Many footballers dread turning 30. It casts a shadow that signals to the player that his best days are behind him, and that his time at the top is ticking. Players have their physical attributes decline, such that their speed, strength, and stamina, while others lose that cutting edge that made them so successful earlier in their career. Regardless of what happens, the factors generally lead to clubs making the decision more often that not to part ways in favor of younger talents. For a particular type of player, using aging as criteria to discard or not play that player is misinformed, as it can represent the culmination of all that players abilities.

In recent years, the deep lying playmaker has reemerged as a key part of some teams tactics. Other teams use a pivote when building up, using a midfielder dropping into the defensive line while the full backs push higher into midfield. Either way, a reliable passer in the deeper areas of midfield when building up and attacking has become paramount to success at the highest levels.

As the emphasis on possession increased in the late 2000’s and into the early 2010’s, the need for these passers increased for the top teams. This led to some players having their careers revitalized. Players who were previously marginalized by a club or country were now seen in a new light. Others bloomed late and suddenly were seen as quality players.

The dominant teams and managers in Europe during this transformation found their solutions within their club. Pep Guardiola overhauled the playing personnel and showed his trust in the players brought up in La Masia, FC Barcelona’s famed youth academy. As a result, players such as Xavi, Andres Iniesta, and Sergio Busquets rose into the echelon of world class players in the eyes of many pundits and fans due to their various competition wins. Louis van Gaal transformed Bastian Schweinsteiger from a winger to a midfield orchestrator. The midfield performances of an aging Paul Scholes, even though they were more spread out than earlier in his career, spurred Manchester United to consecutive Champions League finals in 2008 and 2009.

Other clubs found exactly what they needed at the hands of other clubs. 30 year old Konstantin Zyryanov rose from mid table football at Torpedo Moscow, only to become the focal point of Dick Advocaat’s Zenit Saint Petersburg side. He would lead them to UEFA Cup glory in his first season at the club in 2008. Guus Hiddink was then wise enough to make him a key part of Russia’s EURO 2008 Squad, with his performances leading him to be named in the team of the tournament. Most notably however, the impact that 32 year old Andrea Pirlo had when he made his move to Juventus when his contract at AC Milan expired in 2011 cannot be forgotten. The successes of Juventus in the following years can be attributed to many reasons, but the play of Andrea Pirlo and how Antonio Conte and Maximilano Allegri accommodated him into their sides was one of the most important.

These stories for the most part all have a common theme. All of these men transcended the idea that a player can no longer play at a high level when he enters his thirties. Position players frequently decline as they enter their thirties, oftentimes unable to keep up with the increasing pace of the modern game. Their physical attributes aren’t what they used to be in prior years. Players often use the cliche: “My mind wants to do one thing and my body ends up doing another”. That is a natural byproduct of years of rigorous training and playing. In turn, such a struggle to keep up with the tempo is not a surprise. That is, except for those players who set the tempo.

“A good midfielder has eyes in the back of his head, that’s the secret in a nutshell” – Ernst Happel, Former Manager of Hamburger SV (1981-1987), Netherlands (1978), Club Brugge (1974-1978, and Feyenoord (1969-1973)

A quality midfielder has a plethora of abilities that makes him a key component of his side. His passing abilities are needed for proper ball circulation in the build up and breaking through the opponent’s defensive lines. In order to be effective, close control of the ball is required, and comfort in tight spaces in compulsory. Defensively, their positioning protects the back four and blocks the access to forward options. The ball is recovered in form of interceptions and tackles, alongside implementing pressing traps designed by the manager.

As Ernst Happel says, what makes a top midfielder is the “eyes in the back of his head”. Essentially, this means knowing where the space is, the location of your teammates, and that of your opponents at all times. However, it’s what is done in response to that information is what really makes a top midfielder. Knowing the exact action needed for a particular moment is the mark of a great player. It is rare however that the know-how required for every scenario the game throws at a player is intuitive. It requires years of training, trial and error, and learning on the job. In other words, it requires some element of experience.

