Stars of the Future

In this article, we take a closer look at some of the players that have the potential to be top quality players in the future. I have tried to avoid the more commonly mentioned players as everybody already knows about them. The likes of Jack Wilshere, Romelu Lukaku and Josh McEachran have already been discussed to death in the press, whereas hopefully some of the following players will be new to people.

Chuks Aneke


Chuks Aneke is considerd to be one of the best players in the Arsenal youth academy. Neil Banfield, the head of Arsenal reserves, claimed that he had already reached technical perfection at the age of only 14. He provides the creative spark in the reserve side that scored at will last season and at 1.91m tall, he is an imposing presence in the midfield.

He has already played for England at U16, U17 and U18 level, and it would be no real surprise to see him continue to progress through the levels and one would expect to see him maybe making his full debut in the Carling Cup next season.

Kenneth Zohore


The Danish striker made his debut at only 16 years and 35 days old, making him the youngest player in the history of the Danish top flight. With trials at both Chelsea and Inter Milan already, he looks to have a promising future in the game.

Aged only 17, he is already over six foot tall and a strong physical presence. With nine goals in 13 matches for the Danish U17 side, he has already shown that he has a knack of scoring goals and he plays well in the target man role, creating space and chance for others.

He scored his first senior goal recently against Lyngby Boldklub, making him the second youngster scorer in the Danish top flight and his appearance against Barcelona in the Champions League made him the third youngest player in that tournament.

He has admitted that his dream is to play for Chelsea and if he continues his current progress, it would hardly be surprising if he ultimately reaches his goal.

Luc Castaignos


Already described as the next Thierry Henry, the young Dutchman has been on the rise for a couple of years. Joint top-scorer at the European U17 Championships in 2009, he made his debut for Feyernoord this season and has already grabbed nine goals in his first 24 games to add to his 22 goals in 31 games at U17 and U19 level for the Netherlands.

Despite being over six foot tall, he has electric pace and is a natural finisher meaning that he has all the attributes to become a world class striker. Already linked with most of the big European clubs, he has announced that he will move to Inter Milan in the summer, where he will hope to continue his development.

Eric Lamela


Eric Lamela is one of the most promising players to have come through the famous River Plate youth academy in recent years. Despite only being 18-years old, it was six years ago that River Plate had to fend off approaches from Spanish giants, Barcelona. They reportedly offered to pay Lamela’s family over €100k per year to move the 12-year old to Spain.

He made his debut for River Plate late last year, but the Argentinean club have already had to reject a €12m offer from AC Milan, demanding at least €25m for the youngster. He usually plays as an attacking midfielder or winger and has drawn great praise for his dribbling skills as well as his ability to score from distance. Furthermore, he is the first choice set piece taker, despite being only 18-years old. As far as weaknesses go, he lacks that extra yard of pace and needs to work on his aerial ability, but these will come with age and further training.

Despite his tender age, he is already one of the most talented players in South America, and despite his pledge to remain at River Plate until he has won a major trophy, his resolve will undoubtedly be tested as the giants of European football come knocking.

Thiago Alcantara


The young midfielder is considered to be the best player at Barcelona’s famous La Masia youth academy, and the natural heir to Xavi. Still only 19 years old, he has made eight appearances for the Barcelona first team and scored his first goal last season against Racing Santander. He has been described as Spain’s biggest talent by Fernando Hierro.

He has all the attributes that you would expect from a Brazilian at Barcelona – great vision, a wonderful range of passing and an eye for a goal. If he lives up to the hype, he will become one of the world’s very top midfielders and will slot perfectly into the centre of the Barcelona midfield.

Edwin Cardona


The young Colombian midfielder has proved that he is a real talent with seven goals in seven games at the South American U17 Championships in 2009. He has also impressed in this season’s U20 Sudamericano for his club where he has notched up four goals in six games – an impressive tally for a midfielder.

Like many South Americans, he enjoys running at players with the ball, but also has an excellent eye for a pass and is the set piece expert for both club and country. In an underperforming international side at U20 level, he is proving the standout star, even in the match against the impressive Brazilians. It would be no surprise to see him promoted to the full international side before long, and a move to Europe may not be much further away.

