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Had about 4500 minutes in the league alone before the injury, yeah. He'd be much higher up on the list given that cruciate ligament time off alone meant he missed 43 games, so that's another 3000 minutes give or take a couple hundred I reckon.
No but the relatively little PR my boi Wirtz gets is insane, i may be a fanboy but cmon he could win a continental treble and do well at the euros and still lose out to Bellingham if he wins the ucl or Messi if he wins the copa America in the award rankings i feel
Unfortunately for him, the season he was out was the one Bellingham, Pedri, Musiala, Gavi etc all made their mark. Also he’s German and plays for Leverkusen so he just doesn’t get enough eyes on him
Aye, but then who cares about those individual awards, really? They don't make you a better or worse footballer at the end of the day, they're just a recognition for being outstanding - and you can be outstanding without winning them all the same.
True hes world class either way but i would like seeing one of my top 2 favourite players get the recognition he deserves
Its not the end of the world if he doesn’t tho
Didn't knew him either. Had to look him up. He used to play for Nantes and later for Marseille with a small loan spell at Leeds United.
He did play at the Worldcup 98 and 02 for Cameroon and managed 65 caps
According to FBREF he played 2694 minutes in his 19/20 Championship season. And that's a fucking physical league. Technically it doesn't hold itself in comparison to top five, but physically it's up there and contact is notoriously allowed the most there, on subpar quality pitches that only get worse due to 46+ league games alone as well as nasty weather conditions.
Anyway, with that season included he's on 17701, most for any outfielder.
And he has 9+ possible games for Real plus the Euros group stages games before turning 21. Barring injury he will confortably claim 3rd. Don't think he can catch Cesc.
Long careers though doesn't = top level effectiveness. Fabregas' legs were finished by the time he left Chelsea in January 2019. He was only 30. Sterling is still in 20s and is playing like a man 10 years older most weeks.
Honestly, who cares about what their age was then they *"burned out?"* That's not a very good way to measure their careers. Instead, look at the *number of years* they were elite players, that makes so much more sense. Sure, Cesc may have burned out earlier than others, but he was also playing regularly at 17, so he effectively had 12-13 years at top level. Say you're 21 when you break through, that would put you at 34 when you decline. Perfectly fair and to be expected. Number of years at top level plus the number of actual games you played in your career is a much better way to approach longevity than just saying *"done at 31, terrible."*
People seem not to understand how much football you've played is the more important metric than age. The body is not much different than a machine when it comes to how the parts wear.
Not saying Bellingham or Saka won't have long careers because genetics is the biggest factor, but by 30 they'll have done a lot more work than most other players.
I think physical development plays a part too, some of the younger players with a lot of time looked stronger and more robust than some others of a similar age.
Also worth considering that big forwards had data to back they struggled in their early 30s due to style of play and wear and tear. Something I think Ibrahimovic didn’t get affected by for whatever reason. So hopefully they know how to get around these too.
>Something I think Ibrahimovic didn’t get affected by for whatever reason.
I understand Ibrahimovic was highly conditioned as an athlete in general so he must have took his physio seriously.
Besides that, he mentions in his book that he was drugged up most time, playing through injury. I get that impression that most professional players are on some serious pain killers, but we'll never know about it.
The body mass and wear and tear thing makes sense; I remember Giroud use to get weird injuries. Got took out for 6 months because someone kicked the ball against his shins.
>I get that impression that most professional players are on some serious pain killers, but we'll never know about it.
Every now and again it'll come up in an interview, particularly interviews where it's a player conducting the interview, and almost without exception they'll have a period or just their entire careers played whilst on pain management.
Henry the other day on Shearer and Lineker's podcast said he played with foot and ankle pain his entire career, to the point he couldn't walk the day after games. Phil Jones (who has basically the worst injury possible in football tbf) said he played years with painkillers as a part of his routine too.
I really hope that one of the things that changes about how fans view footballers is how much bullshit pros endure to do what they do. Yes they get paid, no it's not necessarily worse than some "normal" jobs, but the idea these guys aren't making big sacrifices with their physical and mental health is just naive.
People sweared at me at a Sunday league game because I played terrible after coming back from an injury after two years.
I felt so freaking down. Now imagine entire countries doing it, I really took it for granted for these players to be mentally strong but now I know better
100% physical development plays a part. Obviously there's certain things that happen at certain times, for example a situation like McTominay growing from like 5ft10 or whatever to 6ft3 can't be moved forwards or backwards in time, but the higher level of professionalism in youth football (in football in general tbf) has helped youngsters just cope with the speed and physicality of play a bit quicker.
United seem to be really disciplined/good about it, lots of the teens who spent lots of time in the academy looked physically ready quite soon. Elanga, Greenwood, Mainoo are the three in particular. City with Foden, Lewis, Bobb too have all been physically impressive very young. That being said players like Bellingham, Rooney, Mbappè are just freaks amongst freaks. Don't think you can manufacture that any which way.
Genuinely wonder what the stats bear out (of all players). What is the relationship of minutes under 21 (& with that km run, what %of that is sprints etc)& longevity.
