What age does a player stop improving at?

[Psycho Sonny]

There's a lot of talk about x player has had z years of experience now and he is still not good enough, although slightly improving each year.

What makes you guys think that players just stop improving?

If you were to go by examples, zidane got better and better well into his career and only for the last year or so seemed that time had caught up with him, but he never stopped improving.

Its like education, it never stops, as you get older, you learn more and more each and every day. There is no limit to education. Obviously there are physical limits like speed and agility. But as a player gets more experience and learns more things, they can still improve.

Just look at Beckham and Giggs, the reason why they are a lot better than everyone around them at their age is due to experience, even when their pace and other attributes have deteriorated, they have perfected their passing and through balls and don't make the same mistakes they did when in their prime.

Now look at current examples, Anderson and Walcott have shown they are much better than they were last year, even though they have been at their club for several years.

Players never stop improving, as long as their heart is still in the game.

That is all.

Opinions?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Zidane improved, peoples experience makes their decision making better to a degree, but Zidane wasn't half as good a player at 25 as he was at 30+, he was the same player with the same ability and class, he was just a more refined version.

NO ONE goes from a poor player at 25 to a world class player at 35, theres rare instances a world class player is playing incredibly badly at 25 and has problems sorted years later, from 15-25 he has niggling constant injuries, or never gets to play 2 games in a row as theres a better player ahead of him, breaks a leg and takes ages to come back, everything finally gets sorted out, is finally fit, strong and is played every game and a new player shows, but I can't even think of an example of that off the top of my head.

Of all the worlds best players, almost every one showed every sign they were going to be THAT good before they hit 20, mostly long before. Ronaldo showed every trick he shows now, when he started at Utd, he was just more selfish, did one too many tricks. He's actually gotten better by doing less tricks and being more direct, he's also diving less and fighting harder but it was clear his potential was there for all to see early and his best season yet was, at 24 or so.

I can't think of any current top class player who wasn't very good young and had a massive turn around.

People get fitter, get more used to the league, theres a learning curve hitting first team from reserves, or joining a new league because players get used to how you play, and you get used to how they play.

The biggest difference is people perceptions of players, and how randomly they'll love a player for no apparent reason then decide that player is now crap. Song now seems to finally be getting called up for being stupid defensively, last year it was a Arsenal fan love in session where half the forum wanted to bear his children, this season its "does he ever not run forwards like a maniac, does he ever not foul in stupid places" etc, etc, next year they'll all be asking for him to be sold. Same happened with Denilson, he's rubbish, what a world class season, he's rubbish. Simple fact was, both were ALWAYS rubbish. Lennon, years of crap, 6 months getting lucky and still blowing cross after cross, a year of being crap.

Every manager or player who ever played with Zidane said he was something truly exceptional from the start basically.

Diego Forlan?

Probably had the best performance of his life last season for club and country and he couldn't score for UTD earlier on in his career.

Also Diego Milito had the best season's performance of his career last year too.

Forlan last year was 100 times the player he was at united.