You only think I 'changed the goalposts' because you didn't actually read the post I made properly. Why would I ask for examples of merely talented players who fell off due to off the field issues? Obviously there are many. I specifically talked about players as good as Yamal. Please read what I wrote again.
Lamine Yamal
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Should spend some time learning about being a model pro from his team mate Rashy.
Even as talented as Yamal is, some of the things that happened to him at such a young age are due also to context and timing, kudos for grabbing those by the neck (that speaks volume), but it's not as plain as that.
For the very same reason that on the other side of the coin now older, he has been showing at times displays that at moments are worse than some of those he had even being way younger and more inexperienced.
I agree of course that even not being the best profesional out there (sthg that actually has no real basement, I guess all the speculations come from that famous birthday and his father) won't be that significant when a player has enough talent, it might shorten his career in the future, but normally this kind of fellas can deal with such stuff.
But it's like I'm starting to read in the future that if he actually fells form a cliff (vastly unlikely), or has a serious injury, people would start the "he was better than R9 and Maradona" but that injury or his lifestyle killed him and that it's not true to that extent. At least for me, I know many do not share this view.
Terrible post.
Cristiano’s all round game at peak was better than Neymar’s.
Anyway. Yamal is cocky, so what? He’s a teenager, who is already a top 3 player in the world.
Saf described him as the best talent he had ever seen. I think I’ll take that onboard as appose to Kwabs’ opinion
Problem with Morrison…is that he never even got started (because of ‘off the field stuff’) which is what the initial question was
Let's not act like this is a new phenomena or even restricted to football, let alone modern football. The more talented you are, the greater the allowances, tolerances and blind eyes there will be to egregious behaviour. It's a rare industry - or even unique circumstance in isolation - where this is not the case. The bigger the institution, the more spectacular the talent has to be to be an exception to their rules - we've even seen SAF give special players special permissions because of quid pro quo - at that point, the relationship is coldly transactional, and once the talent no longer meets the bar for warranting it, said player will be punted, but that's always after the proverbial berry has been satisfactorily squeezed.
Putting your foot down and all the rest of it, sounds good, and it's the morally and ethically correct thing to do, but football is a multi-billion pound business where truly, truly elite players can not only turn the current fortunes of a club around, but also alter their future, not only in status and association, but in terms of revenue from that point onward. Cantona's worth to us is practically intangible; he ushered in a new age for the club and enabled us to harness our collective standing at the time of the PL's first economic boom. Do you really think, aside from the tutting at his actions, the club or manager wouldn't put up with him, antics and all? Ditto any talismanic figure for any club, that player who can appeal to future audiences or have more eyes laid their way than they had before, you know of the players I speak; they are famous and inextricably linked to their clubs' history forever more:
Di Stefano. Turns Real Madrid into a global powerhouse.
Pele. Makes Santos a world renowned entity.
Best. Ushers in the age of the football superstar; makes Manchester United a club of global cool factor we ride the coattails of to this day.
Eusebio. Benfica rise to prominence as a footballing superpower of his time.
Cruyff. The world knows who Ajax are because of him.
Beckenbauer. Essentially carries a heavy hand in doing the same for Bayern as Best did for United.
Zico. A continental force because of him, even known globally because of him.
Maradona. Napoli will forever be in his debt.
You get the picture. All the way up to present day, these great unspoken principles are adhered to. Neymar was bigger than the club he was going to, therefore they had to indulge him; Mbappe was such a potential star, PSG lost their way whilst indulging him. In every story, there's not a chance in hell these clubs would be happy to lose these players over allowing them graces others players categorically would not have gotten. So long as Lamine Yamal continues to deliver on the pitch, he will be cut from the same cloth. It's either that, or lose them to a rival. The moment Yamal would be placed on a transfer list, is the moment a host of clubs do everything in their power to acquire him.
You mentioned the next rung down, basically those who haven't even made a name for themselves yet, but that the football world will know everything about. Do you think both club and handlers of extremely (and I mean extremely) talented young, prodigious talent, don't know the predicament they find themselves in? It's actually even worse at that juncture because you might lose the next C.Ronaldo/Maradona/Neymar/<insert as you like> for an absolute pittance via tribunal. A magnitude of order worse than an obscene fee on a sale some years later. We may have one such talent at the club in JJ Gabriel, who, if matches even the broadest expectations, will be worth over £100m as a start, and for all the club knows, could become the next Cantona in terms of intangible value to future coffers - let's just imagine that Gabriel fulfils his potential and becomes a global superstar. A superstar at perhaps the juncture where the club can sell its own streaming rights (just as with Cantona's time at the top coinciding with the global TV rights for the PL product); if those dominos fall into place, indulging a young talent will be worth every single penny to the club, and at worst, they sell him for a fortune.
