Newsletter

The craft of the goal resists the relief (Xavi Hernández Navarro)

Barça are looking for the necessary funding to make the signing of Lautaro Martínez, one of the most prominent strikers in the world, possible. The Barça club is still looking for buyers for some of its transferables – Philippe Coutinho, Martin Braithwaite and Samuel Umtiti are in the shop window – to reactivate talks with Inter Milan to recruit the Argentine striker, noted internally as the future relief of Luis Suárez. It is true that Lautaro, who will turn 23 this month, has qualities similar to those of the veteran Uruguayan striker, but it is also true that, with the numbers in hand, the international albiceleste is not among the top scorers in the Scudetto. With less than a day to play, he has 14 goals in 34 games, 21 less than Ciro Immobile, an old Lazio and football (30 years old), who has them all to head the Capocannoniere list in front of another expert in the field, Cristiano Ronaldo (35 years old).

What is happening in Italy is extensible to the rest of the major leagues on the continent. The goal is aging well in Europe. Attackers appear wanting to eat the world like Mbappé, the Norwegian Haaland, the German Werner or Lautaro himself, but the years go by and the great specialists resist in the front line and confirm that the useful life of the footballers is every time. longer. It’s no longer common for top-tier players to quit as they get older. Wrinkles and white hair are allowed, but less and less bellies. Now, to make up for the number of miles, professionals take more care than ever when they reach maturity and make it very difficult for coaches to undo the generational cap for the benefit of the younger ones. In other words, maybe Barça can sign Lautaro, but no one can assure the Argentine that if Messi and Suárez are well they will not play more matches and score more goals than him.

In fact, the 10th Barça player has just added his seventh Pitxitxi and nothing announces that next season he will suddenly play fewer minutes despite going on his way to 34. He has played every minute since the resumption of football and has been required not more 25 goals to be the top scorer in the league ahead of Karim Benzema, Gerard Moreno, Suárez and Raúl García. The Catalan, author of 18 goals with Villarreal, is the only member of this top five who is in his thirties, which once again shows that the goal-scoring profession resists veteranism very well. In Spain, this dynamic is not current, because last season directly the top five scorers in the league were over 30 years -Messi, Benzema, Suarez, Aspas and Stuani, in that order. Moreno has spent many seasons scoring goals in Primera, but his 28 years now make him an exception.

In the Bundesliga, another ever has topped the list of top scorers. With 32 years and an endless finishing repertoire, Robert Lewandowski has finished the German tournament with scandalous numbers: 34 goals in 31 games. Timo Werner, with six goals less, was the only one who was able to discuss the dominance of the Pole. For this reason, and because of his youth, Chelsea signed him this summer for 53 million euros. The German, trained in the lower categories of Stuttgart, has everything to dominate the areas now that he will start a new stage in the Premier League.

Mbappé and Neymar, one step below

The price paid by Werner in a context of crisis shows that the British championship is the one with the most financial resources. However, in this edition, the award for top scorer has not been for any of the three strikers of the champion, Liverpool: Mané, Salah and Firmino. Nor for another of the best young strikers in the world, Harry Kane, who was injured in January and has not been able to go beyond 18 goals. Jamie Vardy, 33, has won the Premier League Golden Boot with 23 goals, one more than Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. which also exceeds thirty. Among the top five in the ranking, the youngest is Raheem Sterling, of Manchester City.

In England, as in Spain, Italy and Germany, the old specialists have maintained their condition. Messi, Cristiano, Lewandowski, Vardy and Aubameyang, among others illustrious, continue to dominate the art of goal while their respective clubs are looking for ways to replace them. In Madrid, Mariano and Jovic had to play this role with Benzema, but they have not been able to knock on the door. Therefore, Florentino Pérez has to keep dreaming of Mbappé or Neymar to finally find a relief that will fill, when possible, the brand new Santiago Bernabéu. Both the Frenchman and the Brazilian are among the best strikers in the world and have not yet made their 30s, but they need to get out of Ligue 1, and the golden prison that is PSG, so that their merits have more appeal.

.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending