lazza
Well-Known Member
So, I browse the EDS forum from time to time, and the debate in a lot of the threads is the same: is player X at 17/18/19/20 years old ready for a taste of the first team? I can see valid points made for both sides of the argument.
But one question that always comes to mind is: how good are those players that do break through as a 17- or 18-year-old? What is it that makes them be able to step up a level at such an early age.
I remember seeing Paul Lake playing in his first couple of seasons when he was still a teenager, and you would never have guessed his age by his skill and style, but I have no idea how he made that step up to senior level and I wonder how he had been performing for the youth team that sealed the deal for the management at City to put him up to the senior team. And I don't think he spent any time anywhere on loan, either...
For those of you long-term watchers of our youth development, do those that make it as teenagers stand out from an
early age?
I remember seeing a kid at the high school my wife works at playing some completely mesmerising football at U16 level, being by far the best player on the pitch, and he was already on Middlesbrough's books (and plying in their U18s, I thin). When he left school, he stayed at Boro joining their academy full time, but he never hit the big time, and plays in the Scottish 3rd tier now...
But one question that always comes to mind is: how good are those players that do break through as a 17- or 18-year-old? What is it that makes them be able to step up a level at such an early age.
I remember seeing Paul Lake playing in his first couple of seasons when he was still a teenager, and you would never have guessed his age by his skill and style, but I have no idea how he made that step up to senior level and I wonder how he had been performing for the youth team that sealed the deal for the management at City to put him up to the senior team. And I don't think he spent any time anywhere on loan, either...
For those of you long-term watchers of our youth development, do those that make it as teenagers stand out from an
early age?
I remember seeing a kid at the high school my wife works at playing some completely mesmerising football at U16 level, being by far the best player on the pitch, and he was already on Middlesbrough's books (and plying in their U18s, I thin). When he left school, he stayed at Boro joining their academy full time, but he never hit the big time, and plays in the Scottish 3rd tier now...