MrFunnyWobbl
GOAT
- Jan 3, 2012
- 27,085
- 983
Robben is 33. The Dutch failed to qualify again. It's time to get rid of the old players and start from the ground. That's what they are going to do. They have young talented players, no doubt. But they need to play. No Robben van Persie etc.Why is Robben leaving NT? Did they not qualify for WC?
30 isn't old.
Vidal is probably the best player in Chile's team at 30.
Nah, it's not far off from what's considered peak performance age. But there's an old 30 and a young 30. A lot of it comes down to mileage. If you started playing 40-50 top level games a year as a teenager then 30 is rather old as you'll already have 500+ games in your bones. Like Messi for example..but then how many people would consider Messi an old player now?
Ronaldo, Zlatan.... Maybe they are outliers but I don't think its unreasonable to play at a (close to) elite level until ~35. Probably juts need dedication to staying in shape and eating right. Though Vidal doesn't seem like that type.
Hell, Look at Jagr
Ronaldo, Zlatan.... Maybe they are outliers but I don't think its unreasonable to play at a (close to) elite level until ~35. Probably juts need dedication to staying in shape and eating right. Though Vidal doesn't seem like that type.
Hell, Look at Jagr
In this sport? Outfield players peak in their mid 20s. Vast majority of even the best players are out of top European football by 33-34. And even the best players in that age range (Iniesta, Mascherano, Robben, Chiellini) have noticeably fallen off.
Matthaus was almost 30 when he led Germany to the World Cup and was 30 when he led Inter to the UEFA Cup and won FIFA player of the year a year later. Klinsmann was 30 when he had that great season at Spurs. And lets not even mention all the Italian defenders who often don't even start peaking before they get close to 30.
I think people's perception on this has noticeably changed as the average age of players has dropped so much in the last decade or so and especially people are given the chance to start much earlier. It used to be that 27-29 was considered the peak age and at 30 you'd be kind of at that point where you're still pretty close to peak but the drop-off has just begun or is about to begin, so maybe not a good idea to buy on the transfer market necessarily but if that's your star player you're banking on another 2-3 good years.
Question regarding German ticketing in general, perhaps for cgf in particular - I'm going to be in Berlin at the beginning of November and decided to check what games are on and discovered Union is playing St Pauli at home, which is probably as attractive a match-up as I could've hoped for. The question is, if I get a friend who lives there to get tickets, will he have no problem doing so? Here games like that are often classified as "risky" meaning the tickets only go through the teams' respective fan clubs and it can be next to impossible to get them without a membership. Or that's the case up until a certain point and then only a small number of tickets are released for general buying. Do you think any of that will be applicable here?
Sit in the middle/family section away from those ultras and you'll have no problem. Plus your view won't be obstructed by idiots waving flags.
Probably the two most likely teams to be relegated kicking off the weekend now in an awful game (though I would think that Freiburg and Hamburg are more likely to eventually end up at the bottom than Stuttgart). Pizarro probably getting his first start for Koln because Cordoba's still injured.
edit: Nvm Pizarro's not starting, Badstuber/Terodde are back for VFB, they should win this imo.
Sit in the middle/family section away from those ultras and you'll have no problem. Plus your view won't be obstructed by idiots waving flags.
Probably the two most likely teams to be relegated kicking off the weekend now in an awful game (though I would think that Freiburg and Hamburg are more likely to eventually end up at the bottom than Stuttgart). Pizarro probably getting his first start for Koln because Cordoba's still injured.
edit: Nvm Pizarro's not starting, Badstuber/Terodde are back for VFB, they should win this imo.
Because Koln play like **** and have nothing up front, they don't even have a proper backup to their **** up front plus they leak goals. Bittencourt's the only offensively threatening player on the whole team and they're unprepared for Bundesliga + Europe. Freiburg just don't have a very good roster but they could possibly survive. Hamburg have too many undeveloped or mediocre players and they've looked disorganized every time I saw them so they could get relegated but have enough to probably survive.
Bremen and Mainz have good enough squads or coaching to stay up, Bremen should start getting better results as they return to health as well. Though they look almost as offensively **** as Koln.