Ndiaye, Harlem Globetrotters-Style Skills and Sobering Soccer Statistics

COULD IT ACTUALLY HAPPEN?

Should you have overlooked the clip of Iliman Ndiaye executing a unusual dribbling move at Everton’s training ground, it’s a good watch. By pulling off a move so impressive that it would have been appropriate at a Harlem Globetrotters show game, the skill quickly concluded what was meant to be a casual practice to conclude what had been – up to that point – an revealing conversation about how amateur players can get another opportunity after being released by professional academies.

Ndiaye, who featured in non-league games directly before being recruited by Sheffield United at 19, is ideally suited to speak on this topic. “Avoid dwelling on the rejection and one day your luck is going to come through,” he told a young player just before executing said spectacular skill on his victim, in doing so vividly showing the gulf between Premier League and amateur footballers he had been trying to bridge.

Ndiaye is far from the only professional footballer to take things that little bit too far. A younger Michael Owen gleefully humiliating a 13-year-old goalkeeper in front of a fuming Neville Southall is clearly the benchmark in this unique area – but the former Liverpool man is just one of many culprits. Both Christian Eriksen and Shinji Kagawa have made young children cry with a series of merciless tricks, although it’s believed that the latter was at least driven by the Japanese player’s social media disgrace caption – “setbacks build character” – and the related tag of #friendship.

Kagawa’s ex-BVB colleagues Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Nuri Sahin at least had the decency to lose their match against 100 children when the group competed during the half-time break of their farewell game for BVB. A Real Madrid XI that featured Cristiano Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso were more competitive when they took on 109 Chinese kids in a like situation. But returning to the beginning, it’s estimated that only 180 of the 1.5 million boys currently playing organized youth football in England will ever appear in the Premier League, a sobering statistic for young players across the country.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The game guided me but it never left me because I never abandoned my dream. I went from location to location. The devotion to the game drives you. I couldn’t always see where it was leading me. But today I have the understanding” – national team manager Veljko Paunovic makes time from his planning to discuss his journey.

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“Together with some colleagues and friends, I play a game of football each Friday afternoon. Our most senior member is pushing 80, while the most junior are in their late-20s. To ensure a good time for everyone, we have a basic guideline regarding the ability standard: you can be quick or talented, but preferably not both. We periodically have players who disregard this principle, but usually typically reduce them to our quality over time” – Lars Esbjerg.