“I’d love to be faster. Physically I’m limited, but I’ve survived by using my head.” – Xavi Hernandez, FC Barcelona midfielder (1999-2015)

As players advance in age, many of them improve their tactical understanding of the game. Those who survive at the top the longest do not do so because of their physique and technical abilities exclusively. Slower midfielders similar to Xavi survive due to their football brain, reflective in their quick decision making, anticipation, and positioning. These abilities improve with experience and exposure to game situations, so the right game action can be taken. For a midfielder who specializes in ball circulation and retaining possession, these are vital attributes to have at the top level.

In addition, the development of the mental aspect of the game goes hand in hand with the aging player. As running speed decreases, the need for taking up good positions and being precise with your movements increases. Those who maintain a high playing level as they age work in a smart manner rather than purely covering distance. This is a trait acquired as they have gotten older and learned more about their trade in the center of the park. It’s why some players who are slower have more longevity. Since they cannot rely on their physical gifts to succeed, they needed support from their brain. The knowledge doesn’t deteriorate, so a footballer with tactical acumen can continue to play at a high level well into his 30’s provided he maintains match fitness.

As Xavi said, it was how he survived and turned into one of the great midfielders of all time while being an instrumental component to Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona and the following teams after. It makes sense that his career took an upswing relatively late in his career, as the attributes needed for him to succeed had to be developed.

Due to these factors improving with age, it can be determined that the peak of this type of midfielder is later than the average footballer. A report from columnist and author Simon Kuper indicates that according to his data that attackers enter their peak around age 23 and age 25 for defenders. This period continues until the age of 31 for both sets of players. Upon revision, the passing midfielder represents an outlier to the data gathered by Kuper.

Before the data involving a passing midfielder is discussed, there are some aspects of Kuper’s report which should be addressed. While Simon Kuper’s study of the age distribution at the highest level of the world is applicable, there are some inherent flaws to it. The first of which is the sample size of the study. Kuper selected 100 players from 7 clubs during the 2010/11 season, who at the time were the clubs fighting for top honors such as the Champions League. The sample size needs to be larger and include top clubs from a wider variety of countries (3 clubs from England, 2 from Spain, 1 each from Italy and Germany were used in Kuper’s report) to truly indicate when top-class athletes enter their peak. He writes it himself that it was a “small little study” designed to provide an overview of the age of top footballers. For the quick study to be improved, perhaps the players of the 20 best international teams in the world should have been surveyed when collecting data. Not only would a plethora of data be collected from a pool nearly quadrupled in size, but more countries could have data collected as well. This data could be cross-referenced and compared to see if there are any cultural differences with how age is perceived at the top level, or if some countries have players who peak earlier than others. While European club football is now the highest level of the game, an international team, at least in theory, is composed of the best players a country has to offer. In other words, there would ideally be more top level players in the survey.

However, the larger flaw of the collection were the methods used to determine a peak. Kuper used the amount of appearances a player made for those clubs and used the data to calculate the average age of a player in his pool. The performance of those players was not taken into account whatsoever. The best players are likely to be the ones playing the majority of games, but that doesn’t mean the all of players playing are necessarily at their best.

Determining when one’s peak begins/ends is largely subjective in nature. Players more or less enter the best playing days of their career, then a bad game or ongoing drop in form determines that a player is “past it”. However, the increasing prevalence of analytics and data in football is changing the way players are perceived. To determine the peak of a player, one method of determining such a point in a player’s career is to use Goalimpact.

Goalimpact, or GI for short, is a top down algorithm based measurement of a player’s contribution to his team. Goalimpact measures a player’s contribution to his team by calculating the impact he has on a goal difference per minute basis. Rather than using statistics of individual actions such as goals, passing accuracy, or take ons, it simply takes into account the result generated from that player on the field. According the database, the average player has a GI of around 100, while the best player in the world would score around 190. The algorithm is not perfect, but it does show which players are generally very important to their team’s success, which is what a passing midfielder should be at the top levels.