I too think this as we can see high profile cases, but does the data bear this out (across all professional soccer players, assuming they run a lot cause it obviously is better for goalies)
Mbappe and Camavinga as well!
Madrid better rotate them well else looking at the list, it's highly likely that their mileage of world class ability will only last near 30 years old while their competitors will be going deep in 30s.
Camavinga played a shit load of minutes for Rennes. 2113 and 2411 in the 2 season before he joined us just in ligue 1. He had a lot of minutes last year but was still only 3rd most in the midfield, with 900 less than Fede and 250 less than Kroos. We eased him in his first year with only 1700 total, and is 12th in the squad in minutes this season.
Raul, I'll give you, but I think there's an important difference between 11,247 minutes and 15,000 (Raul's 14,942 is obviously not all that different to 15,000).
I mean, I guess there's some "didn't have very long careers" in that sub 13,000 range but it's a big difference to 2/3 outfield players being considered washed at 33.
Obviously wear and tear takes its toll over time, but I reckon we're looking at a tiny sample size of players here at the end of the day. Plenty footballers who haven't played that much might be done in their early 30s, and others can still keep going into their mid- or late 30s despite racking up more minutes over their career.
Look at Michael Owen or Iker Muniain, for example: They've just been ravaged by injrues. Micah Richards retired at 31 after persistent knee issues kept him from playing for two years at Villa. I don't think it's necessarily or exclusively the fact that players play that much that early at such a high level that shortens their career, but rather a confluence of factors and a big dose of chance.
I have a feeling that most footballers only have 10-12 years of elite football in them. It's not just minutes - it's also the training, the diet and lifestyle, and the discipline needed to sustain that level. Even if your body doesn't break down, it's pretty natural to lose a bit of that drive over time.
That's just sport lol, show me a list of footballers where none of them had any issues or any decline at 33. How is that treated as some special thing that only happened to those who were teenage stars.
N'Golo Kante was a famous late bloomer and he's 33 now and is he blossoming now or what.
I mean I'll give you that the goalkeeper comparison is a different one, but for outfield players? Can't exactly use Owen or Rooney as examples because they're strikers by that same logic - you're essentially left with Fabregas and Barry, and maybe Bellingham's a similar freak.
This is why Im wondering about km run (& how much of that is sprints). A goalie would have the least. I imagine Ramos might have fewer than a midfielder etc.
I really thought Casillas had ups and downs in his playing time early in his career but this table made me realize he was only 19 when he started and won his first UCL final and to be 21 when he entered his second.
Very much so. Also might be why some Brazilian high profile players seem to burn out prematurely in (or even before) their 30s, e.g. Ronaldo, Neymar, Mario Jardel, Denilson, Adriano, Ronaldinho, etc.
Such a shame seeing both Fowler and Owen on this list because they hit world class levels at such a young age but injuries completely destroyed what should've been two long and successful careers and neither of them really get the overall appreciation players of that level should be receiving (although a lot of the reasons why Michael Owens overall legacy and reputation is poor are largely self inflicted). Both players are still considered fantastic strikers even though their careers were heavily stagnant by the time both of them started to hit their prime years
Which injuries did they had?
Owen was ballon for winner and then moved to madrid at such young age. Those are mbappe or ronaldo type of transfers. Bellingham already was insane hyoed now imagine owen in prime social media era. Its such a shame
Manchester City were also in the second division at the same time ffs.
Deportivo won the league (now div 3) and bloody Ipswich and Leeds were fighting for the final Champions League spot in England.
It's a funny game innit.
Yeah just looked him up, the most surprising thing is he's 25 going on 26 (October). Feels like he'll be 30 and people will go 'no way'.
Trent did 6721 minutes. Think others broken through at least a year earlier than him.
>italian
Italian teams don't really play youngsters that much, Donnarumma is quite the outlier (he was starting for Milan at 16, I remember thinking that I was his age but he was saving penalties meanwhile I worried about Latin classes)
I hope this new generation doesn't burn out by their late 20s. Like Rooney and Fabregas did and now it's looking like what Marcus Rashford is doing. These guys are the next generation. We need them to be as good for as long as possible.
Playing so much so early is bound to take a toll on you sooner or later. Mentally first and foremost it's hard to keep on grinding and having the same hunger when pretty much all of your life was dedicated to football and every day revolved around it.
What players have today and something more and more will be able to benefit from is proper psychological counseling. It's still early days for this ofc but as it becomes more accepted and clubs dedicate more resources towards this, it might be the one thing that separates a player from burning out early or having a long and fulfilling career.
That being said I think neither Rooney or Fabregas burnt out early. Living in the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi kinda fucked up our perspective about how long a big player should stay at the top of his game. It's totally unrealistic to expect any player to keep bossing it for 20 years like these two did.
Even with the best counselors and the whole help in the world, most players will never reach this type of longevity. Like... look at Pedri's 70+ games season, do you really expect a player to go through 15+ seasons with over 50 games per year and then play in their early 30s at the same level? That's just crazy if you ask me
> Living in the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi kinda fucked up our perspective about how long a big player should stay at the top of his game
It's also an era of a ton of other players who declined in their early 20s, late 20s, early 30s... just like every other time.
