In the Premier League and beyond, some of the biggest money paid this summer has been for players either approaching or past 30 years old.
One of the big anomalies of this summer’s transfer window has been the amount of money spent on what are perceived to be ‘older’ players. Whether it’s the reportedly boracic Barcelona dropping £40m on the 33-year old Robert Lewandowski, Lionel Messi still plodding along for PSG at the ripe old age of 35 or Cristiano Ronaldo still seeking Champions League football at 37, the stars of 10 years ago remain the stars of today, and it doesn’t end there, either.
From the Harry Kane saga of last summer, to Nottingham Forest agreeing to pay Jesse Lingard anything between £80,000 to £200,000 a week when he turns 30 at the end of the year, the peak age of a footballer coming at around 27 years old is starting to look a little out of date. At the end of the 2019/20 season, for example, the top goalscorers in four of the top five European leagues – Jamie Vardy, Messi, Lewandowski and Ciro Immobile – were all 30 or older while, of the two joint-top scorers in France who were under 30, even one of them – Wissam Ben Yedder of Monaco – was 29.
This isn’t entirely down to position, although it is clear that some positions age better than others. At one extreme, one statistical analysis carried out by The Athletic (£) found that, in terms of their desire to take on and beat opponents, wingers start high and peak in their early 20s, with a big fall-off in the number of ‘take-ons’ attempted coming from around 29 years old on.
At the other end of the spectrum, goalkeepers seem to peak around two years later than those in outfield positions, a statistic most likely influenced by a combination of the fact that much goalkeeping is learned behaviour such as closing down angles and positioning of the body and the fact that less running, with all the attendant wear and tear issues that this brings upon muscles and joints, is required when you’re keeping goal.
It is also worth remembering that there are fewer players now whose players are ended prematurely by injury. Boots are no longer clogs, match balls no longer resemble medicine balls, and pitches are lush green carpets for most professionals in comparison with the mud baths of the past, but it should also be added that injuries that were likely career-ending 60 or 70 years ago can be perfectly recoverable nowadays, thanks to developments in the ways in…
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