The internet is awash with blogs, articles, pictures and news of Arsenal’s Eduardo Da Silva’s horrific injury. An important topic, which is understandably popular but overshadowed in terms of news by Theo Walcott’s brace and first goals in the premiership, and Tottenham getting one over on the “big four” in the Carling Cup Final. While our hearts lie with Eduardo, on a complete recovery and that his football career has not ended at the tender age of 25, let us remember the football players to whom have had a long and prosperous career playing what us Europeans call the beautiful game.
“What kind of players are you talking about?”, I hear you ask. Well the type of players whose career should of ended a long time ago what with 31 being the age where it is physically impossible for a footballer to use his legs to entertain the dominions of the football playing public. All those physical attributes you had when you were at the peak of your game caves in, like a car when it has ran out of petrol and so there is nothing left for you to do other than going into punditry, or football management.
Before the 1970 World cup, Brazil were undergoing an age renovation after the disasterous campain of 1966. In ‘66 the problem, everyone agreed was that there were too many “old fogies” in the team. With Garincha being the main aim of these criticisms. Before 1970, Brazil coach João Saldanha threatened to drop Pele from the Brazil team going to Mexico. The reasons for this was more to do with a personal conflict between him and the famous number 10, but he sighted his reasons down to Pele being too old. He even went on to exemplify his statements by saying that Pele’s eyesight was diminishing.
Unfortunately for Saldanha he was sacked and replaced byMario Zagallo. 30 year old Pele stayed in the team, inspired them to lift the trophy and went on to play football (albeit not internationally) for another 7 years. He also aimed to put two fingers up at the former manager for his eyesight remarks, by attempting to execute an audacious 50 metre strike (3 minutes 40 seconds in) after spotting the Czech goalkeeper off of his line.
The more famous evergreens in the English league have, instead of diminishing abilities, went on to improve in age in terms of abilty like some vintage old wine. Neville Southall though not what you may call a modern footballing athlete, went on to become one of Everton’s greatest ever servants dispite looking like a darts player. Playing with Everton till he was 40 and winning the FA Cup against Manchester United; he managed to get the man of the match award in the final at the tender age 37. Dennis Bergkamp for Arsenal was also a vintage player who got better with age as was Gianfranco Zola for Chelsea, and Cagliari, and perhaps the penultimate evergreen of them all 39 year old Paolo Maldini, for AC Milan and is still on top of his game dispite his age.
Teddy Sheringham, former England striker and curently playing for Championship side Colchester United, had to wait till he was 33 to win a major title having been in the game for 17 years. Yes he had to go to Manchester United to do so, but his part in that treble winning, record breaking magical night enthusiasing team was justified where it was his goal that earned Manchester United an equalising goal on the way to winning the Champions league over Bayern Munich. For England he did not get his first cap till he was 27, but formed a formidable partnership with Alan Shearer in Terry Venables Euro ‘96 squad.
Teddy Sheringham has stated today that he will retire from football at the end of the season, after a 24 year career that saw him at Tottenham, Millwall, Nottingham Forest, West Ham and Man United. He is currently the oldest player in all English divisions at 41 years old, and it is a testament to his trainging and natural fitness that he has outlasted most of his peers (dispite being pictured in bars with a booze and cigerettes). He was always an intelligent player, when his feet was not doing the talking his mind was; in this respect I mean that he was always one step ahead of the opposition. His last goal for England came in the 2-2 draw with Greece in a World Cup qualifier, where he scored with his first touch after coming on as a substitute.
Watch the third goal, Teddy’s dummy pass to Shearer is a lesson in Total football to the Dutch.
Elderly Teddy Sheringham aims to retire at end of season. « Goalpost Online
Filed under: Champions league, England, Millwall, Nottingham Forest, West Ham, football, manchester united, portsmouth, premiership, tottenham , football, sports, Teddy Sheringham
I’ve always liked Teddy! After the recent news of Gazza being sectioned, I thought of the fact that while Gascgoine was far and away a more talented player than Teddy could have ever dreamed of being, it was Teddy who had the longer and more fulfilling career. The men are very close in age, but at some point Teddy let go of the badboy lifestyle and it made all the difference.
Did he ever get around to playing on a team with his son? I seem to remember a blurb in a paper about Sheringham Jr. being dropped by his latest club.
Also, I just wanted to note that Romario is STILL playing somewhere in Brazil. He’s over 40 as well.
i dont think he did get the chance because Charlie (his 18 year old son) got released by Neil Warnock. He was contracted to Crystal Palace but never made it to the first team went out on loan to their American feeder club: Crystal palace baltimore for 4 months but was released.They never got the chance to play against each other.