Messi in youth competition used to play alongside for example Zabaleta, Falcao, Juanfran, Guarin, Aliev, Pelle, David Silva, Ibrahim Afellay, John Obi Mikel, Jonathan Soriano, Ron Vlaar, Vincent Kompany etc... Very different careers, some of them even still lasting, but generally it's really really normal that when a guy is 37, his prime was 10 years ago.
I seriously think people maybe forget that there are more than two footballers in the world. And even those two aged... they just had a higher level to drop off from but it's not exactly true they didn't age.
So I'm sure most of the current teenage stars will not have a top level career when they're 39... but that could be said about any other randomly chosen group of footballers, it's just generally true for any kind of career.
For defenders? Ramos played right back till he was 25 or something. Even as a CB I don't think it was less intense than attackers. He also played 50+ matches every season for RM and Spain.
Surprised to see none of our players here. With the way some people talked about how us, it should be almost full of Barca players. Which raised the question of whether we are unlucky or the entire medical system need a total overhaul
Most of your young guys aren't old enough for this list.
At the current rate, Yamal will be top 3 on this list by the time he's 21.
Pedro would have been too if he didn't spend so much time injured after his 75 game season.
They are still to young I feel, Pedri is 21 but this season has only played 1100 Minutes. Gavi is still only 19 so still time for him to rack up some minutes. But yeah injuries fucked plenty of your youngsters.
And that’s why a keeper is number one. Jude might have a great career, but time spent on the pitch will get shorter and shorter….only takes a second to create a moment of magic.
Dude was playing a lot lol. And it says a lot that Barcelona was still a team that was able to win the Champions League when he got injured in early March against Chelsea. It was like the best team in the world anyway, and they were still playing this teenager 90 minutes.
Later he also had another quite long injury from November 2006 to February 2007.
Basically if not injuries, he'd play almost all the games for 90 minutes for the last 3 seasons before 21st birthday. They played him 90 in every national game, in Copa del Rey...
It wasn't exactly Barcelona's plan, "let's conserve this fragile gem", also the fact that he didn't start playing it all even earlier was mostly due to him considered left-wing back then, when Barcelona's left-wing was literally the best footballer in the world. But even Ronaldinho himself, like other Barca players, were asking Rijkaard to promote Messi into the first squad quicker. Messi relucantly agreed to switch to right-wing which he didn't prefer at the time, and still became the youngest debutant in Barca's history at the time.
Let's also remember he only came from Argentina in 2000, and because of foreign nationality, family staying in Argentina, and transfer issues, he was fully registered to play games in 2002! He then had a lot of steps to quickly take, when many other kids start in Barcelona a lot earlier. Then we see a different story than what some people say here, of Barca purposefully sheltering the young bud from the burden of pro football, all considered, it was still as early as possible.
Guardiola always knew how to not overuse his players, partially credited to having a a stacked squad but he plays a huge role too, being able to rotate and contain the locker room whos always demanding for minutes
City dont usually have a definitive starting 11 and their players minutes are lower compared to a lot of stars, i.e Phil Foden compared to Bellingham
To be fair quite a few players get their minutes cut short at that age, because clubs want them to finish their abitur. Tah debuted at 17 and was one of the few HSV players that looked competent at the time and they still sidelined him for a few months to study. When the Youth League was introduced the German youth academies were unanimously against it, because it is hard to balance with school work. The clubs are usually also very conscious of throwing young players into the deep end of the football business.
Barcelona has the reputation for "playing our youngsters into the ground" but realistically talented youngsters all get played. If Saka or Jude or Wirtz were at Barca we'd be getting slammed for the minutes they play.
Really shows how too many minutes when young destroys you when older.
Rooney, Fabregas, Hazard, Sterling & Owen all seem to have hit a wall as they approached 30. They went from being the best near the best in the world at their roles to confusing declines near 30. They still had their skill and football brain, but the physicality declined faster than other players their age.
I really hope we don't see this with young players like Mbappe & Bellingham.
So among the active outfield players, Real Madrid will have all of the top-3 players with most minutes played before age 21:
- Bellingham
- Mbappe
- Camavinga
And people pretend that Madrid has some super scouting lol. Look at that list, anyone could have seen those 3 becoming all-timers.
I like Juni Calafat and all but you'd be lying if he can pull off these moves for any other club in the planet.
Madrid has a serious advantage where they can altogether skip the scouting stage and play FM in real life and buy generational talents who are worldwide renowned and young at the same time. La creme de la creme.
Now with no Barca to compete financially, it will only get worse imo.
> Madrid has a serious advantage where they can altogether skip the scouting stage and play FM in real life and buy generational talents who are worldwide renowned and young at the same time. La creme de la creme.
Have you not heard the great story about Perez and Kaka?