Gary Gardner


The younger brother of Birmingham midfielder, Craig Gardner, Gary was the star of the Aston Villa academy until his development suffered a setback when he tore his ACL last year. He has recently returned and played a starring role in the 10-1 victory against Arsenal reserves. It was also revealed that Rafa Benitez tried to take him to Inter Milan over the summer.

Closely compared in style and ability to Jack Wilshere, the two have played together at the heart of the midfield through all the youth ranks for England and it is surely only a matter of time until they link up again at senior level. He is expected to make his debut for Villa next season once he has fully recovered from his injury and is certainly a player to watch closely.

Lucas


The young attacking midfielder only made his debut for Sao Paulo last season, but by the end of the year, he had established himself as one of the first names on the team sheet. He picked up four goals and four assists in his 22 matches last season and was one of the star players at the South American U20 Championships earlier this year.

He loves to have the ball at his feet and run at defenders, whilst he also has great composure in front of goal. He has already caught the attention of Europe’s elite and it would be no real surprise to see him making the move to one of the big clubs in the coming years.

Juan Manuel Iturbe


The young Argentinean has already been compared to both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the age of only 17. He has made seven appearances for Paraguayan club, Cerro Porteno, but has already agreed a deal to move to Porto on his 18th birthday in June with rumours that it may be a stepping stone on the path to replacing Ryan Giggs at Manchester United.

The winger was one of the stars of the South American U20 Championships earlier this year and appears to be very comfortable with the ball at his feet and has an eye for a pass. Whether he can live up to the high expectations remains to be seen, but the move to Portugal should be the first step on his rise to the top.

Jean-Marie Dongou


The young Cameroon striker has been rapidly progressing through the Barcelona youth system. At only 15-years old, he has become the first player since Lionel Messi to represent Barcelona in three different age groups this season and is regularly playing against players three years older than himself.

He is lightning fast, powerful and a natural finisher and looks to be the next great hope of Cameroonian football. He has already scored well over 100 goals in the past couple of years at youth level and hit a stunning 20 goals in 14 days last month in the matches that he played in.

Whether he can continue his progression remains to be seen, but he has an excellent opportunity at one of the best clubs on the planet.

DW

Milos Raonic: A New Star is Born

As Milos Raonic sent down another booming first serve, a cry of yes went up from the crowd. The return from Fernando Verdasco nestled in the net and in only his eighth ATP tour-level tournament, the young Canadian had his first title. At only 20 years old, he is one of the most promising prospects in the men’s game.


He has arguably the most devastating serve in tennis at this point in time. Against Fernando Verdasco, he served down thirteen aces, adding to the 45 that he had served in his previous three matches. He was hitting his first serve 69% of the time, winning 87% of those points. There were an additional twenty service winners, as well as numerous points where he had an easy put-away. His fastest serve hit 149mph.

Fernando Verdasco is one of the top players in the world, but his inability to get close to the Raonic serve drove him insane. As he admitted, that was the difference in the match.

However, Raonic was not just about the serve. His forehand was a real threat at times and his composure under pressure was impressive for such a young and inexperienced player. At 6-2 down in the first set tie-break, he remained calm and was able to reel off six straight points to turn the match on its head. At break point down in the second set, he kept his head and hammered down yet another service winner.

It has been a meteoric rise for Milos Raonic. When he played his first ever ATP tour main draw match around 18 months ago as a qualifier in Montreal, he was ranked at number 679. However, victories in qualifying against world number 79, Teymuraz Gabashvili, and world number 113, Michael Llodra, made people take notice. But it was his performance against the world number 10, Fernando Gonzalez, that really stood out and marked him as one to watch. He eventually went down 6-4 in the deciding third set, but finished the match having won more points than his illustrious opponent.

He disappeared back to the challenger and futures tour for the next year before losing his next ATP tour level match against Victor Hanescu in August last year. However, it was in Tokyo in October that we saw further glimpses of his talent. Ranked at 200, he beat higher ranked players, Thiago Alves, Marsel Ilhan and Florent Serra, as he came through qualification to reach the second round, where he would meet world number one, Rafael Nadal.


