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

Fortitude

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As the title says, start a player at 30 years of age and consider their body of work from that point upward. A lot of the commonly accepted greatest players of all time were done or very close to it at 30 and even if they did carry on for a few years after that age, their career's were very clearly on a wind-down with them being a complete shadow of their probable pomps in the mid 20's (or so).

Pelé was done as a top level entity at 30 - the punishment his body recieved and him calling time cutting short the years he could have had left post-30.

Maradona was battling drug addiction that had basically overcome him by 30. His last true Maradona season coming at 29 and everything that followed being him in various stages of recovery and no longer one of the best players on the planet outright.

Cruyff had his swansongs with Ajax and Feyenoord. His ability didn't fade; perhaps a candidate?

Hmm.. not going to go through everyone as it is intended to be a constructive tread, which perhaps serves as a useful tool to learn a few tidbits from.

Obvious frontrunners are clearly: Di Stefano, Puskas, C. Ronaldo, Maldini and so forth, but what do you believe are the more spectacular feats achieved by players in the over 30 bracket, and what would seperate a #1 from a #2 rank and so forth for you?
 
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.
 
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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? :lol: That's not too shabby.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Br1_ovi said:
Di Natale.

Aduriz.

You are naming players who were already great in their 20s.
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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!
 
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.
 
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Van Der Sar

Cafu
Cannavaro
Maldini
Zanetti

Xavi
Pirlo
Scholes

Ronaldo
Zlatan
Messi
 
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.
 
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.
 
2mufc0 said:
C Ronaldo takes it easily.
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Weirdly enough, I'm not even sure he's the best 30+ player for Madrid (who might do a clean sweep of the Top 3 spots), unless we place a premium on international football exploits...

Di Stéfano: 2 Ballon D'Or titles, 4 Pichichi titles and twice European Cup top scorer + 4 European Cup titles and 6 La Liga titles.
Cristiano: 2 Ballon D'Or titles and thrice European Cup top scorer + 3 European Cup titles, 1 European Championship title and 1 La Liga title.
Puskás: 4 Pichichi titles and twice European top score + 3 European Cup titles and 4 La Liga titles.

Other candidates for the Top 5: Maldini, Xavi, Matthäus, Lahm, Modrić, Zanetti, Nedvěd, Alves, Pirlo, Nordahl, Baresi, Ibrahimović, Giggs, Cafú, Robbery, Scholes, Liedholm, Totti and a bunch of goalkeepers (Buffon, Van der Sar, Schmeichel, Kahn, Zoff).
 
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.
 
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.
 
cr7 scholes maldini pirlo seedorf ibra cafu just few i can think of seemed to get better with age.
 
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.
 
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