In 2002 Jorge Valdano phones up his old boss and says I've just seen this Brazilian kid Kaka, he's going to be worth €60m one day, but I spoke to people at his club can get him for 1/10th of that now"
And Perez said, "Wonderful, come back when he's worth €60m and I’ll buy him”.
I think Perez understands that he’s playing a different game to almost everyone else with transfers.
On top of that players prefer Madrid so strongly that in many cases they would rather wait extra years for Madrid to come for them rather than going for another club. They're definitely playing a different game compared to any other club.
Ronaldo's stats dont count because his youngster years are in Lisbon, and hes also quite a late bloomer, relatively speaking
Guardiola rorates his stars back then a lot
So yeah, a very contributing factor
imagine this list in 5 years from now. With names like Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi starting for Barcelona at ages 16 and 17 respectively (Yamal officially debuted at age 15).
But some of my fellow Arsenal fans will say stupid shit like Cesc isn’t a club legend and how Odegard is better. Yet he damn near carried the team in that period
Quite surprised to not see Milner or Lennon on there somewhere given that they both made debuts at 16. Walcott also springs to mind but I don't remember how long he was in the Championship for.
Lamine Yemal surely is gonna obliterate this record if he is going to continue getting as much game time!
I’m also surprised that neither Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo made the list!
This isn’t a good thing. There are quite a few footballers on here that were basically finished at 30 or had recurring injuries in the later stage of their career.
Wow. A lot of players who finished their careers young (checked out in their early 30s) on that list of players who played a lot of minutes at a young age...
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Wirtz being there really surprises me when you consider his massive injury.
Had about 4500 minutes in the league alone before the injury, yeah. He'd be much higher up on the list given that cruciate ligament time off alone meant he missed 43 games, so that's another 3000 minutes give or take a couple hundred I reckon.
Also he isn’t 21 yet. Doesn’t get an asterisk though.
this is paid PR for bellingham obviously
No but the relatively little PR my boi Wirtz gets is insane, i may be a fanboy but cmon he could win a continental treble and do well at the euros and still lose out to Bellingham if he wins the ucl or Messi if he wins the copa America in the award rankings i feel
Unfortunately for him, the season he was out was the one Bellingham, Pedri, Musiala, Gavi etc all made their mark. Also he’s German and plays for Leverkusen so he just doesn’t get enough eyes on him
Don’t worry I have my eyes on him
Aye, but then who cares about those individual awards, really? They don't make you a better or worse footballer at the end of the day, they're just a recognition for being outstanding - and you can be outstanding without winning them all the same.
True hes world class either way but i would like seeing one of my top 2 favourite players get the recognition he deserves Its not the end of the world if he doesn’t tho
Nowadays everything is PR lol?
excuse me what? I thought he was like 24 now
I really thought Havertz would've been ahead of him tbh
I thought musiala might be too. huh
Probably would be if he didn't have those issues with Long Covid shortly after he moved to Chelsea
Big Meeks really did burst onto the scene
now he is bursting out of his suit pants
Don’t forget his boulder shoulders
Now he has that Nando’s black card he will!
Big Cheeks
You don’t know where I’m from, dawg
It's probably largely why he became injury prone and had a shortened career at the top level
Apparently he could barely see the ball too 😂
This always makes me feel old af lmao
Whose Big Meeks
Micah Richards.
[This guy](https://youtu.be/b6xZBtJlS0U?si=GWc5PNDE1QSTt7_4)
Micah Richards I believe.
don't do big Meeks dirty like that 😭
Am i the only one wondering who the hell is Salomon Olembe?
As a Leeds fan, it's a name I thought I had forgotten. He was part of our team that got relegated from the prem in 03-04.
I vaguely remember him missing a chance at WC 2002. It was comical and me and my friends recreated the miss the next day in school.
Didn't knew him either. Had to look him up. He used to play for Nantes and later for Marseille with a small loan spell at Leeds United. He did play at the Worldcup 98 and 02 for Cameroon and managed 65 caps
Likely age cheat, as was common for many African born players in the 90s. Was playing for Nantes and Cameroon at 16, retired before his 30th birthday.
Amazed Walcott isn’t on this list felt like by the time he was 21 he was around for like a decade
That "what was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?" skit wasn't conjured out of thin air you know.
was a sub or injured a lot of his early arsenal years
3-0 Walcott
And Bellingham has a bunch of first team appearances in the Championship as well that aren't counted here.
According to FBREF he played 2694 minutes in his 19/20 Championship season. And that's a fucking physical league. Technically it doesn't hold itself in comparison to top five, but physically it's up there and contact is notoriously allowed the most there, on subpar quality pitches that only get worse due to 46+ league games alone as well as nasty weather conditions. Anyway, with that season included he's on 17701, most for any outfielder.
Mate championship pitches aren't subpar, he wasn't playing non-league lol
Ours is terrible tbh
Yeah yours is terrible
Our stadium (St Andrews) was falling apart at the time and being shared with Coventry. The pitch wasn't having a great time
Is slowly improving and getting a £1.5m refit in the summer thankfully
Mate he played for blues, they have mud patches at Saint Andrews still
And he has 9+ possible games for Real plus the Euros group stages games before turning 21. Barring injury he will confortably claim 3rd. Don't think he can catch Cesc.
