Onderwerp: Euro 2024

I am not a fan of young players with high price tag. Yes, it's great when they break through but I could give you hundreds of examples of 16-17 years wonders that we don't even hear about them by the time they reached 22-23 years old.

I would love to see such a list, with examples like Yamal (playing regularly at top level for Barcelona and Spain while being one of the best on the pitch at 16-17)

Have you heard of Bojan Krkic?
Macheda, Denilson, Pato, Saviola, Kakuta, Guti, Deisler, Kleberson, Halilovic, Marin, Affelay, Joaquin, Adriano, Riquelme, Robinho, Walcott, Bentley, Berahino, Renato Sanches, Odegaard, Januzaj, Obertan, Piazon, etc

By the way, I'm sure there's a list of kids that made it. I wish Yamal will find his name on it. Until then, I'm sceptical.
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"the best on the pitch" is pundits talk. This season he played mostly because Barcelona is going through some difficulties and they're short on good players. He played 38 games, scored 5 and assisted 8. It's not really ground-breaking, is it?

By the way, add Ansu Fati to the previous list.
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And this is a list of what exactly?

Some started early and made it well into their 20s/almost 30s on high level like Adriano, Guti, Deisler, Riquelme (most of this list actually)

Some never started and were just „supposed to be talents” like Piazon and Halilovic and cant even be said in same sentence with Yamal

Some were just destroyed by injuries like Pato, otherwise would be absolute top players

Some were just overrated without any sensible reasons like Macheda

You wrote a list of completely different cases and almost none of them fits the earlier description

I’ll give you Bojan, but he was flying on the wings of other players in an amazing team, while Yamal is the one who makes the team better

ok, pal

Ansu Fati was valued at £100m in 2019. Brighton's bench must be very comfy for him to end up there.
Whatever happened to Munir? He was worth as much as a country's budget.
Bayern was throwing £35m on Hudson-Odoi.

But, nah, there is no reason to be sceptical. All 16 years old end up being great. I don't even know why am I kidding myself....

Not all young superstars make it to the levels expected. There are numerous reasons for it too, such as injuries, attitude, contracts, poor management and sometimes the team they play in.

The number of top stars is quite small, besides, the established ones will want to choose from maybe 5 clubs in the world - and preferably Real....
What is left for the other clubs? The usual gambling - you pay for a chance, a lottery ticket.... and you either win... or (most likely) you don't.
But that's the only way you can get into possession of a superstar, and most often only for the first part of his career... because after that anyway ---> Real.

This applies not only to football.
Look, for example, at the NBA, where there are transfers of the type: an established star at the peak of his career for a high number in the draft. And in the draft you pick a player who might be good one day, but for the first 2 seasons is unlikely to be useful at all.... And the chance of a star is even lower than in football (here, however, there is a quicker verification). Of course, there are other regulations there - like salary cap... but nevertheless you are also buying a possibility and not a certainty.

You're comparing apples and oranges

Whatever happened to Munir? He was worth as much as a country's budget.

His highest Transfermark valuation was of 12m euro.
His first senior game at Barca was at 19yo.
His first season with over 800 minutes was at 21 years old that was on loan away from Barca.
He got a 13 minute cap vs Macedonia so that in old rules he was "booked" for Spain's NT if anything develops out of him. Never played again for Spain.

Lamal is valued at 90m already at 16.
His first senior game at Barca was at 15yo so 4 years earlier.
His first season as 15/16yo he already played over 2000 minutes in league and was first choice player in Champions League.
He debuted for Spain at 16yo and 1 month, got a goal in his debiut. Since then he played in every game for Spain except Andora, in 13 games he has already 2 goals and 9 assists. So 11 in total, to put that into context - Bellingham still has 10 after 34 games, Foden has 12 after 39 games.

There's literally no ground to compare Lamal to Munir.

Fati - more so, definitely a great talent, but this kid was killed by injuries and injuries can kill you no matter the age. Lost whole year due to mensical lateration, never came back to his previous level since then.
In total at age of 21 he already had 10 injuries and missed 120 games.

Hudson-Odoi is the same story, ruptured his Achilles at the age of 19, then had another Achilles problem two seasons later. Plus a number of other smaller and bigger injuries.

But, nah, there is no reason to be sceptical. All 16 years old end up being great. I don't even know why am I kidding myself....

Again, how many players actually regularly played for top club and top NT at the age of 16-17?
Even Neymar got his Brazil debut at 18. And that's the talent level we're talking about - Neymar, Rooney, Pirlo, Maldini, Aguero etc.

You mentioned Walcott - guy was a beast in his category. At age of 23 he has a season with 21 goals and 14 assists, next season he started with 18 games and 6 goals, 6 assists. And then he tore his ACL.
Unfortunately his game was based a lot on his extraordinary pace. He was only 24, lost a whole year due to injury, and that was about it for him. And ACL is a menace, if your game is based on pace and dynamic changes of direction like Walcott, then you lose that extra edge and will never get as good as you were. Look how Zaniolo or Chiesa have fallen, even players like Milik who were not the speedster type suddenly get visibly slower and less dynamic.
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Hudson-Odoi also had a ridiculous salary at Chelsea at such a young age which did not help him. Chelsea wanted to offload him due to attitude issues, however they helped create them due to the salary.

In other words, Yamal can have the same faith so it's only justified to be sceptical. The more you dig, the deeper you get, mate.

I didn't want to talk about this, mostly because I am not aware of what salries these young players have. But, yeah, it is one of the main factors these players fade away. And who can blame them? Any of us would probably lose a huge amount of motivation if we'd win the lottery every week.

Well duh, even the best player can get his ACL or Achilles destroyed tomorrow and his level will go down. By this logic you can be sceptical about literally every player including Haaland, Mbappe and Bellingham.

You created this ACL issue, not me.
I was only sceptical about his overall development. Time will tell. Not you.