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By Clay Birmingham.
(Brendan Rodgers & Raheem Sterling)
Late Bloomers and the Forgotten Teenagers. Fans of the game eagerly watch young players in anticipation that they’ll become something big, but when those players reach twenty fans seem to write them off and in a lot of cases teams in the big leagues also write them off. If you’re twenty and you haven’t had a few games under your belt for your club people ask if they ever will make it, but is the idea that a player has to be part of the first team as a teenager a myth? Right now Harry Kane is firing on all cylinders for Tottenham and England. At twenty-four years old, the Englishman has played 177 times for Tottenham bagging 112 goals. Seven of those appearances for Tottenham came as a teenager as he spent most of his teen years playing for Championship clubs, playing just 65 matches in four years scoring just sixteen goals. It’s not a bad goal return for a teenager, but with Harry Kane being the Premier League golden boot winner two years in a row, he’s always mentioned among the worlds best these days. The worlds best as teenagers were playing in a top division for a top club scoring considerably more goals than Harry Kane. In comparison to Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling as a teenager had played 129 games for Liverpool scoring 23 goals. Sterling has played far more in a bigger league and a bigger team than Kane. A statistic that would suggest that Raheem Sterling would go on to become a much bigger player than Harry Kane. There’s still room for change for both players, but four years ago, so few of us would’ve seen this outcome. Beyond Harry Kane's loan experiences, just one of the four loans was in the Premier League, where he played just 3 league games for Norwich before being loaned out to Leicester in the second half of the season. The next season Kane was twenty, making 19 appearances in all competitions for Tottenham scoring 4 goals. The season after Kane netted 31 in 51 appearances. Quite the jump in just one season, from twenty years old to twenty-one. Harry Kane was afforded an opportunity at Tottenham despite not standing out as a teenager, so why is it that other youngsters are presumed unworthy by the time they hit twenty? I’m writing this the day after England’s under seventeens just won the under seventeen World Cup. How many of those young lions will progress into the senior England team? If history repeats itself we will see so few of those players progress. Looking at the golden ball and golden shoe awards awarded to the youngsters every time in the competition, so few are recognisable. Golden Ball winners - William (Brazil), Philip Osundu (Nigeria), James Will (Scotland), Nii Lamptey (Ghana), Daniel Addo (Ghana), Mohamed Kathiri (Oman), Sergio Santamaría (Spain), Landon Donovan (USA), Florent Sinama Pongolle (France), Cesc Fàbregas (Spain), Anderson (Brazil), Toni Kroos (Germany), Sani Emmanuel (Nigeria), Julio Gómez (Mexico), Kelechi Ihaenacho (Nigeria), Kelechi Nwakali (Nigeria), Phil Foden (England) Golden Shoe winners - Marcel Witeczek (Germany), Moussa Traoré (Ivory Coast), Fode Camara (Guinea), Adriano (Brazil), Daniel Allsopp (Australia), David (Spain), Ishmael Addo (Ghana), Florent Sinama Pongolle (France), Cesc Fàbregas (Spain), Carlos Vela (Mexico), Macauley Chrisantus (Nigeria), Borja (Spain), Souleymane Coulibaly (Ivory Coast), Balmir Berisha (Sweden), Bictor Osimhen (Nigeria), Rhian Brewster (England) Landon Donovan, Florent Sinama Pongolle, Cesc Fàbregas, Anderson, Toni Kroos, Kelechi Ihaenacho, Marcel Witeczek and Carlos Vela are players that went on to notable success. These are the players named the best in the tournament and scored the most goals yet just eight progressed at a high level. Why this happens is down to multiple things. Firstly there’s so much money in the modern game as well as demand. Ready made players are brought in to create success meaning the opportunities for youngsters is hard to come by. Secondly there’s the opinions on the importance of competitions for youths. Some people disregard these competitions as youngsters who play in their youth teams just aren’t good enough for the senior teams. You wouldn’t catch a seventeen year old Messi playing for the under seventeens when Argentina are attempting to qualify for the World Cup. The longer this mentality is around the more we’ll see big teams buying players rather than developing them. We see it now, clubs like Southampton develop talent only to see another team buy that talent. To be given a run of games as a youngster you have to impress on your debut otherwise opportunities will be spread out. Cast your minds back to the hype surrounding teenagers over the last few years, how many made it and how many faded into obscurity? Look at the biggest players today and you’ll spot players that didn’t have their names in lights as teenagers. Luis Suarez, Robert Lewandowski, Alexis Sanchez, Antoine Griezmann, Leonardo Bonucci. The list is long and could go on for a while. There are far more Freddy Adu's than Lionel Messi's and there are far more Harry Kane’s than Cristiano Ronaldo's. Most of the players that complete teams that aren’t the superstars despite being top quality players today, were not expected be great as teenagers. For the modern age we can look at fans of video games like Championship Manager and FIFA. The teams we all made up five, ten, twenty years ago will feature a couple of players that we know today, while others we often think “what happened to him?” We need fans and clubs to start giving opportunities to players in their early twenties more often, even if they’ve barely played a minute as teenagers and spent years on loan at second tier clubs. If Tottenham weren’t short on strikers perhaps they would’ve sold Kane to a Championship club and maybe he would’ve vanished. Look at your own club and see all the nineteen to twenty-three year old players out on loan. Are they out on loan so they can gain experience or is your club trying to put them in the shop window? How many of those players could actually be another Harry Kane, but will be left to decay in a low division.