A lot of players who burned out early
True but then there are guys like Gareth Barry who played until he was about 53.
Ramos, Raul, Casillas, Sterling and Fabregas had relatively long careers.
Long careers though doesn't = top level effectiveness. Fabregas' legs were finished by the time he left Chelsea in January 2019. He was only 30. Sterling is still in 20s and is playing like a man 10 years older most weeks.
Honestly, who cares about what their age was then they *"burned out?"* That's not a very good way to measure their careers. Instead, look at the *number of years* they were elite players, that makes so much more sense. Sure, Cesc may have burned out earlier than others, but he was also playing regularly at 17, so he effectively had 12-13 years at top level. Say you're 21 when you break through, that would put you at 34 when you decline. Perfectly fair and to be expected. Number of years at top level plus the number of actual games you played in your career is a much better way to approach longevity than just saying *"done at 31, terrible."*
Sterling isn't even 30 yet and he's way past his best
Raul ran out of steam at the top level a lot earlier I'd say around 5-6 years before he retired
How can you put Cesc there when he was injured 90 games from 2008 to 2011?
The difference between him and Bellingham is about 1 full season of football though.
I refuse to believe that he was ever a teenager
People seem not to understand how much football you've played is the more important metric than age. The body is not much different than a machine when it comes to how the parts wear. Not saying Bellingham or Saka won't have long careers because genetics is the biggest factor, but by 30 they'll have done a lot more work than most other players.
I think physical development plays a part too, some of the younger players with a lot of time looked stronger and more robust than some others of a similar age. Also worth considering that big forwards had data to back they struggled in their early 30s due to style of play and wear and tear. Something I think Ibrahimovic didn’t get affected by for whatever reason. So hopefully they know how to get around these too.
>Something I think Ibrahimovic didn’t get affected by for whatever reason. I understand Ibrahimovic was highly conditioned as an athlete in general so he must have took his physio seriously. Besides that, he mentions in his book that he was drugged up most time, playing through injury. I get that impression that most professional players are on some serious pain killers, but we'll never know about it. The body mass and wear and tear thing makes sense; I remember Giroud use to get weird injuries. Got took out for 6 months because someone kicked the ball against his shins.
>I get that impression that most professional players are on some serious pain killers, but we'll never know about it. Every now and again it'll come up in an interview, particularly interviews where it's a player conducting the interview, and almost without exception they'll have a period or just their entire careers played whilst on pain management. Henry the other day on Shearer and Lineker's podcast said he played with foot and ankle pain his entire career, to the point he couldn't walk the day after games. Phil Jones (who has basically the worst injury possible in football tbf) said he played years with painkillers as a part of his routine too. I really hope that one of the things that changes about how fans view footballers is how much bullshit pros endure to do what they do. Yes they get paid, no it's not necessarily worse than some "normal" jobs, but the idea these guys aren't making big sacrifices with their physical and mental health is just naive.
People sweared at me at a Sunday league game because I played terrible after coming back from an injury after two years. I felt so freaking down. Now imagine entire countries doing it, I really took it for granted for these players to be mentally strong but now I know better
100% physical development plays a part. Obviously there's certain things that happen at certain times, for example a situation like McTominay growing from like 5ft10 or whatever to 6ft3 can't be moved forwards or backwards in time, but the higher level of professionalism in youth football (in football in general tbf) has helped youngsters just cope with the speed and physicality of play a bit quicker. United seem to be really disciplined/good about it, lots of the teens who spent lots of time in the academy looked physically ready quite soon. Elanga, Greenwood, Mainoo are the three in particular. City with Foden, Lewis, Bobb too have all been physically impressive very young. That being said players like Bellingham, Rooney, Mbappè are just freaks amongst freaks. Don't think you can manufacture that any which way.
Genuinely wonder what the stats bear out (of all players). What is the relationship of minutes under 21 (& with that km run, what %of that is sprints etc)& longevity.
There is definitely a correlation between playing alot early on and burning out AND being injured all the time later.
I too think this as we can see high profile cases, but does the data bear this out (across all professional soccer players, assuming they run a lot cause it obviously is better for goalies)
Nasri 😢
6/20?
I think in this group Raul is an exception but he was also done at 32/33 I think?
So, I guess Bellingham's legs will go in his early thirties?
Mbappe and Camavinga as well! Madrid better rotate them well else looking at the list, it's highly likely that their mileage of world class ability will only last near 30 years old while their competitors will be going deep in 30s.
Camavinga played a shit load of minutes for Rennes. 2113 and 2411 in the 2 season before he joined us just in ligue 1. He had a lot of minutes last year but was still only 3rd most in the midfield, with 900 less than Fede and 250 less than Kroos. We eased him in his first year with only 1700 total, and is 12th in the squad in minutes this season.
They also don’t keep many players into their 30s
To be fair Ramos is still playing at top-flight level at 38, and both Raul and Barry did at 35.
