The superstars of tomorrow are being ruined by Europe’s biggest clubs yet nobody seems to be batting an eyelid

Eden Hazard. Neymar. Wayne Rooney. What do all of these players have in common? Well, apart from being some of the greatest players of the 21st century, they’re careers at the highest level were basically over by 30 due to injuries.

Now, why did this happen? If you were to ask people within the sport, such as ex teammates and managers, most would attribute it to their off the pitch lifestyle. All 3 were inclined to a party or two and weren’t necessarily the most intense trainers ever - however, I think this a lazy explanation that only accounts for a small percentage of the reason. 

All 3 of these players had played over 24,000 minutes by the time they were 24 - with Hazard playing a mind blowing 26,000. To put this into perspective, at the same age - Mohammed Salah and Sergio Busquets had played around 14,000. These were players who were able to maintain a very high level of performance well into their thirties and the lack of minutes they played when they were younger can not be underestimated as a contributing factor towards this.

Playing week in, week out at the highest level of football from the age of 17 onwards, is not sustainable. Other players, such as Michael Owen, Sergio Aguero and now Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford have suffered the same fate. The human body can only take so much and unless you are a genetic freak with an inhuman work rate, like a Cristiano Ronaldo, who played 23,000 minutes at the same age - the chances that you will be playing into your mid to late 30s at a high level are very slim. Even Cristiano had to drastically change his game to accommodate for this issue, becoming less of an explosive winger who loved to run at defenders and transitioning to a poacher-like striker who didn’t have to rely on his physical attributes to succeed.

There seems to be a price for bursting onto the scene at a very early age and that price is your body crumbling when you’re in your late thirties. It's a shame that many clubs and people around football seem to be completely unaware of this as they just put it down to being ‘bad trainers’ or having a ‘poor attitude towards training’. Its lazy and it's time the narrative was changed.

The current state of football is doing absolutely nothing to slow down this problem. Experience is a thing of the past, clubs are now obsessed with youth and projects. A young squad led by a young manager that are able to grow together seems to be the new approach as clubs like Bayern Munich, Juventus and Atletico Madrid - who had previously earned their stripes in the 2010s by buying already world-class players with bags of experience and letting them use their knowledge and prowess to lead each of the respective clubs to silverware - are now prioritising signing youthful players who haven’t yet reached their potential. Although there are many reasons why European clubs are now seeking this approach, it has led to the average age of squads across the top leagues falling and it puts more pressure on the bodies of these young players who - 20 years ago, would not be seeing the same abundance of opportunities, whether that be for better or worse.

I’m not saying don’t play your young players - that’s just ignorant. Just like all things in life, they work best when there’s balance. Players like Lamine Yamal, Cubarsi, Zaire Emery, Nuno Mendes, Gavi, Bukayo Saka and many others, have all been stars for their respective clubs since the ages of 18 or younger. They have been playing consistent minutes week in, week out for what seems like an eternity and yet many are still not even in their twenties. 

Let’s add some more context, Barcelona starlet Lamine Yamal has already played 4961 minutes of club football at the age of 17. He played 50 games last season for Barcelona in which many of them were full 90s. By the time he is 24 and assuming he plays as much football as he has been so far, he will have played 23,150 minutes. This might not be as much as you thought it would be until you realise these are only club minutes. International games haven’t been calculated but assuming Yamal stays as a regular starter for Spain in the next 7 years, that would add on another 3,000 minutes roughly - taking his tally to even more than Hazard’s. Warren Zaire Emery is predicted to have played an astounding 28,100 minutes by the time he is 24. Bellingham is expected to have racked up nearly 24,000 and Saka 24,800. 

Bearing in mind, these are just club minutes - this is a MAJOR cause for concern and cannot be allowed to continue. Otherwise, these players’ careers will be done by the time they’re in their late twenties. I know, I haven’t accounted for future injuries and it is highly unrealistic that each of these players won’t have any prolonged period of time on the sidelines due to injury, but that is a meticulous guessing game I won’t get involved in. The fact is, even if they spend a whole season out due to injury, the players I have mentioned will still be pushing upwards of 25,000 minutes by the time they reach 24. 

Now, this isn’t an exact science and there are many assumptions that have been made when trying to work this out. With the rate, medicine and technology is improving in football, maybe the wear and tear will have less devastating effects than I presume. Maybe footballers at the highest level train and recover so effectively that they are now able to play a large amount of minutes each season without picking up major injuries. Who knows, there’s a chance that they go down the route of Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs or Sergio Ramos and can play such extravagant minutes from an early age and continue to compete at the top level well into their thirties. But, I am not a prophet. I can’t predict the future so I will follow the trends that I see currently in football. These trends suggest to me that chances are by the time you are 24 and you have played upwards of 24,000 minutes - your career at the top slowly develops into a ticking time bomb which detonates by the time you’re thirty. 

It happened to Neymar, Michael Owen, Sergio Aguero, Wayne Rooney, Eden Hazard, Dele Alli, Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling… I could happily go on. All of these players top the list for minutes played as they hit the age of 24 and it’s not secret they were not able to stay at the peak of their powers by the time they were thirty, or their powers (e.g. Sterling and Rashford) have already begun to dwindle. 

This issue is also emphasised if you are an attacking player who relies on physical attributes such as your speed, agility or raw power. Constant sprints around the pitch for so long, whilst also being fouled time and time again due to your virtuoso talent, will do irreparable damage to your body and will lead to many injuries in the future for these players.

Obviously, God forbid any of the players reach this fate. But, as the big teams continue to play more and more games, with competitions like the Champions league and Club World Cup adding more games to their schedule, the stats suggest that this is the likelihood. 

Just because you are a young player with the talent to stand out at the elite level - it doesn’t mean you should be made to play so consistently before your body has even fully developed. Clubs need to realise that no matter how good their technology and medical team are, they don’t employ robots. This problem will not go away and people will say that these players were ‘unlucky’ or became ‘lazy’ when the truth is the minutes the extreme minutes they played season on season, from the ages of 18 to 24,  battered and bruised their body until it was too late and they became injury players who spent more times in the physio room than on the pitch.

The thing is, clubs won’t listen. Why would they? If these players are constantly producing results on the pitch and are some of the best and most important players in the side, they will keep being played because it is obviously benefitting the club. Nowadays, managers will only rotate them if they absolutely have to or if the game is of a much lesser importance. This is not how it should be. 

I’d suggest drastic measures need to be taken by FIFA or UEFA that limit the minutes of these young players, from the age of 16-21 which means they don’t have to play so consistently. For example, no player from the ages of 16-18 can play more than 2000 minutes each season. Teams will be forced to find alternatives to playing these young talents into the ground and as a result, by the time they are in their early twenties, they wouldn’t have played the same amount of minutes as the average 28 year old footballer. 

If this huge issue isn’t noticed and rectified soon, it is very likely that we’ll see many more generational players have to retire by the time they’re thirty and this will be a crying shame for the sport we love. I can only hope clubs and coaches begin to wake up and actively change the way things are heading before it’s too late and akin to the superstars of yesterday such as R9 and Michael Owen, we are all left with the same question. 

What if?