The turn of a cycle? (2 Viewers)

[Martin]

I wonder if any of you have noticed this. It seems to me that we are still gasping at Vieri, at Nesta and Cannavaro, at Nedved and Zidane. If we draw a symbolic line at 25, today's stars are mostly above that limit and there seem to be rather few touted to replace them when the time comes. Just look at our own team...

Thuram
Nedved
Del Piero
Davids
Montero
Ferrara
Iuliano
Tacchinardi
Camoranesi
Zambrotta
Di Vaio
Zenoni
Conte
Pessotto
Legrottagli

Buffon, Zalayeta, Tudor and Trez are all 25. And the next generation is represented by..

Olivera
Brighi
Blasi
Miccoli

From that little comparison, it becomes painfully clear that we need a rejuvenation, but is it just Juve? Where are the young who look certain to step in in the future? A symbolic exchange follows..

Mutu for Crespo
Adriano for Ronaldo
Rosicky for Nedved
Mexes for Cannavaro
Chivu for Nesta
Aimar for Rui Costa
D'Alessandro for Veron
Postiga (Tottenham now, that's depressing) for Vieri
Frey for Buffon
Deco for Rivaldo
Appiah for Davids
Cisse for Henry
Govou for Van Nistelrooy
Rothen for Beckham
Portillo for Raul
Tevez for Zidane
Cavenaghi for Makaay
Burdisso for Samuel

Not a bad list surely, and I've missed/left out many, but I just have the feeling that there were more of them 5 years ago. Is it possible that today's talent just isn't up to the quality of their predecessors? Just have a look at the ratio of "old" players to "young" players per club from what I consider to be players eligable for the first team...

Juve (16/4)
Lazio (22/2 Pizarro, Stankovic)
Inter (21/8)
Milan (22/5)
Parma (6/15)
Roma (15/6)
Real Madrid (15/6)
Barcelona (10/10)
Valencia (14/7)
Arsenal (17/5)
ManU (15/7)

 

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[Slagathor]

You're leaning too much on today's situation when you really shouldn't.

For example: people always see the U-21 teams as the future but the truth is that the change goes more quietly than that. Every once in a while, a youngster makes his debut amidst the old players.

When Brighi and Miccoli have made it to Del Piero and Tacchinardi status, there will already be new youngsters waiting that we haven't heard of at this moment.

I should get too worried about this if I were you!

 

[Dj Juve]

++ [ originally posted by Erik ] ++
When Brighi and Miccoli have made it to Del Piero and Tacchinardi status, there will already be new youngsters waiting that we haven't heard of at this moment.

agreed..just look at boca, river and those kinda clubs

the sold practically all their stars from time to time, and still there are so much talent there...

and dont forget juve buys talent from not very young age too, like zidane and nedved

 

[Zizou]

Depends what you refer to old.

By today's standards and training, a player is still at his peak by 28, so from the list of juve players you mentioned, only 9 are above 28, 2 are at 28, and 13 under 28. I think that means that this current team has a solid base to keep the current players (especially those udner 28) while slowly change those above 28 (for example 2 or 3 per year). That way the rotation keeps going without feeling too much of a change.

Don't forget that Juve is the team with most young players out on loan, and some of which are going to be class players in the future.

 

[dpforever]

On the contrary, out of the top 4-5 teams in Italy I think we will have a good future .. our youth system is good and we have many youngsters loaned out who have good potential ..

Every season a 'wonder kid' or two suddenly immerge and show their potential and attract attention from the big clubs .. in England it was Wayne Ronney, in Italy it was Miccoli, in Spain I guess Portillo did a good job .. so you never know ..

 

[Slagathor]

True Fahad.

And just think of many more youngsters Martin didn't name, such as Torres (Spain), Van der Vaart (Holland), Buffel (Belgium) etc. etc. etc.

 

[Torkel]

We (our rather Moggi) is great at replacing players, so I don't worry about finding good replacements.