Yamal has potentially 15 years at the top left, should things go well. It's no exaggeration to think he could usher in the next golden age for his club. You don't throw that out with the bathwater, and again, so long as the potential fulfils itself, it is worth every ounce of indulgence and tolerance that clubs put up with when it comes to the obscenely gifted.
In the list of names above there are disparate fortunes, from the crash and burn types to model professionals with blemish free careers where incident is concerned. I might even lazily state that, aside from Pele, the greater the talent, the worse they behaved as professionals:
Maradona clear as one of the 3 kings, is also by far the most troubled and rambunctious on the list. Do you think, at any time, anyone could put a lid on the most talented footballer the game has arguably ever seen? His family, friends, handlers, clubs, not a soul could dissuade him. The god complex in terms of nobody can tell him what to do is going to be interwoven with the talent. After all, who, in all of football's existence up to that time can see the world from his eyes and relate? Only Pele. The rest, it's a case of him indulging them and nodding away, but them having no comprehension of life through the lens of his world.
In terms of derailment, next comes George Best. Who could possibly relate to the trials and tribulations of being a teenage and young 20's global icon, and steer him elsewhere? Again, only Pele could turn to him as a peer and see the world as he might do.
It goes on and one with the players above as well as the ones that followed into the 90's (Ronaldo) through to now; their peers are so few and far between. If they are going to derail, how can they be appealed to? What is the corrective measure to prevent it? Outside of appealing to their good nature what can be done with players who the world around them will let know their standing before they perhaps have the cognitive function to cope with that?
You mentioned "son" in your post; this is perhaps one of few frontiers that can keep the extremely talented grounded - the appeal of a mother, a father or close relative for them to stop going down an erroneous path. It might work, it might not... rebelling against your mother & or father is human 101 for the majority of us, that before seeing within yourself you shouldn't be doing that. Imagine that dial turned up to maximum because the world tells you you're fecking awesome every day of your life. I'm sure a Maradona or Best had people they cared deeply about begging them to change tact for large portions of not only their playing careers, but their lives. Hope is the only thread to keep intergalactic, megastar egos in check should they go off the rails?
Your final paragraph states that you blame the clubs, but what realistic measure is there to prevent the extremely gifted from going south other than themselves? Club A is stern with me, and I don't like it? Fine. Off to club B I go; so long as I am an extremely gifted individual who is still delivering, I can do what I want and nobody can stop me.
I likened C.Ronaldo to Homelander many moons ago, perhaps you know this character, perhaps you don't, but point is, I wasn't the only one to see a likeness with the god complex issue the former has in common with a fictional character. There's nobody that can correct that behaviour and he's like watching the conclusion to an experiment in what happens when you are truly brilliant to the point you relate with few, if any, and perhaps only one person in your profession can even perceive the world from the lens you have. Who is there for such people to relate to? And the odd bods we see at the top in football are nothing compared to the same principles applied to the most rich and powerful in the world; they barely seem human with the way they perceive the world... your Musk's, Bezos', Zuckerberg's, Wang's, Ellison's, Thiel's and so on. It's perhaps safe to say a lot of humans aren't built to handle things beyond a certain point. Most will just turn weird, and perhaps it's only weird to us because we have no way of relating to how they see the world. Anyway, I digress and this last paragraph might be errant thoughts put to post at a time when I should be in bed, so I'll stop now.
This is actually a great post, keep 'em coming regularly before bed.
Sleep deprivation is a wonderful thing! Takes you off on tangents you don't realise you're taking until you stop typing!Take whatever you want on board, he's nowhere near the level of talent that I'm talking about. Maybe by the standards of young English players he was right up there (although even this was not proven in the arena of actual proper football matches), but there's many levels to this.
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I hope he turns out to be a big flop in future.
Can he play in Amorim 3-4-3?
That’s the whole point. The original poster queried if there was anyone that fell short exclusively because of off the pitch influences
Someone else who didn't read what I wrote. Of course there are talented people who fell short due to off the field stuff. I was talking about someone as good as Yamal falling off because of off the field stuff (I.e. someone who was arguably the best player in the world at 18 becoming irrelevant because of extraneous stuff). It has never happened. You can have truncated and/or controversial careers, like Best, or Ronaldinho or Maradona. But you never just become a nobody.
This is why suggestions like Morrison are laughable - the guy barely had a professional Premier League start, let alone being the best or one of the best players in the world. People like Robinho and Cassano are also wide of the mark, gifted though they were.
The only thing that can derail him properly, IMO, is injury. Which is why I hope for his continued fitness. The rest is just noise.
