We’re still waiting for Xavi Simons’ career to take off.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Simons doesn’t turn 20 until next year.
A handful of appearances for PSG’s first team and a steady rise through the Netherlands’ youth ranks is a reasonable career progression for a player of his age.
For every Wayne Rooney that burst onto the scene at the age of 16, there are 10 Andres Iniestas that only begin to show what they can do in their early twenties. Simons might get itchy feet looking at the likes of Jude Bellingham, Florian Wirtz and Gavi, all of whom are younger and have done a great deal more in the men’s game.
He’d also be wise to look at someone like Fabio Vieira, set to move to Arsenal for a £34million fee, despite having only made 29 senior starts at the age of 22.
The highly-rated starlet still has all the time in the world, so why does it feel like slow progress?
Well, because we’ve known about him for close to a decade now. Because his dazzling skills on Instagram saw him reach a million followers by his 14th birthday. Because after Lionel Messi, there was a clamour to identify the next once-in-a-generation talent out of La Masia.
Simons was even named after Barcelona legend Xavi Hernandez. The story was irresistible – especially for PSG, who swooped in ahead of his boyhood club to give him his first professional contract.
And everything looked on track when Mauricio Pochettino handed him his PSG debut at the age of 17. Surrounded by superstars in the world’s most expensively-assembled squad, with a manager with a track record of developing young players, the stage looked perfectly set for Simons to unlock his potential.
That’s in spite of the Paris club’s obsession with marketable world stars over the last decade, a strategy that’s blocked the pathway into the first team of talented youngsters like Kingsley Coman and Christopher Nkunku, who moved elsewhere to advance their careers.
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READ: Seven wonderkids PSG let go too early: Nkunku, Coman, Diaby & more
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The charge levelled at PSG – like Galacticos-era Real Madrid – is that they don’t make stars. They buy them. Even Kylian Mbappe, a Parisien, was brought back to his home city to the tune of a €180million fee paid to Monaco.
But things could be different with Simons. Not least because of his status. He’s not just any academy player; he’s the superstar celebrity of his generation.
The new Freddy Adu, in that he was…
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