The current top scorer in Serie A, with 16 points to his credit, is Cristiano Ronaldo; who just turned 36 last week. Just below him is a trio of players who score 14 goals each: Romelu Lukaku, 27, is the youngest of the three; Ciro Immobile is 30 and Zlatan Ibrahimovic has reached the venerable age of 39.
This is usually where the jokes that catalog the Retired League Series A begin, a place where elderly gunners continue to score goals, with the help of a supposedly slower pace of play alongside such geriatric defenders. like them. This is a stereotype (soon loose, too); however, it is based on the fact that, over the past decade, the league’s top scorers ’tables have been headed by a 33-year-old man named Antonio Di Natale; Luca Toni, 38; Erin Dzeko, of 31; and Fabio Quagliarella, 36. However, if we take a look at the goalscoring tables of the major leagues in Europe, we will notice an unusual fact.
The top scorer in the Spanish League is Luis Suárez, from Atlético de Madrid. “The Gunman” is 34 years old and is escorted by Lionel Messi, 33; as well as the players who occupy the fifth and sixth positions in the category: Karim Benzema and José Luis “El Comandant” Morales. (In eighth place we have another 33-year-old footballer, Iago Aspas from Celta de Vigo). In the case of the Bundesliga, Robert Lewandowski (32) leads the table and among the top 10 scorers we have Thomas Muller, 31; already Lars Stindl, who at the age of 32 is still part of the attack of the Borussia Monchengladbach.
Obviously, the Premier League is a little more youth-oriented. However, we should note that if Jamie Vardy, a 34-year-old Leicester City player and top scorer last season, had not been limited to 16 games as a starter in the current tournament; could be challenging the current league leader, Egyptian Mohamed Salah (28), who outscores him by five goals.
If we compare the scoring tables of this season in England, Spain, Germany and Italy with those of 20 years ago, we will find 14 players over 30 among the top 10 today; compared to just 8 in the 2000-01 campaign (In fact, the thirty-year figure in the Top 10 in Serie A has dropped from five to three). Longer-lived players convert goals more often, and there are a number of extremely obvious reasons behind this trend.
The first is obvious. Advances in the fields of medicine and sports science have helped prolong the careers of footballers. Not only is it Cristiano, able to do 142 crunches in 45 seconds; or its cooling (literally) to -200 degrees Celsius (-328 degrees Fahrenheit) inside the cryogenic chamber it has in its residence. This phenomenon is also due to the fact that many shallow soldier players take better care of themselves. It is also crucial that advances in surgical procedures and medical techniques imply that injuries that were once debilitating, or that could lead to the death of their careers, sometimes even make footballers stronger than before. .
Another factor that has affected the statistics is the presence of Cristiano, Messi and (located two steps below) figures such as Suarez, Lewandowski and Ibrahimovic. The first two are strong candidates for the “Greatest of All Time” set, blessed with so many skills (apart from having a hard work and professionalism that far exceeds most of his colleagues) that is not surprising. see them maintain their high level, long after they turn 30. Lewandowski is the third all-time leading scorer in the Bundesliga (and will likely be second at the end of this season); Suarez is the only player with different names Cristiano and Messi to turn 40 goals in a season in the last 20 years into one of the four major leagues in European football and, well, Zlatan is Zlatan. The Rossoneri figure scored his 500th goal in club football over the weekend. “Ibra” is comfortably among the best footballers of the last 50 years, alongside Messi, Ronaldo, Pelé, Romario and Gerd Müller.
We often point out how lucky we are to have Messi and Cristiano as contemporaries; but it is also true that there have not been many periods in the history of football that could have such a high number of top scorers within a single generation.
Two other closely related factors are also likely to be affected.