He did not embarrass himself despite going down in straight sets. He earned more break points than the Spaniard and returning better statistics both on serve and receiving. However, it was the Spaniard’s experience on the big points that led to a 6-4, 6-4 victory. After the match, Nadal praised Raonic claiming that he was destined for the top.

However, it was the Australian Open where he shot to the attention of tennis fans worldwide. After coming through qualification, he dispatched Bjorn Phau and 22nd seed, Michael Llodra, in straight sets, before coming up against the world number 10, Mikhail Youzhny. He stunned the tennis world by beating him comfortably in four sets to set up a meeting with seventh seed, David Ferrer.

For a while, it looked as though he might be set to repeat the feat. After taking the first set 6-4, people began to believe. However, Ferrer was able to up his game and reel off three sets to take the victory. However, his performances suggested that success was not far away.

After a disappointing tournament in South Africa, he headed to Silicon Valley to play in the SAP Open. He was only broken once in the entire tournament and did not drop a single set. Whilst his returning game still requires some work, his serve appears almost unbreakable at times and it puts enormous pressure on his opponent.

It also gives him the edge in tie-breaks. He has won nine out of his last ten tie-breaks. It means that the pressure is on players to break him during the set as his serve almost guarantees him success in the decider. It also suggests that he is mentally strong to hold his nerve during the breakers. If we compare his statistics with fellow big server, Ivo Karlovic, the Croat has won five of eight this year.

How high Milos Raonic can go in the rankings is yet to be seen. However, it would be a huge surprise if he was not to break the top twenty at the very least. He began the year ranked number 156. Barely seven weeks later, he is expected to be named the world number 59 when the new rankings are released next week. He has beaten two top ten players already this year.


Whilst his serve is his major weapon, he has more to his game than that. However, his ground strokes, particularly his backhand, still require work, but if he can improve these, then a top ten ranking is easily within reach. His next match is tomorrow in Memphis, and is an intriguing rematch with Fernando Verdasco.

Whatever happens in that match, his triumph in San Jose marked the arrival of a new star in the tennis world. Remember the name of Milos Raonic.

Why Should Footballers Show Loyalty?

Whenever a player decides to leave a club for a higher pay deal at another club, fans always label them a ‘greedy, money-grabber’, who should have shown more loyalty to his current club. The latest big transfer of Fernando Torres from Liverpool to Chelsea is a prime example.


At Liverpool, it is believed that Fernando Torres was earning in the region of £110k per week. A large sum of money, but now he has made the move down south to Chelsea, he has increased that dramatically to an enormous £175k per week.

The response of former Liverpool striker John Aldridge today sums up the often-taken view of many people.

“Torres is simply a mercenary who has gone for a huge pay rise. Liverpool fans stuck by him this season. They made excuses for his poor performances, about his injuries still affecting him. But all the time Torres appeared to be taking the club and the fans for a ride.

“Once he had put in a transfer request Liverpool were right to let him go. There's no point keeping someone who doesn't want to be there. Maybe Liverpool are better off without him.”

The first point to make is that he then goes on to praise Andy Carroll and says that he is the right type of player for Liverpool and could give a lot more than Torres did. However, surely the same argument could be made about Andy Carroll as he made for Torres.

Carroll has said in the past that he is happy at Newcastle, but when it came to it, he was happy to make the move to Liverpool where he has over doubled his wages. He put in a transfer request when push came to shove. Yet, Torres is a mercenary whereas Carroll is progressing his career.

In his entire career at club level, Fernando Torres has only ever won one trophy – the Spanish Segunda Division back in 2001/02. For a player of his calibre, it is a fair desire to want to challenge for trophies and only the most deluded of Liverpool fans will claim that he would be more likely to win trophies had he stayed.


Even ignoring the ambition part of it, why should a player show loyalty to their club? Unless they have an actual link to the club, then at the heart of it, the club is merely an employer.

Why should Fernando Torres show any loyalty to Liverpool FC? A career in football is fairly short in the big scheme of things, so you have to make the most of it while you can.