Already becoming a top player and staying at the top are two different things. While not comparable in terms of talent and skill level, when Rashford came through, everyone thought we have a future great player at the club. Did it work out?
It's even more important for the club and the parents to keep a teenager grounded when there's so much hype and pressure and so many easy opportunities for things to go wrong.
Won't go that far, but it's concerning in this tik tok generation that a future top player has a crap attitude and ego while he's still at the base of the mountain, it will breed a new generation of players who will try and follow the same path and try to have the same attitude.
And that’s all it is…and you’re entitled to it
Please, football has always been a working class "unclassy" sport, full of under-educated top talents with bad attitudes and huge egos e.g. Maradona, Gascoigne, Rooney, Anelka, Balotelli, Cassano, Ben Arfa, Neymar.... and these are only the ones who are discernably very talented, way too many players have bad attitudes and big egos despite being rather average.
Such players are often even fan favourites due to their talent and irreverent attitudes e.g. Cassano or Max Kruse who lost his NT spot due to a partying lifestyle. Everyone here loves Rooney despite his drinking, casinos, 2am kebabs, granny-shagging exploits, despite the fact he oft starts the season overweight and unfit despite being the highest paid player in the team.
Not condoning Yamal's attitude, he's the antithesis of my favourite sort of player (disciplined, self-effacing, metronomic registas e.g. Zubimendi, Rodri, Kroos, Scholes, Pirlo, Xavi), but he's hardly a worse influence than cocaine-addicted Maradona or alcoholic Rooney. Plus football is way more strict, professional, and demanding athletically at the top now compared to the 1990s when drinking and smoking was de rigueur. Players have to justify their big wages by consistently performing in training, everyone's speed and distance is logged and tracked with GPS vests so strolling around, eating poorly, drinking, smoking don't cut it anymore.
Nope, false equivalence. The big difference is the reach. The amount of reach Yasmin has today through social media is mind blowing.
You are bringing Maradona in to this discussion when those days, the only way to see Maradona was on the pitch.
News about him doing stupid stuff, sure, but that was limited to newspapers and magazines whcih was not something the kids indulged in to.
Rooney started playing when camera phones were just taking off. No facebook, no youtube, no discord, no twitch, no tik tok.
No kid reading about Rooney is going to a whorehouse to shag a granny or even think that's the right way to be nor did Rooney show up bigging his acheivements of shagging a granny and binge drinking.
But many kids will look at Yasmin and imitate the way he acts and speaks and behaves due to how much he is on socials, how much he and others his age act that behaving and acting the way they are is "cool"
Hard to disagree with any of that really. And as much as Lamar isn’t particularly likeable and the signs of fame and fortune going to his head are already there, he’s also still only 18 and has a lot time to grow up.
I'm too young to have watched Maradona live so most of what I know is from socmedia sites and football forums where he's oft venerated as a saint despite domestic violence and drug proclivities. Yamal won't be revered in the same manner by an entire country simply because racists in Spain won't see him as one of their own. He's not at risk of being held up as a role model and won't be made NT captain like Rooney was.
The Tiktok generation has bigger problems with reading books or newspapers cover to cover, and there are far worse influences online e.g. right-wing grifters, gamer brainrot (wtf are groypers?), antivax doomsday cult conspiracy theorists, religious extremists trying to brainwash kids to bomb churches or mosques... Even Haaland shilling raw milk on his channel is more of a bad influence because it'll inspire kids hoping to grow tall to try unpasteurised milk due to his hulking superhuman image, whereas Yamal is already designated as a wrong'un from a broken home no one should emulate. Point being, anyone could be an awful influence, and even the most straitlaced player may turn out to be scum like Giggs.
It's also more disturbing that many fully grown football fans are supportive of players like Greenwood, Partey, Alves e.g. Greenwood still has fans here wanting him back at United despite everyone knowing what he's done.
I think it's fairly obvious by now he's not actually fully recovered from his groin injury in September. But briefing the press like this already should be raising all sorts of red flags:
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/othe...A1PCCoz?cvid=69065f8e19cc4e81882c608fa0e3155c
(In all possible fairness, there's been about a dozen different spins on this story in the past few days, so it's hard to know who's briefing what, and most of them aren't half as dire, but rushing young players back from injury repeatedly is a much surer way to develop chronic injuries then simply "overplaying" them, IMO, and the language here is infuriatingly blase.)
Edit: Was under the impression this was an MSN story rather than a Daily Mail one earlier (my eyes largely amount to a confidence scheme at this point). I'm not sure whether any more credible sources have picked it up at all.
