Patience in football: An overlooked virtue

As time goes on - football is becoming a younger sport. 

Clubs and owners have become very fond of a ‘project’ model which focuses on creating young and exciting teams, recruiting players based on potential instead of current ability in hopes they’re able to spearhead a future dynasty in the sport.

The Borussia Dortmund, Brighton and Monaco school of thought has made its way up to the biggest clubs in Europe and youth is increasingly being looked at as the key success to the future. Go back 20 years, the most expensive transfers revolved around the best players in the world… already-made superstars. Zidane ,Kaka, Ibrahimovic, Crespo, Figo, Torres - so on and so forth. But now, the most expensive transfers are always centered around youngsters. Enzo Fernandez, Joao Felix, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Moises Caicedo… All find themselves within the top 15 highest transfer fees of the 2020s.

Now that football has shifted its focus to the up and coming superstars of tomorrow, we can’t forget the pressure that now comes with it. You’re a 20 year old who’s had one great season of professional football and all of a sudden you’re being whisked away to England with a £70 million price tag to your name. New country, new language, new way of playing football, new coach. Instantly, everything changes and you find yourself miles from what made you such a promising player to begin with.

To make matters worse, everyone is now looking at you - expecting you to be instantly great. You’ve got a huge price tag to live up to and it will follow you everywhere you go - you didn’t ask for this but now the pressure insurmountable. If you don’t live up to these expectations after 12 months you’re labeled as a monumental waste of money and fans are begging the club to move you on.

With these young players, I think it’s very quickly to forget how young they truly are. 20 year ago, you weren’t expected to be in your prime until the age of 25/26 but if you’re 22 and god forbid you’re showing that you might not be elite just yet with need to develop and mature as a player. 

Impatience is rife amongst football fans. It’s so unfair to expect a 20 year old to arrive in the Prem, or any major European league for that matter, and instantly hit the ground running - no matter how good you perceive them to be. If they have bad games, so what? They’re young and shouldn’t be expected to be consistently perfect. Nowadays, top clubs are cutting out the middle-man and signing these wonderkids and straight away chucking them in the first-team. Players need time to develop and need the freedom to make mistakes when the whole world isn’t glued to their every touch. Whether this is at a middling-European level club across Europe, it doesn’t matter but it is necessary. 

Most players need time. A perfect case study is Didier Drogba who arrived at Chelsea at the age of 26 after 6 seasons of French professional football under his belt and became a legend. Nicolas Jackson was signed by Chelsea after 1 real season of consistent professional minutes at the age of 21 and is being held to similar standards. God knows what Drogba would’ve looked like if he was bought by Chelsea at the same stage of his development but he was allowed to blossom and work out the player he was - before he was chucked in at the deep end.

This only one example. If football continues to follow this trend, fans (including myself) need to realise that these young players are far from perfect and will make many mistakes. There will be bad spells and inconsistent displays because most footballers aren’t the finished article at 22. Forgetting the fans, clubs and coaches need to appreciate this as well - big teams are signing younger and younger players tasked with delivering the heavy expectations that comes with the team name. It’s an unfair burden and if they don’t deliver the goods they’ll be labeled as a flop, confidence shattered and potential ruined. 

You can’t rush greatness. Let them grow and become what they’re meant to be. Us fans, coaches and anyone within football has a duty to make sure the most talented players in the world fulfill their talent because I can assure you that football will be a much better spectacle for it.