If a high-flying lawyer was offered the chance to double his salary by switching to a rival company, he would and nobody would even think that he should have shown loyalty to his previous employer. So why exactly should a footballer be any different?

Loyalty also works two ways. It is difficult to argue that players should show loyalty to a club when the clubs so often show no loyalty toward the players. Liverpool showed little loyalty to the likes of Paul Konchesky, Albert Riera, Ryan Babel or Alberto Aquilani in recent months, shifting them onto other clubs because they weren’t in the club’s plans anymore.

If the club will show so little loyalty to players, then it is difficult to argue that the players should show any great loyalty in return. You are required to be loyal to your club, but only if you are able. They will certainly not be loyal to you when you are not able.

It is interesting to hear this from the wife of former Cameroon international footballer, Lucien Mettomo. She described how she had been shipped out to a dozen cities over a few years with no control over where she lives or how long she will live there.


People look at the likes of Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard as being role models for being one-club men throughout their careers. Further afield, we see the likes of Paolo Maldini at AC Milan, Iker Casillas at Real Madrid and Francesco Totti at Roma. All players who have spent their whole career at the same club.

These players have a close affinity with the clubs, having come through their academies, and in most cases, being supporters of the club since they were young. However, there is also a common theme amongst those players. They are all playing at the top clubs in the world.

Do people seriously think that if Paul Scholes had been at his home-town club, Oldham, he would have shown the same loyalty? Of course he wouldn’t. He is a top player and wants to win trophies and succeed. To do this, you need to play for the top clubs.

For a top quality player, the only time they will show loyalty is if they have an affinity with the club and are already at a top club. But then, can we really call it loyalty? Could they really find a better deal and be more likely to win trophies elsewhere? Or are they just already at the peak of their chosen profession?


In the end, fans have a great loyalty to their own club. They automatically assume that the players at the club should show the same loyalty. But offer almost any of those fans the opportunity to switch jobs in exchange for doubling their salary and I can guarantee that 99.9% of them would jump at the chance.

For professional footballers, football is their job and the club is their employer. There is no more loyalty from them than from any other professional to their employer. So we should not expect them to show any great loyalty to their club.

Is the Football Transfer Bubble About to Burst?

In one incredible day, three Premiership clubs turned what had been a relatively quiet transfer window on its head. With over £130m spent on new players in the space of around two hours between 9pm and 11pm, it delivered a hammer blow to the argument that an era of austerity and financial management was beginning to edge into football in England.

With the upcoming implementation of the new UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations at the beginning of the 2011/12 season, it was believed that clubs were beginning to prepare for them by curbing their spending and cutting large earners from their wage bill. Instead, it seems to have served to create the most incredible and volatile transfer window in history.


The deal to bring Fernando Torres to Chelsea from Liverpool was in the region of £50m and makes him one of the most expensive footballers in history. Whether or not it can be argued that there is some value in that deal, it is an incredible amount of money. If we add in the signing of David Luiz from Benfica, Chelsea splashed out almost £75m in the space of about 30 minutes late on Monday night. All this came only hours after the club announced losses of £70.9m for the previous season.

And if the Torres deal seemed overly extravagant, the £35m deal to bring Andy Carroll to Liverpool from Newcastle is surely the most overpriced transfer in history. He cost well over twice what Newcastle paid to sign Alan Shearer fifteen years ago. Almost £10m more than Wayne Rooney cost. You could have signed arguably the best striker on the planet – David Villa – and had a couple of million left over.

It is crazy that the British record transfer is for a player with only 80 senior matches under his belt and with only one international appearance to his name. Indeed, he cost more millions than he has scored goals in his entire career since making his senior debut five years ago.


However, Liverpool are hardly a club to worry about in this situation. Despite spending over £58m on new strikers in one day, when you factor in the sales of Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel, they have a net spend of only £1m. Whilst the fees that they have been paying are over-inflated and simply obscene, financially they have spent almost nothing.

Chelsea are the club that are under most scrutiny today. £75m spent despite announcing huge losses seems almost unthinkable to the average person. Chairman Bruce Buck announced recently that the club were on course to meet the regulations once they are implemented.