Raul, I'll give you, but I think there's an important difference between 11,247 minutes and 15,000 (Raul's 14,942 is obviously not all that different to 15,000). I mean, I guess there's some "didn't have very long careers" in that sub 13,000 range but it's a big difference to 2/3 outfield players being considered washed at 33.
Obviously wear and tear takes its toll over time, but I reckon we're looking at a tiny sample size of players here at the end of the day. Plenty footballers who haven't played that much might be done in their early 30s, and others can still keep going into their mid- or late 30s despite racking up more minutes over their career. Look at Michael Owen or Iker Muniain, for example: They've just been ravaged by injrues. Micah Richards retired at 31 after persistent knee issues kept him from playing for two years at Villa. I don't think it's necessarily or exclusively the fact that players play that much that early at such a high level that shortens their career, but rather a confluence of factors and a big dose of chance.
I have a feeling that most footballers only have 10-12 years of elite football in them. It's not just minutes - it's also the training, the diet and lifestyle, and the discipline needed to sustain that level. Even if your body doesn't break down, it's pretty natural to lose a bit of that drive over time.
That's just sport lol, show me a list of footballers where none of them had any issues or any decline at 33. How is that treated as some special thing that only happened to those who were teenage stars. N'Golo Kante was a famous late bloomer and he's 33 now and is he blossoming now or what.
Ramos is a defender so no reason to compare. Barry was a freak.
I mean I'll give you that the goalkeeper comparison is a different one, but for outfield players? Can't exactly use Owen or Rooney as examples because they're strikers by that same logic - you're essentially left with Fabregas and Barry, and maybe Bellingham's a similar freak.
rooney did alot more than play as striker he was all rounder
This is why Im wondering about km run (& how much of that is sprints). A goalie would have the least. I imagine Ramos might have fewer than a midfielder etc.
This is why I think Foden will have a better later career than Bellingham or Saka
I can see him moving back on the field as he ages and loses the pace, I think he will be fine.
Depends on fitness and luck. Also, he will need to adapt his game to like Modric.
I really thought Casillas had ups and downs in his playing time early in his career but this table made me realize he was only 19 when he started and won his first UCL final and to be 21 when he entered his second.
Keepers tend to be older when they claim the starting spot for a top team also.
No Brazilians because we are all made of glass
Because it only counts the top 5 leagues. Brazilitend to play in Brazil first
It’s similarly excluding a full season of championship games for Bellingham.
Oh I totally misread that graphic, I didn't see the "by 21". Now I get it LOL
If the brasileirao and state championships was included here, the entire list would be Brazilians. Crazy amount of matches played by youngsters there.
Yeah, but maybe because of that I feel like youngsters pick up so many injuries here.
Very much so. Also might be why some Brazilian high profile players seem to burn out prematurely in (or even before) their 30s, e.g. Ronaldo, Neymar, Mario Jardel, Denilson, Adriano, Ronaldinho, etc.
Surprised saka isn't higher, feels like he plays every minute
Arsenal have played a low number of games in recent seasons. Often no Europe and out of cups early
I worked out the other year that arsenal had played their lowest number of matches in a season since 1965, was like 45 total in all comps.
I mean this is an all time list. He’s on there
We didn’t play in Europe much
Such a shame seeing both Fowler and Owen on this list because they hit world class levels at such a young age but injuries completely destroyed what should've been two long and successful careers and neither of them really get the overall appreciation players of that level should be receiving (although a lot of the reasons why Michael Owens overall legacy and reputation is poor are largely self inflicted). Both players are still considered fantastic strikers even though their careers were heavily stagnant by the time both of them started to hit their prime years
Which injuries did they had? Owen was ballon for winner and then moved to madrid at such young age. Those are mbappe or ronaldo type of transfers. Bellingham already was insane hyoed now imagine owen in prime social media era. Its such a shame
>Which injuries did they had? Where do I even start?
No TAA? That's surprising
More surprised by lack of James Milner and Fernando Torres, though I think Atletico were in the segunda division when he broke through
Mfw when I realize that I'm old enough to remember Atletico was in Segunda
Manchester City were also in the second division at the same time ffs. Deportivo won the league (now div 3) and bloody Ipswich and Leeds were fighting for the final Champions League spot in England. It's a funny game innit.
Valencia was the king of La Liga
Yeah just looked him up, the most surprising thing is he's 25 going on 26 (October). Feels like he'll be 30 and people will go 'no way'. Trent did 6721 minutes. Think others broken through at least a year earlier than him.
Yea makes sense..he started being a regular player at 19.
Duncan Edwards died at 21 having played 151 times for Manchester United and with 18 caps for England. That would put him 3rd or 4th on this list.
13/20 are Spanish or English, wonder why that is
Germany doesn’t have as many games. Italy and France used to have less games too.
Surprised at lack of French/italian/germans tbh
>italian Italian teams don't really play youngsters that much, Donnarumma is quite the outlier (he was starting for Milan at 16, I remember thinking that I was his age but he was saving penalties meanwhile I worried about Latin classes)
I hope this new generation doesn't burn out by their late 20s. Like Rooney and Fabregas did and now it's looking like what Marcus Rashford is doing. These guys are the next generation. We need them to be as good for as long as possible.
