Youth Prodigies

Nobody expected a world class player, but there was hype on Dawid Janczyk some years agon (someone called him 'the polish Rooney')
 
Samuele Dalla Bona,Sonny Pike,Benoit Pedretti,Kerlon,Vicente,Fabio Rochemback

that Sonny Pike story could be the saddest story in football history


YouTube - Fantasy Football League - Sonny Pike


Whatever happened to Sonny Pike?
I find child prodigies fascinating. They seem to fall into (roughly) four categories:

The Potential Fulfillers (Rooney, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Sachin Tendulkar)
The Almost Great (Joe Cole)
The Disappointer (Xavier Portillo, Ivan de La Pena, Anthony Le Tallec)
The 'Crash & Burner'

Perhaps the most interesting group, is the last group where the youngster just crashes out of the game. Some include Nii Lamptey (another note, I promise), Sebastian Deisler, Owen Price, Cherno Samba etc but a British one that springs to mind is Sonny Pike.

I remember Pike appearing on Blue Peter when I was in my early teens. Apparently, the buzz was so great there was also a BBC TV documentary about him. This, remember, was around the time that Ajax were going great guns in the Champions League - that great team of Davids, Blind, George, Kanu, Kluivert, Overmars et al. Sonny Pike was a British boy, perhaps a year younger than myself, who had been signed up by Ajax aged 7.

Now everyone knows that Ajax have, arguably, the greatest youth development structure in the world and they were miles ahead of everyone in this field during the mid-1990s. For a British boy, remembering European concerns over British technique and tactical awareness, to be picked up at 7 is an astonishing tale.

He was lauded, in his early teens, as the next Best. People who saw him suggested that he was the best British teenager ever to kick a ball. However, during his teens, he spiralled into depression and eventually left the professional game. A bit of googling says that he is studying in Dundee, coaching the odd team here and there and playing fives. A sad tale - I do hope that he's happier now, doing whatever it is he is doing.

Part of this, I suppose, is down to development - Owen Price kept Rooney out of the England boys team but Rooney has developed into a better player. Players develop in different ways - the best player at 12 or 15 isn't necessarily the best player at 21 or 25 (look also at the number of schoolboy internationals who don't go onto play for the national team, whereas there are many who don't excel at schoolboy level but do play for their national team). Price, according to tittle-tattle, is now playing in Sweden.

People develop at different times in different ways. Also, what we look for in a very young child playing football is vastly different to the things we look for in a professional footballer - professionalism, attitude, tactical awareness, reading of the game - whereas technique and ability on the ball are the things we tend to look for in younger footballers.

The pressure of being a footballer effects each person differently and one must imagine that the pressure of being a young genius, being tipped to be 'the next Best' in Pike's case, as almost unbearable. How we look after these youngsters is crucial... for the game but more importantly for them.
 
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My opinion is telling some one they are the "next [blank]" is like putting a limit on their abilities, we should tell the kids not to worry about the shadows of the greats and set out to become their own damn legacy, to tear up the book and build there own present and future, the same way their past had brought them to the point of their career, they didn't play in kids football as the next big thing, they just wanted to be as good as they got; no expectations and no pressure just them and 21 others all playing football and enjoying it.
 
Craig Cathcart, James Chester and Ryan Shawcross

As United youth products this trio were expected to be a big success, had been earmarked as the successors to the Ferdinand-Vidic domination.. However while all 3 are highly respected at each of their new clubs none have hit the heights expected, with Shawcross coming closest.
 
Sure. While they weren't supposed to become the 'Greatest' players, a lot was expected of them.

Jaoad Zairi is of course another my old Moroccan friend. :P
 
Anasie10 said:
He wasn't that much overrated
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Maybe you are right, however in Argentina him and D'Alessandro were considered future stars and european press wrote a lot of speculations about them in early 00's.

And if you played Football Manager in those years you should know in FM he was a future star :LOL:
 
PLF said:
Sure. While they weren't supposed to become the 'Greatest' players, a lot was expected of them.

Jaoad Zairi is of course another my old Moroccan friend. :P
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there are tons of disappointing moroccan players and zairi is not in the top of the list lol :D
 
El Hamdaoui for example, with the right attitude he could've had a better carreer.
 
It was De Boer who excluded him from the A team and now he's in Fiorentina and I hope he'll do well !
 
El Hamdaoui is a good forward but yeah he was never hyped up to be the next superstar or anything. Not even when he was young and Tottenham bought him! He basically had a good couple seasons in Dutch league before that and a great couple season with AZ as Damjan knows very well ;) later but that was about it.

Even Helder Positga whom Spurs got as a youngster too after that CL victory with Porto was never hyped up that much, let alone Mounir.

Postiga had more hype around him than the Moroccan and I think it's fair to say they both failed to live up to that hype but at the same time like Amineken said, it's not like they were supposed to be HUGE stars either, so at least it's not that big a disappointment. :P
 
The last goal I remember Ryan Babel scored was that screamer against Fiorentina... after that he just kind of dropped off the face of the Earth.
 
He was quite hyped here since he went to Tottenham from Excelsior (who played in the bottom of the second division at that time)

I suppose Dominic Adiyiah can be placed on the list now aswell.
 
i was wondering why the hell Jordi Cruyff wasn't mentioned? the kid basically made a career out of his dad's name played for Barça, Alavés (the best time to play for them too), Man U but never really lived up to his legend.

This is makes wonder how well will Benjamin, Enzo or Maldini's kid perform on the near future?
 
Jordi Cruijff was a very decent player, he only had to bear the burden of his name. It was far from an advantage.

In Belgium: Jonathan Blondel (who once played for Spurs).

The Brazilian player who played for Betis Sevilla.

Nii Lamptey, Freddy Adu, Romelu Lukaku.
 
A bit early to be writing off Lukaku isn't it?

The Brazilian you're thinking of must be Denilson right? I also don't think he lived up to the hype, but was surprised to see he still managed 61 caps for Brazil during a time when Brazil were really strong.
 
His first name name is Gay and his last name is ASSulin by the way. :P

He's straight though.








I think... lol

p.s. Just kidding, his first name is actually Gai.
 
Michael Mancienne, just showed up in my career mode playing for HSV.. was touted as the great succesor to Terry while st chelsea. Well now, he's an average player playing in a average German team.
 
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