the shortening of lifespan (as a top player in this context)?
If your chief assets are pace and, above all, great skill at pace, when are they at their sharpest?
While maturity may bring greater vision, composure, nous and any number of other virtues you care to mention, one thing it certainly does not enhance is pace. Throw in injury, attitude, and discipline, all undermined by the multimillion pound fame game that engulfs today’s superstars and it’s almost a given that they won’t make it to a showboating peak at 28.
More and more the evidence suggests that they leave their best behind when they are mere innocents. The truth is that it is their innocence that brings forth their greatness. Once violated, the chance of progress is diminished and when it comes to the violation of innocence in the modern game, unfortunately, there’s nowhere to hide.
Long live Ronaldo, Rooney, Kaka and Messi. But don’t bet your house on it!
Sherringham and Shearer spring to mind so bang goes your theory
zidane was also great till he retired, the pace was gone but the vision and skill wasnt.
In some ways this is true, especially with pace based players. A winger who depends on pace has a shorter career then a true wide midfielder. I doubt ronaldo will be half the force he is when he slows down. The real stayers are players that dont use pace or stamina to play their games. Players like fabregas, xavi, iniesta nearly all defenders and many target men. The full pelt speed that current players are playing at means more serious injuries as a result and the more brittle players like robben and van persie are victims of their own speed because their bodies cant handle the sudden stop when they are tackled or need to do rapid decelaration. Their are not many pace based players that keep on going from 25 onwards. If you have other skills like vision or strength you can adjust your game but they will never be the same.
skills never die out….only will and willpower to achieve dies when players go for big money…..Ronaldo, no doubt a superstar, is a star created by ManU. Now if he is leaving ManU can also create age-old superstars from others……
Now, now M Mouse, you must read the piece more carefully. I suggest that people will be able to come up with exceptions and thet this phenomenon is not a given, but I also put it forward as a recent fall-out from the modern game.
The oldest player I mention is Fowler who is 3 years younger than Zidane, 5 younger than Shearer and nine younger than Sheringham.
Things have gone up a notch or 2 regarding the money and pressures involved and there is a timeline here somewhere. When Shearer and Sheringham were in their early twenties they weren’t subjected to the same pressures.
I do accept, however, that there’s nothing clear-cut about this….just interested in others opinions.
In order to find the age where footballers reach their “peak”, we should consider the ages of the best footballers in the world. Looking at the Ballon D’Or award for the last 5 years and their respective age at the time:
2003 - Pavel Nedved (31).
2004 - Andriy Shevchenko (28).
2005 - Ronaldinho (25).
2006 - Fabio Cannavaro (33).
2007 - Kaka (25).
we see that the ages match what is already believed. Defenders early 30’s, and midfielders and forwards have a larger range depending on their type of play and can peak as early as 25 or even as late as 31.
The decrease in performance after their peak is the contentious issue here, as some decrease in ability faster than others. BUT as these superstar players have such a high peak, their decline in ability will mean they take a good few years before they reach the level of everyone else. And yet of course, the greatest players have the ability to alter their game as they got older, Ryan Giggs springs to mind.
To be honest, I don’t think Ronaldo, Michael Owen, Nicholas Anelka, Ronaldinho are good examples of a so called crash in ability after their “peak”. Ronaldo was best player in the world at 21 and then again in 26. Owen has still got the ability to score goals, if he manages to stay fit. Anelka’s attitude may be questionable but his talent was apparent enough at Bolton for Chelsea to splash the cash. Ronaldinho has had one off-season last year, and will need another bad season to be considered rubbish. I think the only difference between their performances now and before is media portrayal. Media hype decreases with age as they become old news, but that doesn’t meant their ability decreases just as fast.
It’s an interesting one. Most young superstars in recent years do seem to have tailed off towards the end of their careers while the late develoeprs who’ve not been playing at a high level from an early age can keep going well into their 30s. Shearer and Sheringham were definitely not subjected to the same hype or regular games when they were at the same age Rooney was.
Fowler, while still capable of flashes of brilliance, has been a shadow of his former self for many years.
I’m actually struggling to think of a top level footballer in the Premiership off the top of my head (awaits to be swiftly corrected) who’s as good now as when they were a teenage sensation. Joe Cole possibly…
Zidane peaked at some where near 28 when he was at still Juventus in 2000. Figo too when at Barca.
In my opinion, these “superstars” who leave the club that made them a superstar will never get back to what they were when they were “brought up”. But the best situation is stay at your club you were brought up in. It is like an orphaned kid, who was brought up, and because u became famous, u decide to join a royal family(even paying the cost of the family buying you over - think buying out contract) and when in their family, u dont know what they expect and worse they dont train you but just show u off.
I know it isnt the best example but very applicable to see the seriousness of it.
But for Rooney, i think there might still be some improvement left in him. He isnt in the “superstar” catergory yet!
like is said in the article a top player’s career depends much on luck (no injuries, good teams to claim victories and media attention) and also in the abbility to manage media pressure (from WAGS to gossips and paparazzi’s). there’s no special theory to analyse this, from player to player the story is different.
anyway, i believe the mentality of a young player at 18 / 19 / 20 years of age is a strong signal to preview its career. That’s why i believe CR7 will be indoubtedly a truly great player for the next 7 / 8 years. It’s not the pace or the skill, but the way he faces all challenges put to him. For example, every minute last season people were saying Messi was better than him. So what does he do? He wants to move to Spain and fight Messi in his homeground… a new challenge, a new motivation for him to keep him playing better and better… and what else, near the best players (Messi and Henry, Xavi and Sneijder) in the world to learn more and more ?
I think it has more to do with the media’s and people’s expectations.
If Ronaldo next season “only” has 20 goals and gets to the semi-final of CL, is that proof that he is going down-hill or that your expectations are too great?
I claim the latter!
Giggs and Scholes are still great, but only because we expect less of them now, whereas Ronaldo (the Brazilian) still carry the expectations of past glory on his weak knees…
A t-shirt once told me: “Success comes and goes but class is permanent!” (football class NOT personal class)
I thought it was “Form is temporary, class is permanent”.
Luca Toni is 31 and Henrik Larson is a forward that relied on speed well into his 30(s). Still, I think the general premise is correct. I suspect the key factors to overcoming a short career as a “flair” attacking player are discipline to maintain one’s physical condition, adapablity to change your game to suit tactics and your physical limitations, and luck with injuries.
Ronaldinho seems to decline faster then i thought. I mean at 28, he is almost done, while Beckham (abt 5 years older) had just past his peaked and then United sold him.
What could you expect? Footballers (or flair players) careers are short(most of the time) and when you lightweight and up against tough defenders, you never know when your skills have reached its peak or career would end (Cisse and maybe Eduardo), so when they give their best shot in one season (Flamini, CRonaldo) they want to move on for better wages (new club or not) and lifestyle. And players themselves know they can never repeat that same performance they just did in a season.
Wonder if his skills can unlock Serie A’s defence, like picking a lock.
if you still have the will and the passion to keep going then you can play well into your thirties albeit you will need to adapt your game slightly. gary Mac and Henrik Larson are prime examples of this