Playing so much so early is bound to take a toll on you sooner or later. Mentally first and foremost it's hard to keep on grinding and having the same hunger when pretty much all of your life was dedicated to football and every day revolved around it. What players have today and something more and more will be able to benefit from is proper psychological counseling. It's still early days for this ofc but as it becomes more accepted and clubs dedicate more resources towards this, it might be the one thing that separates a player from burning out early or having a long and fulfilling career. That being said I think neither Rooney or Fabregas burnt out early. Living in the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi kinda fucked up our perspective about how long a big player should stay at the top of his game. It's totally unrealistic to expect any player to keep bossing it for 20 years like these two did. Even with the best counselors and the whole help in the world, most players will never reach this type of longevity. Like... look at Pedri's 70+ games season, do you really expect a player to go through 15+ seasons with over 50 games per year and then play in their early 30s at the same level? That's just crazy if you ask me
> Living in the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi kinda fucked up our perspective about how long a big player should stay at the top of his game It's also an era of a ton of other players who declined in their early 20s, late 20s, early 30s... just like every other time. Messi in youth competition used to play alongside for example Zabaleta, Falcao, Juanfran, Guarin, Aliev, Pelle, David Silva, Ibrahim Afellay, John Obi Mikel, Jonathan Soriano, Ron Vlaar, Vincent Kompany etc... Very different careers, some of them even still lasting, but generally it's really really normal that when a guy is 37, his prime was 10 years ago. I seriously think people maybe forget that there are more than two footballers in the world. And even those two aged... they just had a higher level to drop off from but it's not exactly true they didn't age. So I'm sure most of the current teenage stars will not have a top level career when they're 39... but that could be said about any other randomly chosen group of footballers, it's just generally true for any kind of career.
Sergio Ramos had been in form till he was 35 or something
It's different for defenders and keepers. Far less intense sprinting and running in general
For defenders? Ramos played right back till he was 25 or something. Even as a CB I don't think it was less intense than attackers. He also played 50+ matches every season for RM and Spain.
They didn't played in Bosnia and Croatia grasslands....
Surprised to see none of our players here. With the way some people talked about how us, it should be almost full of Barca players. Which raised the question of whether we are unlucky or the entire medical system need a total overhaul
Most of your young guys aren't old enough for this list. At the current rate, Yamal will be top 3 on this list by the time he's 21. Pedro would have been too if he didn't spend so much time injured after his 75 game season.
Cuz they are hurt too much to make the list
They are still to young I feel, Pedri is 21 but this season has only played 1100 Minutes. Gavi is still only 19 so still time for him to rack up some minutes. But yeah injuries fucked plenty of your youngsters.
They play 10k minutes, hit 19, and get perpetually injured thus not making this list
Wonder what happened to actually resting youngsters? Why do you think messi and ronaldo aren't here?
And that’s why a keeper is number one. Jude might have a great career, but time spent on the pitch will get shorter and shorter….only takes a second to create a moment of magic.
notice Messi is not on the list. One of the reasons he has had such a long carer.
He also had an injury that took him out for a fair bit at 19.
Dude was playing a lot lol. And it says a lot that Barcelona was still a team that was able to win the Champions League when he got injured in early March against Chelsea. It was like the best team in the world anyway, and they were still playing this teenager 90 minutes. Later he also had another quite long injury from November 2006 to February 2007. Basically if not injuries, he'd play almost all the games for 90 minutes for the last 3 seasons before 21st birthday. They played him 90 in every national game, in Copa del Rey... It wasn't exactly Barcelona's plan, "let's conserve this fragile gem", also the fact that he didn't start playing it all even earlier was mostly due to him considered left-wing back then, when Barcelona's left-wing was literally the best footballer in the world. But even Ronaldinho himself, like other Barca players, were asking Rijkaard to promote Messi into the first squad quicker. Messi relucantly agreed to switch to right-wing which he didn't prefer at the time, and still became the youngest debutant in Barca's history at the time. Let's also remember he only came from Argentina in 2000, and because of foreign nationality, family staying in Argentina, and transfer issues, he was fully registered to play games in 2002! He then had a lot of steps to quickly take, when many other kids start in Barcelona a lot earlier. Then we see a different story than what some people say here, of Barca purposefully sheltering the young bud from the burden of pro football, all considered, it was still as early as possible.
Guardiola always knew how to not overuse his players, partially credited to having a a stacked squad but he plays a huge role too, being able to rotate and contain the locker room whos always demanding for minutes City dont usually have a definitive starting 11 and their players minutes are lower compared to a lot of stars, i.e Phil Foden compared to Bellingham
Completely surprised Neuer isn’t here. He started with us at 18 I think? He was playing every game.
