Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

[Sonny Pike]

The 1988 entry has had me performing various google searches in a bid to disprove its accuracy. Thus far to no avail.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35690810

How come we can never get the fucker on the pitch then?

[garcia]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

he made his debut at 15, he's played a fuck of a lot of games. and that is probably why he gets injured so often now.

[ursus arctos]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Players in country with larger league, additional Cup competition and Cup replays in play more matches shock.

Film at Eleven.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Here's Tom with the weather.

[garcia]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

the list only counts league games. it's actually players who became regular first team players at a young age have played more games shock.

[ursus arctos]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Having a larger league still helps, though.

Though the whole "message" is questionable if one only counts league matches, particularly if they exclude matches that Spanish, German or French players would have for their youth/reserve sides at levels equivalent to that of MK Dons.

[Sonny Pike]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Ha. "Here's Tom with the weather"? Dear me.

I found it quite surprising. I hadn't banked on the greater intellect of Mr Arctos and Mr Gymshorts (although I'd like to hear more about this "country with a larger league", four of the 'Big 5' leagues play the exact same number of games).

Certainly every single other player on the list has a good deal better reputation for sturdiness than Aguero. I suppose you have Charlie Austin in there too, who managers seem to be fearful of signing, but even he's very rarely actually injured.

So I would put forward that it is at least mildly interesting. Naturally, if you disagree, you must speak forth. Perhaps responses can be achieved in a manner more similar to Garcia's, than the subsequent two posters.

[ursus arctos]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

I was looking at the full length of the "study".

Buffon, for instance, debuted in an 18 team Serie A, at a time when the equivalent English league had 22 clubs.

I never denied that it was interesting, though I think something that included all senior competitive matches would be more so.

[Sonny Pike]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Nonsense. You were being rude about my trivia relating to Sergio Aguero, in the process making a particularly tired joke ("Film at Eleven"? Come on, man). Which was pretty poor form in itself, except for the fact that you also made the complete apple sauce suggestion that there was some sort of "larger league" at play.

The last time the English league had 22 teams was 1993-1994. When Aguero was six years old. Serie A has had 20 teams for 12 years.

There's a human being at the end of every single one of these modems, Arctos. The more characterful thing to do would have been to apologise for what I am confident was only a brief drop in decorum. You may well still consider that option.

[jwdd27]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

I was surprised that Aguero would take top spot, would have thought that Bournemouth, Leicester, Watford would have a player like Simon Francis for 1985, where they've made a relatively early debut and played mostly 46 game seasons.

However those players (Troy Deeney is 2nd behind Aguero) don't also have 70 odd international games plus underage internationals to be factored in, travelling between South America and Europe several times a year. No wonder Aguero, and 3rd placed Alexis Sanchez, are starting to suffer with injuries/look a bit fucked now and then.

[Fussbudget]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Good grief Sonny, talk about taking things too personally. Take a deep breath, man.

[Various Artist]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Sonny, the general tenor of these boards can tend towards the airily dismissive (when not more busy being archly opaque or pedantically anguished), especially when people have been around for a decade and fired off a few tens of thousands of posts at each other. (I don't understand half of the meta-references, and still feel like a newbie around here plenty of the time.) You weren't being picked on particularly, you just wandered into the crossfire. Taking a sarcastic or passive-aggressive tone with your affront will probably sharpen people's focus, however. It might be nicer to engage with ursus about how you feel he's behaved; don't tell him, Pike. Especially not by calling someone by their 'surname' like that. There's a human being at the other end of the modem, too. Gently does it, eh?

[Sam]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

What VA said.

And if you'd asked me to guess which player out of all of those born in 1988 had played the most first team league games, Agüero would have been my guess, for the reason garcia mentions.

If you want something really impressive, try and look up some videos of what he was doing in the Argentine league at the age of 15. He was quite something.

[Kevin S]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Milan's new goalkeeper will be the answer for 1999 when it gets separately reported.

(Have we had our millennial footballer yet?)

[dalliance]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Youngsters eh. Gangster Octopus has got Global Hypercolour t-shirts older than most current Premier League players.

[Kevin S]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

England U-16 from November has millennials in it including a George McEachran of Chelsea, younger brother of Josh.

[3 Colours Red]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Kevchenko wrote: (Have we had our millennial footballer yet?)

Not entirely sure if this counts but just read in the Guardian's Knowledge column that Ellie Carpenter recently made her full international debut for Australia. Her date of birth is the 28th April 2000.

[Defensive minded]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Fussbudget wrote: Good grief Sonny, talk about taking things too personally. Take a deep breath, man.

It's OK to take things personnally when you feel you're being ridiculed, especially when you're relatively new. (However, I would advise anyone against demanding an apology).

Not surprised at all to see Milner in that list.

[Haribo West]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Kevchenko wrote: England U-16 from November has millennials in it including a George McEachran of Chelsea, younger brother of Josh.

Oh fuck, make sure no-one tells Richard Williams:

https://twitter.com/fistedaway/status/615089656393244672

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

I discovered recently that aguero has played more senior games than Di Michelis. And he's 36. And Di Michelis has played a lot of games.

[Ray de Galles]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Haribo West wrote:

England U-16 from November has millennials in it including a George McEachran of Chelsea, younger brother of Josh.

Oh fuck, make sure no-one tells Richard Williams:

https://twitter.com/fistedaway/status/615089656393244672

I think I know why his career faltered. Judging by the photo he had a severe meth problem :



.

[Sam]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Demichelis is all one word, TAB.

And a millennial is a person who came of age around the turn of the millennium, isn't it? That's the context I've always seen it used in before, anyway (and I've seen and noticed it used that way a lot, since I fall into that age group).

[3 Colours Red]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Sam wrote: That's the context I've always seen it used in before, anyway (and I've seen and noticed it used that way a lot, since I fall into that age group).

There's a bit more to it than simply being born in a certain time period (I've seen it used to refer to just about anyone born between the late 70s and 2000), it increasingly also seems to refer to having an over-inflated sense of entitlement.

I'd like to think I don't have the latter.

[Sam]

Slightly astonishing fact buried in a Dele Alli article

Oh absolutely, it's not an appellation I'm at all fond of or would use to describe myself, but I've largely seen it used to describe people who are born about three or four years either side of me, is all.

I think we both agree that that the first 'millennial footballer' would have made his/her debut some time ago, though.