If you take a list of the best strikers of in the history of the game, one thing is generally (of course not always!) consistant throughout all of their careers — they were scoring league goals, and a lot of them, early (see below for a big list). You would expect this pattern to continue through to the present day, so the great strikers of the future 10 years should already be here, now, scoring lots of league goals before the age of 22.

But where are they? Are they told they are too selfish for the modern game and their souls extracted after years of academy boot camp? Who knows! Out of the top 6 leagues last year, I only counted 6 players who reached 15 goals aged 22 or younger, across all the leagues! They were :

(League goals only)

Harry Kane — 21 goals (21 years), Mauro Icardi -22 goals (21 years), Domenico Beradi — 15 goals (20 years), Memphis Depay — 22 goals (20 years), Neymar — 22 goals (22 years), Diego Rolan — 15 goals (21 years).

Aaaand that’s all folks. There’s apparently your class of the best “strikers” of the next 10 years. Bundesliga didn’t have any (and only one 22 or under player to reach 10 goals, Son Hyeung Min)

It’s not the most inspiring list, and it’s so small, and some of the players on there aren’t really even centre forwards. This is like American Football suddenly losing all it’s Quarterbacks and replacing them with wide-receivers. Yes, that’s a terrible analogy, but strikers have always been a focal point of football idoltry because they score all the goals. I think it’s a strange concern when we’re breeding out players who used to score all the goals.

Here’s a a grab bag of great strikers of yore. As you can see, they were all pretty much scoring for fun in the league before the age of 22, and usually before even that.

(All league goals)

Owen 18 goals (20 years)
Batistuta 13 goals in 21 games (20 years)
Fowler 28 goals (20 years) (25 goals at 19)
Cole 12 goals in 12 games (21 years) 34 goals (22 years)
RVN 31 goals (22 years)
Romario 19 goals in 24 games (22)
Inzaghi 13 goals in 21 games
Shevchenko 19 goals in 23 games (21 years)
Trez 18 goals in 27 games (20 years)
Raul 21 goals (20 years)
Anelka 17 goals (20 years)
Sutton 25 goals (20 years)
Torres 19 goals (19 years)
Lineker 17 goals (21 years)
Pele 33 goals (20 years)
Muller 15 goals (20 years)
Klinnsman 15 goals (20 years)
Baggio 15 goals (21 years)
Van Basten 37 goals (21 years)
Salas 27 goals (20 years)
Eusebio 28 goals (21 years)
Shearer 16 goals in 21 games (22 years)
Ian Rush 32 goals (22 years)
Eto’o 17 goals (22 years)
David Villa 20 goals (21 years)
Maradona 25 goals (20 years)
Papin 20 goals (22 years)
Henrik Larsson 34 goals (21 years)
Rooney 16 goals (20 years)
Thierry Henry 17 goals (22 years)

Vieri, like a lot of strikers who are known for their strength was typically later bloomer, scoring 24 in 24 games when he was 24 years.

Anyway as you can see, top strikers are usually always scoring a lot of goals by the time they’re 22. At the moment we have hardly any at all, let alone ones tipped to be great.

Do I think players learning first how to play football by being told how to do so in an academy and club setting first is causing this loss of strikers? Absolutely!