The first has its origins in the so-called “Bosman Act”, the 1995 court ruling that declared it illegal for clubs in European Union member countries to impose limits on the number of foreign players they could line up or sign. Diego Armando Maradona, for example, had to play in the band of a minimum of eight Italian footballers during the peak stage of his career wearing the Napoli shirt. Then, it was inevitable that his cast would not be as talented or so tailored to the “Fluff”, as it could have been if the club had been able to sign whoever it wanted to put together its roster. Add the above to the effect of polarization seen over the past two decades (an unprecedented worsening of the gap between the handful of super clubs capable of spending more and the rest of the teams) and the current generation of scorers has been able to benefit -se like no other in history.
In short: the teams for which they play have an abundance of talent unprecedented in the history of football: they win more games and score more goals than ever before, which translates into better statistics for strikers.
Additionally, there are two additional factors linked to this situation, both of a more tactical nature. If in the past many equipment existed that deployed in the track to two centrodelanteros; today we see that most have a single offensive endpoint, which naturally results in a greater generation of opportunities. Likewise, many of the aforementioned players are largely engaged in defensive tasks when they do not have possession of the ball, either by pressing or when retreating.
(However, not everyone enters this thesis: Benzema and Lewandowski maintain high rates of work without possession of the ball, and it will be interesting to see how far they manage to maintain this trend, considering that they are approaching 35 years: one or two years of extra mileage can make a big difference). On the other hand, most of these players play with top clubs, which boast of accumulating a higher percentage of possession; consequently, they have fewer tasks to do when running and defending. Not to mention the fact that they spend most of their time near the opposite arch.
Longevity is also manifested in other positions; however, it is not as profuse in places other than the goal. They are not scorers; therefore, we cannot easily measure their contributions with statistics. However, there are many notable players with ages close to 35, who regularly contribute to the top tier.
In Spain, Nino (40 years old) has 12 appearances with the Elche shirt so far this season; while Jorge Molina, Granada’s top scorer, has scored nine goals in all competitions at the age of 38. Luka Modric (35) remains Real Madrid’s midfield; whereas the unstoppable Joaquin (39 years) adds 18 appearances like end of Real Betis (becoming the first Spanish player in marking goals in League in four different decades).
Serie A has Bruno Alves, 39, in command of Parma’s defensive line; while, just halfway through, another 39-year-old man named Rodrigo Palau maintains a regular presence with Bologna. Last week, Goran Pandev scored two goals for Genoa at the age of 37; while Franck Ribery, who is also 37, remains strong as a left winger for Fiorentina. Eintracht Frankfurt have won fourth place in the Bundesliga table, with Makoto Hasebe as their midfield anchor at the age of 37, and they also had David Abraham (34) in the saga until their departure with heading to the Argentine hurricane club. Oscar Wendt (35) is an initialist for Borussia Monchengladbach and Petr Pekarik (34) is a fixture for Hertha Berlin.
It is true that the Premier League is a predilection for young people. But aside from Vardy’s presence, Thiago Silva is regular with Chelsea at 36; for his part, Joao Moutinho (34) is the undisputed winger of the Wolverhampton Wanderers and James Milner (35) has 23 appearances in all competitions with Liverpool. And of course, just two weeks ago, Phil Jagielka (38) played 90 minutes wearing the Sheffield United shirt in his 2-1 win at Old Trafford against Manchester United. But the grandfather of all, the man who shows us that age is just a number, plays in France and is part of the Montpellier squad.
Vitorino Hilton is a 43-year-old center who stays strong. The defender has 17 appearances (13 as a starter) in the current Ligue 1 campaign, and would have more than not been sanctioned with two expulsions that forced him to comply with two suspensions for three games. (We are not clear how many crunches he is able to do in 45 seconds or if he enters the old reliable cryogenic chamber after training).
The days when clubs like Arsenal only granted one-year contract extensions to players over the age of 30 have gone down in history: an example of this is the three-year pacts with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ( 31) and Willian (32) signed last summer. With good genetics, a lot of hard work and professionalism, coupled with a bit of luck, the footballer can stay productive when he is close to 35 years old. You don’t even need to be Zlatan or Cristiano, although it does help a lot.