Playing in the Premier League or in the top flite of any other topflight football league isn’t something players stroll into. Often, they come up through the club’s own football academy first before getting a big break in their late teens. Who can remember Michael Owen, who played on Liverpool’s youth team before exploding onto the professional scene and becoming the club’s joint top scorer in his first full season?
Alternative routes
Not everyone finds a place in the senior team, let alone the international team, so early and excels. Some players play in lower league teams and climb their way to the top, which sees them enjoy success in senior teams much later. Below are four players who bloomed later on the pitch.
Jamie Vardy
Leicester City striker and captain Jamie Vardy has made his way to the Premier League from the nonleague game and was 25 years old when he started playing professional football. Vardy was part of the Foxes’ winning 2015/16 campaign, which saw City crowned champions. When he was 33, he became the oldest player to ever win the Golden Boot award.
Whether Leicester City will repeat that feat looks unlikely. In fact, Vardy’s Leicester are tipped for relegation in this season’s betting markets, they are hovering uncomfortably above the relegation zone and are among the favourites for the drop.
Ian Wright
Retired Arsenal striker Ian Wright didn’t start his career at the club. Initially, he had triggered interest from Brighton and Hove Albion and Southend United, which were both lower league clubs then (Southend still is), but nothing came of it. While playing Sunday league football he signed a semi-pro contract for Greenwich Borough and then trialled for Crystal Palace. He earned a professional contract with the London side just before his 22nd birthday.
When Wright signed for Arsenal in September 1991 for £2.6 million, a club record, some had doubts about whether the transfer was a good move. Wright soon quelled those fears with a goal in the League Cup and a hattrick on his league football debut. He appeared 288 times for Arsenal, time enough to score 185 goals for the club. Only Thierry Henry surpassed it.
Didier Drogba
Didier Drogba, who moved to France from the Ivory Coast to live with his footballing uncle, didn’t turn pro until he was 21. While playing for Le Mans, he was studying accountancy at university. He then played for Guingamp, where he really found the net and caught the attention of Marseille, who wasted no time in signing him up. Playing for the French giants, especially with a chance of also playing in the Champions League, was too good to resist.
At Chelsea, who he joined in 2004, he achieved truly legendary status. The man from the Ivory Coast put in eight years for the team, playing more than 200 matches and scoring 100 hundred goals. This includes the winning penalty in the shootout of the 2012 Champions League final.
Luca Toni
Luca Toni is a footballing legend in Italy and played for 12 different Italian clubs. He didn’t enter the Italian Serie A until he was 23, but even that was for a brief spell. He then found himself in the Serie B with Palermo in 2003. That season he scored 30 goals and helped the Sicilians climb up to Serie A. Twenty more goals saw them qualify for European competition.
This goal-scoring machine made a controversial move to Fiorentina for a spell long enough to see him find the back of the net 30 times before moving to German side Bayern Munich. There he couldn’t stop scoring either and chalked up 58 goals in 89 games for the club.
Toni’s prolific goalscoring saw him earn his first international cap at 27. In the qualifying stages for the 2006 World Cup, he returned the national coach’s faith in him by scoring a hattrick for Italy. In the tournament itself he also contributed two goals, scoring twice against the Ukraine in the semifinals, and was part of the Italian squad that lifted that edition’s tournament trophy.
Just because a footballer starts their professional career late, it doesn’t mean they can’t break into the big leagues. Other players who have succeeded include Miroslav Klose, who in his 20s was struggling even to get into lower league FC 08 Homburg’s first team before later making his Bundesliga debut for FC Kaiserslautern, and Marco Materazzi, who, after some time in the lower leagues, finally, got a chance to sparkle for Perugia in Serie B. Materazzi also made a name for himself as a nontypical defender by breaking Italy’s record for the most goals scored by a defender (Materazzi made it 12).