The club slashed the wage bill by around £20m in the summer by selling and releasing the likes of Deco, Joe Cole, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti, but given that Fernando Torres is on a reported £175k per week, that increases the wage bill by over £9m per year.


We can assume that David Luiz must be on fairly decent wages. If we conservatively assume that he is on around £60k per week, which is likely to be on the low side given that he is a Brazilian international signed for over £20m, we can add another £3m to the total.

That means that the two new signings have increased the wage bill by a minimum of £13m. If we include the wages from their only summer signing, Ramires, who is earning a reported £4m per year, this takes it to £17m. In other words, they have almost completely cancelled out the savings they made in the summer.

So, where is the savings likely to come from? Under the new regulations, injections of money from owners will be limited to €15m per year (around £12.8m). So we can write off that much from the deficit, making it a far more manageable £58.1m to cover.


Success naturally leads to more money – it is a general rule of not only football, but business in general. However, last season Chelsea won the double. So realistically, no further domestic success would be possible, and to budget on achieving that feat every year would be highly unrealistic.

They only reached the last 16 of the Champions League, which would have led to a large fall in revenue, given that they have become accustomed to reaching the semi-finals at least in recent seasons. The loss of two home games, plus the additional revenue that comes from success in this competition would potential help to cancel out some of the losses, but relying on continued success in this competition is a risky proposition.

Finishing in the top four of the Premiership is an absolute minimum for Chelsea to even think about meeting these new regulations. Without the Champions League and the money that comes with it, Chelsea would be in severe problems.

However, another problem they will now face is how the new regulations deal with player transfers. Chelsea cannot simply write off the spending from this transfer window as a simple lump sum payment now. Rather, they must amortise the fee over the course of the player’s contract.

Therefore, given that both Fernando Torres and David Luiz have signed five year contracts, the transfer fee would be split evenly over the period of the contract. In other words, they must mark down a cost of £15m per year for the next five years for these transfers.


This adds another £15m each year that Chelsea must try and cover in order to break even and fulfil UEFA’s new regulations.

Chelsea are hoping that they have cut the deficit by recent changes, including having increased ticket prices by over 10% over the summer, reduced bonus payments for the players, a new deal with Adidas that will increase sponsorship payments from around £10m per season to around £20m per season, and increased income from TV revenue.

However, the bright point for Chelsea is the question of whether UEFA will actually stringently enforce the regulations. Currently, the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Barcelona would all fail under the regulations. Would UEFA really ban them from European competition? Would they have a Champions League without a number of the biggest names?


Even if they do enforce it, there are a number of caveats built in. For the 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons combined, clubs can overspend by €45m so long as it is covered by an injection of equity from the club’s owner. For the next three year period, they can overspend by another combined €45m, then €30m for the next three years, then €15m, and only then must clubs actually break even.

In other words, clubs do not actually have to break even for another 14 years. They can continue to make losses, albeit steadily reducing losses all the way until 2025. And to add to this, if clubs can show that they are heading in the right direction and moving toward breaking even, UEFA would reduce the sanctions.

As far as I can tell, that is a major get-out-of-jail card. For example, if Manchester City replicate last year’s losses of £121m in the first year of the new regulations, but cut this to a mere £110m in the second year, they could avoid being banned from Europe because they have cut their losses and are moving in the right direction. No matter that they have lost a nine-figure amount – they are trying hard.


The new regulations are a good thing in so far as they look to curb the spending in football which have risen to even more unbelievable levels in an incredible couple of hours on deadline day. However, there are other problems with them that will be explored at a later date.

Chelsea face a major battle to meet these regulations and their long-term plan of breaking even by 2010 has clearly failed spectacularly. Whether they can continue to look to cut their costs without sacrificing success on the field is unknown, but they have to try to fulfil the new requirements or risk the wrath of UEFA and Michel Platini.

Again, whether he would follow through with his threats remains to be seen, but can the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City take that risk. Surely not, which means that the 31st January 2011 could be marked down as the final peak in the ridiculous bubble that has been seen in football over the past decade.