The biggest concern IMO is if we have to replace a lot of players without really getting anything for them, as it could (or will) get very expensive. Our economic is pretty good, so it should work out if we manage to sell some people off and do it gradually.

However, we can't start a new team, and we should start now. If we buy Mexes we have a set central defense for many tears with him, Legro and Tudor. Even without Mexes we are covered. Tacchi and Trez are young, so we have a central line in our team that doesn't need to be replaced, and that's important. With a steady backline and Tacch in midfield we can build from that, something we are very certain of. If we stay dependant on Montero and Ferrara on the other hand things could go bad. They are replacable in terms of skill, we just need to do it before we have to rejuvinate other areas of the team.

I don't think we will build on young players that we own today, they aren't good enough. Maresca and Miccoli might be exceptions.

 

[Dj Juve]

agreed..we need to improve on that, but im nto really that worried

 

[Desmond]

++ [ originally posted by Alex ] ++
I wonder if any of you have noticed this. It seems to me that we are still gasping at Vieri, at Nesta and Cannavaro, at Nedved and Zidane. If we draw a symbolic line at 25, today's stars are mostly above that limit and there seem to be rather few touted to replace them when the time comes. Just look at our own team...

Thuram
Nedved
Del Piero
Davids
Montero
Ferrara
Iuliano
Tacchinardi
Camoranesi
Zambrotta
Di Vaio
Zenoni
Conte
Pessotto
Legrottagli

Buffon, Zalayeta, Tudor and Trez are all 25. And the next generation is represented by..

Olivera
Brighi
Blasi
Miccoli

you're forgetting people.maresca,gasbarroni and max vieri surely belong in the that category.in addition,half the "old" players you named have at least another 5 years of top football to play,and that means five years for juve to find replacements.

 

[Wings]

If I got the hang of it correctly I think Martin is referring to the rather strange ratio between new/old today as oppossed to a few years back when talent was being spotted by the bucket load
I have been worrying about this for a while & especially on the african scene .... no more Roger Millas, Yeboah's, Abedi Pele's etc. Is football becoming too technical???

 

[Martin]

Torkel, you say Tacchi is young. Well he'll be 28 in a few months so I wouldn't call him "young" really. :undecide:

Desmond, I picked the players who are likely to feature in our first team next season.

Ali, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. I'm not saying it worries me but it's my observation nonetheless. But there's no proof to the theorem, it's all relative as to who is up to whose quality and so on.

 

[Torkel]

++ [ originally posted by Alex ] ++
Torkel, you say Tacchi is young. Well he'll be 28 in a few months so I wouldn't call him "young" really. :undecide:

Ok, not young, but he has a lot of years in him left, and so far he's getting better and better. I can be a experienced tower in the midfield while we soon have to let go of our other two most important mids Neddy and Edgar. They have to go pretty soon, sadly.

 

[bongo10]

I think that Ajax are just producing young talnets, and Monaco
when you look at players that came fom those 2 teams and who and where they are now

 

[Jun-hide]

I think in absolute terms, the football is always improving. And my bet is that next generation of players are likely to be better than the current ones.. For example, Cruyff's turn is often talked about as one the revolutionary skill in soccer but in today's game that is one of the basic skill of dribbling one has to master. Today's players are far more athletic, adapt at tactics, and technically better. The pace of the game is far quicker, and more powerful. Players are trained much more methodically and scientifically and also they are conditioned in much better ways than it used to be.

However, the term "greatness", which is the measuring stick which normally use to describe and evaluate players is relative concept to the period of time player played in. Pele would never 1000 goals in present day level, but the fact that he score 1000goals makes him a great of his time and true all time greats of soccer. Because the popularity of football is expanding and we are now seeing the convergence between the traditional powers in Europe and America, and emerging nations in Africa and Asia, and North America, I suspect that competetion will increase and lead to greater level of play. On the hand, increased competetion will make it harder than before to estbalish dominant position, and we will likely to less legendary status players like Baggio, Maldini, than before.