30 years old and up - 5 greatest players of all time?

Zlatan peaked in his 30s

Xavi?

Baresi , zanetti, Baggio, Pirlo. Plenty to choose from.

Zlatan is the obvious one for me as mentioned above. Pirlo seemed to get better the older he got, Pavel Nedved probably played some of his best football in his 30s too.

Rooney

As always, I think we're in for a Ronaldo-Messi debate. Cue the fanboys. Shout out to our very own Giggs and Scholes.

Ronaldo won 3 CL's, 2 league titles, and the Euro after 30, right? That's not too shabby.

Dino Zoff

Romario. There are a few brazilians/south americans on the Cafe who would most certainly agree. He didn't stay in Europe long enough, but he was top scorer in Brazil at 39 and kept scoring goals until the age of 41.

Carrick and Scholes definitely.

C Ronaldo takes it easily.

Buffon's longevity is jaw-dropping. He started his career on 19th November 1995 and he played very well in his 30's.

I also think that Juventus didn't bring him back due to feelings only - They obviously see someone who can do a job if the main keeper gets injured

Di Natale.

Aduriz.

You are naming players who were already great in their 20s.

Cristiano seems to be the obvious choice.

Br1_ovi said:

Di Natale.

Aduriz.

You are naming players who were already great in their 20s.

Click to expand...

The OP doesn't state otherwise though, unless I'm mistaken.

Ronaldo has easily had the best career post 30 in my opinion.

Been mentioned but Di Natale is the first that springs to mind.

Absolute beast. 4 consecutive 20+ league goals starting at 32!

Pele was 29 at the 1970 WC, hardly finished a few months later.

Sheringham was player of the year and played his best football at 31.

Van Der Saar peaked in his 30s too

Beating CR7's individual records might be impossible but my first shout would be:

Xavi: 1 WC, 1 Euro, 2 CL's, 3 league titles, 2 Copa's, 1 CWC. Basically every major title won after turning 30.

Edit: Oh and Puyol (who is 2 years older) has pretty much the same of course.

Pirlo?
I think 1 title at AC Milan... Then he went to juve apparently past it and won 4 titles and 2 player of the year awards

Van Der Sar

Cafu
Cannavaro
Maldini
Zanetti

Xavi
Pirlo
Scholes

Ronaldo
Zlatan
Messi

Brad Friedel

2 man midfield said:

Van Der Sar

Cafu
Cannavaro
Maldini
Zanetti

Xavi
Pirlo
Scholes

Ronaldo
Zlatan
Messi

Click to expand...

Nice

2 man midfield said:

Van Der Sar

Cafu
Cannavaro
Maldini
Zanetti

Xavi
Pirlo
Scholes

Ronaldo
Zlatan
Messi

Click to expand...

That midfield is insane

Honorable mention to Gianfranco Zola. Joined Chelsea aged 30 and became probably our greatest ever player. For a few years anyway.

Never saw him play obviously but an honourable mention for Puskas. Joined Madrid at 31, played for 8 more years scoring a ridiculous amount. Different era but still.

Giggs

Lots of good shouts here. Zlatan seems to be the one that sprang to mind for me, moreso for the fact that the increase in his performance levels was most pronounced in his 30's whereas Ronaldo has just kept up his insane level of output.

Pirlo is another one who looked like he was waning towards the end of his time with Milan, but had a real renaissance with Juve and probably played some of his best football.

Gotta give a shout out to Giggs as well, his transition from out wide to central was seamless and some of his performances in central mid for us were immense.

As others have said, gotta give a mention to the likes of Di Natale, Van De Sar, Xavi, Zannetti.

One of the most fascinating things about football for me is watching how players adapt to the game as they get older. You always see which were just pure physical athletes and the footballers who were just pure geniuses when it comes to understanding of the game. Must be so hard to stay at the top like these guys when you know your physical ability is decreasing.

Laurent Blanc is another shout. He wasn't even very special before his thirties.

Won the vast majority of his trophies after 30 (including Ligue 1, French Cup, World Cup, Euro, Premier League, Uefa Cup Winner's Cup and Copa Del Rey).

Only won a French Cup and an Euro u21 before turning 30. Remarkable career.

Zizou

Top three for me are the Real Madrid trio of Cristiano, Di Stefano and Puskas. All three enjoyed sustained success well into their mid-30s, racked up multiple Champions League titles, maintained 1:1 goals-to-game averages throughout and made their most indelible mark on the game during this period.

Thereafter it's a little tricky. Xavi's performance level at 30-32 was still outstanding, but it's perhaps 30 months of top form before age took its toll. Cafu's post-30 body of work is arguably more impressive than what he achieved in his 20s. Both Pirlo and Ibrahimovic played their best football at this time, albeit coming from a slightly lower base than some of the other legends in the discussion (eg Maldini and Zanetti).

Edit - @Invictus came to the same conclusion.

Rogerio Ceni. He scored more goals in his 30s than many strikers, and all that being a goalkeeper... he actually is also a world champion and finished professional career at 42 years of age, with a 132 goals scored grand total.

Ryan Giggs?

It’s difficult to compare players from past eras to the modern age considering Puskas looked like this when he was playing as a post 30 year old player:

https://www.google.com/search?q=pus...YI_enGB707GB707&hl=en-US#imgrc=Se4WAkM38Cft_M


The clear and obvious winner of this debate is C.Ronaldo.

3 Ballon D’ors, 3 CLs, a European Cup, over 300 goals scored and countless unprecedented milestones achieved after his 30th birthday.

Another good one would be Modric. He's been awesome in the last 4-5 years.

cr7 scholes maldini pirlo seedorf ibra cafu just few i can think of seemed to get better with age.

mariachi-19 said:

Ryan Giggs?

Click to expand...

giggs was good changed his game etc but with doubt his best time was before he was even 28 in my opinion

Think that's a little unfair comparison because nowadays footballers just seem to last longer. Cristiano is the prime example but Robben and Ribey were also still pure world class well into their thirties. Past 30 messi, although slightly declined, is still better than 99% of other players during their peaks. But this debate would be boring if we were just talking about Messi and Ronaldo again, so a few names that spring to mind and I believe weren't mentioned (not GOAT level though):

Zidane. Exceptional WC in 2006 aged what, 34?
Rivaldo. He seemed to go on and on forever in Brazil, still being a very good player.
Ze Roberto. Was arguably the best iteration of himself when he changed is position to CDM in the latter stages of his career.
Claudio Pizarro. The guy is still playing first division in Germany and getting enough game time. Was a regular scorer aged 38 or something like that. Fun fact: He left Werder Bremen three times and joined them four times throughout his career.
Gigi Buffon. Was already world class in the late 90s, stayed one of the best until 2 or 3 years ago, and is still playing.
Lothar Matthäus. German record holder in terms of national caps and that's primarily because he played on and on and on. Not many players around who played for their nation aged 39.
Luca Toni. Left Bayern when he was already 32 (?) years old, then went on and scored almost another 70 goals in the Serie A. Top scorer in Italy aged 38, retired aged 39.
Henrik Larsson. Signed for Barca aged 33. Left Barca aged 35 and went on to score almost 40 goals. Played for Sweden until he was 38.
Sami Hyypiä. Maybe a ittle bit biased but he joined us at almost 37 and immediately became one of the best CBs of the Bundesliga under Heynckes. Was our key player in going a record breaking 24 games undefeated.