From our special correspondent in Dortmund,
We had feared the worst when he saw his ankle crushed by a Gibraltar defender, when he had just scored for his first selection with the Blues, but we forgot the magic of youth, and its prodigious recovery times . Announced on the flank until the winter break, Warren Zaire-Emery finally returned on Saturday for the match against Nantes, and there is something quite singular in finding yourself relieved that a 17-year-old kid is well there for a decisive match for PSG in the Champions League. However, this is indeed the case, as WZE has established itself with authority in the Parisian midfield since the start of the season. There’s no longer an age to play for the big boys.
Le Titi represents a succession that takes up space very early in the Parisian squad, which has been considerably rejuvenated this season. His evening opponent, Borussia Dortmund, is not bad in this regard either. The BVB has a long tradition of young shoots launched into the deep end barely out of the nest, from Mario Gotze in his time (debut at 17) to the emblematic Youssoufa Moukoko, for whom the German League changed the rule so that he can play in the Bundesliga from the age of 16. At European level, he is still the youngest to have played a Champions League match, ahead of a tornado who arrived at the end of last season in the ranks of Barça, Lamine Yamal. In Italy, we saw even more precocious a few days ago with the big debut of Francisco Camarda in the AC Milan jersey at the age of 15 years and 8 months.
All these cases are of concern, because there is no shortage of examples of young people who were quickly labeled prodigies and who disappeared from circulation a few years later. Moukoko, now 19 years old, is not there yet, but his playing time has been reduced quite drastically this season, where he seems to be struggling. Aren’t we asking too much of players who are still teenagers? “In a professional group, what counts is performance. If a coach believes that a kid of 15, 16, 17 years old is reliable and can help his team win, he will not hesitate, says Tripy Makonda, launched at PSG at 18 years old and today coach of the club’s U11s. Parisian. Afterwards, we must take care of emotional and physical management. »
Talent, yes, but shoulders?
The question of physical wear and tear, already significant, took on another dimension with the serious injury of Gavi, victim of a complete rupture of the cruciate ligaments in November when he had already just completed two seasons with more than 40 matches. at only 19 years old. And the problem can arise even more as your career advances. “A professional player is never 100%. You still have a small injury, a little pain in your back, in your thigh, but you end up playing because the coach needs you, continues Makonda. These little poorly treated wounds, which never really heal, we recover from them even less well with age. This is how we wear out physically. » And mathematically, the earlier you started at a very high level, the more you expose yourself.
You should also be vigilant around the edges of the field. “These young people are teenagers who are given the status of professional players, without always asking themselves if they have the shoulders and the maturity to manage it,” explains sports psychologist Makis Chamalidis. They have to face new demands, the media, lots of things that they were probably not aware of before and which can be too burdensome. »
The (good?) example of Borussia
The names of Freddy Adu or Bojan Krkic come to mind, gifted people who ended up in depression, without even having broken through to the very high level for the first. “We think that young people of 14, 15 years old are adults in miniature. Sometimes we kill the players,” was alarmed a few years ago Monaco coach Leonardo Jardimwhile the Italian Pietro Pellegri, recruited for 25 million euros at not even 17 years old and with 10 Serie A matches under his belt, suffered one setback.
Those around you have an essential role to play in helping the player keep a cool head in the face of events, or teaching them to accept that you cannot please everyone even if you are very strong. From this point of view, things have improved in recent years. The best example surely remains Borussia Dortmund, where former player Lars Ricken takes great care of his players.
This is because the director of the BVB performance center is well placed to give some advice. Himself launched into the big leagues at 17, he reached his career peak only four years later, sealing Borussia’s victory in the 1997 Champions League final against Juventus with a lob over Peruzzi – elected ” goal of the century” by supporters on the occasion of the club’s 100th anniversary in 2009. The rest was much less successful, until his retirement from cars at the age of 30.
In an article recently published on the Bundesliga websiteRicken explained the philosophy of the BVB academy thus:
It’s not an amusement park, we’re not there to pamper young people, but to support them judiciously throughout their 70 or 80 hour week. Football should allow you to develop values such as team play, respect, resilience, which help you learn a lot about the world and life. Our goal is to develop young people so that they can succeed in all areas, not just football. »
A method that has proven itself, when we see how Borussia has supported in recent years the emergence of players like Ousmane Dembélé, Jadon Sancho, Christian Pulisic, without obviously forgetting the new monster of world football, Jude Bellingham. A sign that youthism is not necessarily a bad thing?
“Camarda, he’s 1.84m tall, is it that lunar to see him come into play in Serie A,” asks Kevin Nieto, scout and educator at ACBB, in the Paris region. We are not talking about a starter, there is no question of him playing every three days, he must continue to grow. Seeing him in the group and taking a few minutes of play can be part of a development process on players identified as “cracks”. The clubs understood that mental and human monitoring was essential. » See you in a few years to see if Julien Duranville, the last little marvel of Borussia bought for 8.5 million last summer in Anderlecht at just 16 years old, also meets these precepts.