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/othe...A1PCCoz?cvid=69065f8e19cc4e81882c608fa0e3155c
(In all possible fairness, there's been about a dozen different spins on this story in the past few days, so it's hard to know who's briefing what, and most of them aren't half as dire, but rushing young players back from injury repeatedly is a much surer way to develop chronic injuries then simply "overplaying" them, IMO, and the language here is infuriatingly blase.)
Edit: Was under the impression this was an MSN story rather than a Daily Mail one earlier (my eyes largely amount to a confidence scheme at this point). I'm not sure whether any more credible sources have picked it up at all.
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Sadly, this is very true. I remember Spaniards being annoyed that he and Williams were even in the team back in 2024.
Also, I'm sure a lot of the people who are upset at his 'cockiness' would have been apoplectic at a young Muhammad Ali. Fortunately for Cassius, he performed in a individual sport, but the desire to see him 'humbled' was exactly the same in the 1960s.
It's part that, part his age. If he was 22 instead of 18 the reactions would be less visceral imo
Yeah, I mean he's 18, talented, rich, has 10/10's falling over themselves to get to him and plays football for a living at the very highest level.
Pick your poison for the middle aged salt-of-the-earth football fans who peaked in high school.
I think you are probably right.
You're right, La Liga has a lot of problems with racism, especially against black players.
"Groypers" are followers of the neo nazi and antisemitic activist called Nick Fuentes.
They certainly weren't mad at Huijsen, Laporte or Le Normand playing for Spain despite them having immigrant background.
Apparently, this was said by Lewandowski at yesterday's press conference, amplifying rumors of a dressing room rift:
When asked in a press conference about Yamal’s situation, Lewandowski dropped a cold bombshell: “I haven’t spoken to him for a long time… and I don’t want to talk about him. He needs calm. I talk about myself.”
Seems there's a bit of tension at Barca around Yamal, with some (unfounded) 'rumors' also suggesting Flick is fed up with the lack of discipline (& allowances made for Yamal) and wants to leave at the end of the season. Then obviously, it also seems Raphinha isn't too happy either.
So, is this just media clickbait (though with Lewa's comments - it does seem something's brewing over there) or what's happening over there?
When asked in a press conference about Yamal’s situation, Lewandowski dropped a cold bombshell: “I haven’t spoken to him for a long time… and I don’t want to talk about him. He needs calm. I talk about myself.”
Seems there's a bit of tension at Barca around Yamal, with some (unfounded) 'rumors' also suggesting Flick is fed up with the lack of discipline (& allowances made for Yamal) and wants to leave at the end of the season. Then obviously, it also seems Raphinha isn't too happy either.
So, is this just media clickbait (though with Lewa's comments - it does seem something's brewing over there) or what's happening over there?
Yamal Rashford swap deal.
The Rashford effect
Hey kid! not with Diego
...on a serious note, Maradona was like the embodiment of ying/yang in a person, with everything on between. But in the good side there are lots o stuff I wish modern athletes would actually copy.Also THIS AGE, this particular social media era
Easy to look world class in a farmers league.
I'm putting my hat into the ring. Yamal will be to Barcelona what Rashford was to United. An outrageously talented youngster with a world at his feed that will fizzle out in a few seasons. He doesn't have the work rate and mentality to follow in the greats shoes. We can revisit this quote in 5 years time.
I think he will reach Neymar type career even in worse case.
Much more natural talent than Rashford.
Agreed he is much more naturally talented than Rashford but I think he will not even reach Neymar level career type. In his head he has already outgrown Barcelona. Where does he go from there?
The player he is most similar to stylistically and in terms of ability is Neymar. If anything, given his ability (imo only Messi was more talented), Neymar underachieved due to various issues.
I think Yamal will atleast reach Neymar career level barring severe injuries.
Some interesting stuff re Spain v Morocco.
No idea why Equatorial Guinea doesn't get a look in
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Yeah, it gives us a glimpse behind the curtain and it looks like he has the typical child superstar curse of not being able to grow in an organic way, instead learning to cope with the breadth and depth of his stardom. Extends beyond football and, as ever, takes quite an incredible constitution to come out the other side intact. Life is coming at him fast and it's a challenge in itself to navigate.Some interesting stuff re Spain v Morocco.
No idea why Equatorial Guinea doesn't get a look in
These genuine child superstars lead a life even fellow pros have little understanding of.
re. Equatorial Guinea. I think his mom's story would be an interesting one itself given it's so far away from Barcelona/Europe whereas Morocco is just a hop, skip away and has a community base in Spain and Morocco.
Indeed, it's much more foreign to Spain than Morocco is.
Re Yamal and fame, the cliche is that you stop developing when you become famous. But Pele got through it from a tiny age, and I'm confident Yamal will as well (though I don't think he's Pele).