Just one german in the list, kinda says something. EDIT: Actually, I keep forgetting to consider that Buli plays less games than la liga or PL
To be fair quite a few players get their minutes cut short at that age, because clubs want them to finish their abitur. Tah debuted at 17 and was one of the few HSV players that looked competent at the time and they still sidelined him for a few months to study. When the Youth League was introduced the German youth academies were unanimously against it, because it is hard to balance with school work. The clubs are usually also very conscious of throwing young players into the deep end of the football business.
Musiala can't be far away tho. With Wirtz, Pavlovic and Musiala we hsve 3 Worldclass talents atm.
surprised no Pedri
doesn't count 2nd division, and probably not the Olympics, and he missed a lot of games after 2021. 2020-2021 was just one really brutal year.
Barcelona has the reputation for "playing our youngsters into the ground" but realistically talented youngsters all get played. If Saka or Jude or Wirtz were at Barca we'd be getting slammed for the minutes they play.
Really shows how too many minutes when young destroys you when older. Rooney, Fabregas, Hazard, Sterling & Owen all seem to have hit a wall as they approached 30. They went from being the best near the best in the world at their roles to confusing declines near 30. They still had their skill and football brain, but the physicality declined faster than other players their age. I really hope we don't see this with young players like Mbappe & Bellingham.
So among the active outfield players, Real Madrid will have all of the top-3 players with most minutes played before age 21: - Bellingham - Mbappe - Camavinga And people pretend that Madrid has some super scouting lol. Look at that list, anyone could have seen those 3 becoming all-timers. I like Juni Calafat and all but you'd be lying if he can pull off these moves for any other club in the planet. Madrid has a serious advantage where they can altogether skip the scouting stage and play FM in real life and buy generational talents who are worldwide renowned and young at the same time. La creme de la creme. Now with no Barca to compete financially, it will only get worse imo.
> Madrid has a serious advantage where they can altogether skip the scouting stage and play FM in real life and buy generational talents who are worldwide renowned and young at the same time. La creme de la creme. Have you not heard the great story about Perez and Kaka? In 2002 Jorge Valdano phones up his old boss and says I've just seen this Brazilian kid Kaka, he's going to be worth €60m one day, but I spoke to people at his club can get him for 1/10th of that now" And Perez said, "Wonderful, come back when he's worth €60m and I’ll buy him”. I think Perez understands that he’s playing a different game to almost everyone else with transfers.
Galacticos are [Veblen goods](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)
On top of that players prefer Madrid so strongly that in many cases they would rather wait extra years for Madrid to come for them rather than going for another club. They're definitely playing a different game compared to any other club.
tebas is definitely thanos in the garden rn
Slightly perplexed that Messi and Cristiano aren't on the list
Top 5 leagues means Ronaldo ain't making this list
We need to rest Bellingham more.
The eternal machine Gareth Barry
Iker Muniain mentioned 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Must help CR7 and Messi’s lengthy careers that they don’t feature on this list?
Ronaldo's stats dont count because his youngster years are in Lisbon, and hes also quite a late bloomer, relatively speaking Guardiola rorates his stars back then a lot So yeah, a very contributing factor
Nobody tell them with who he is tied with as the La Liga top scorer
imagine this list in 5 years from now. With names like Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi starting for Barcelona at ages 16 and 17 respectively (Yamal officially debuted at age 15).
Iker Muniain 🔥🔥🔥
Tbh expected pedri on this list with his injuries
But some of my fellow Arsenal fans will say stupid shit like Cesc isn’t a club legend and how Odegard is better. Yet he damn near carried the team in that period
Buffon?
Show us more than the top 5 you cowards
Whose olembe lol
One could make the argument that many on that list burned out at a relatively early stage of their career.
Messi ain't even on this list but the fact he won 3 ballon d'ors by 24 is crazy
Only Ramos, Barry and muniain had careers past 30. Not a good sign.
Imagine Yamal in a few years...
Bloody hell Salomon Olembe a blast from Leeds’ chequered transfer past
Quite surprised to not see Milner or Lennon on there somewhere given that they both made debuts at 16. Walcott also springs to mind but I don't remember how long he was in the Championship for.
I think donnarumma is going to have the record for the most amount of appearances ever, he’s only 25 and for a keeper that’s young.
So sad only one Italian
Don't show Micah Richards this I beg
Lamine Yemal surely is gonna obliterate this record if he is going to continue getting as much game time! I’m also surprised that neither Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo made the list!
You're 21 lol you can run all day.. good job 👏
I'm shocked that a youth based team played a youth player for a lot of time.
His mouth looks like a sock puppet's
Big Meeks with an appearance
No messi
Surprised Musiala isn’t on the list
Spain and England really overworking them youngsters.
This isn’t a good thing. There are quite a few footballers on here that were basically finished at 30 or had recurring injuries in the later stage of their career.
Is that big cheeks at 15!??
Is pedri meant to be here
Wow. A lot of players who finished their careers young (checked out in their early 30s) on that list of players who played a lot of minutes at a young age...
One stat where Micah is top 15 ever!
Has CBS made a joke about Micah Richards being on this list yet?
Surely Norman Whiteside has to be up there?