Using Goalimpact’s database to find the career paths of six passing midfielders, it can be determined that they enter their peak closer to age 26 or so, and start to exit their peak around age 32 or 33. The sample size itself is small, but that is for two reasons. First, I don’t have complete access to the database, and second of all, these players are among the few midfielders who have not been alienated from the highest levels (all featured in the CL except Britton) as they have aged.

Above is the graphical representation of the careers of Xavi, Paul Scholes, and Andrea Pirlo in Goalimpact. Using these graphs, it can be seen that their peak according to the algorithm lies in the years between 26-32 for the most part, with Scholes defying conventional logic and playing at his high level until 34, and continuing a gradual decline down to 135 at age 37(!). Xavi’s highest GI rating of approximately 164 was registered in late 2009, just months before his 30th birthday. While these three are exceptional footballers who could walk into the starting XI of almost any team on the planet in their prime, it still took a longer time for those abilities to be fully put to use for their teams, reflective in the time period of their highest GI ratings.

In the GI curves of every player, there typically is a downward slope as the player gets older, as a player sees his average goal difference per minute decrease for a multitude of reasons. Andrea Pirlo defies this trend. Thanks to the system in place at Juventus when he arrived, he ends up defying the standard trend that comes with aging. Rather than experiencing a rapid downward fall in his graph, he experiences up and down fluctuations of his GI, similar to the sort that Xavi had during his marked out peak. To defy that trend indicates a high level of performance must have taken place from Pirlo, yet his average couldn’t rapidly rise because of the amount of minutes played throughout his lengthy career.

It’s simple however to take three of the finest midfielders to make a point that their peak was slightly later than most other footballers. Therefore, the Goalimpacts of three other midfielders who have been instrumental to their team’s successes are seen in the graphs below. Midfielders like Michael Carrick and Zyryanov are very talented players, yet they will not have the lasting legacies like Pirlo and Scholes will. Leon Britton is the other player demonstrated, as his midfield quality was never quite spotlighted until Swansea City entered the Premier League in 2011, when Leon was 28 years old.

At first glance, it’s clear the career paths of these midfielders fit the idea that a passing midfielder generally peaks later on in his career. While Michael Carrick has a path similar to most footballers in his indicated peak, he like Andrea Pirlo is not aging at the rapid curve seen on the Goalimpact of other footballers. That can be explained by the importance he carries to Manchester United under Louis van Gaal. Despite the downward spiral as a result of David Moyes’ managerial tenure, his GI is making a recovery. Last season, the Red Devils won 72% of their games when Michael Carrick was involved in the match. Now age 34, he looks to be a important fixture for the season ahead, with his age not serving as an obstacle to leading Manchester United on the pitch.

Britton and Zyryanov are great examples of what can occur if clubs show faith on a player of their type, despite the age they were when the transfer took place. For Britton, he spent half a year away from Swansea City after eight years at the club, moving to Sheffield United, a fellow Championship side. After making a U-turn back to Swansea in January 2011, both Britton and Swansea City achieved great things almost immediately. Brendan Rodgers led the side up to the Premier League via a playoff win, and stayed in the Premier League the next season by playing an admirable possession style for a club of their stature. The style saw the Swans become the sixth most successful side in all of Europe when it came to passing. At the heart of that was Leon Britton, who at a time had the highest passing percentage of all players in Europe. His GI rises accordingly, and continued to rise as Michael Laudrup replaced Rodgers after the Northern Irishman left for Liverpool. Swansea City resembled a movement to a more possession oriented game in Great Britain, and Leon Britton was a catalyst of that team.

Konstantin Zyryanov, as discussed earlier, was important in Zenit’s UEFA Cup truimph of 2008, and Russia’s semifinal run in the European Championships only a month later. He is widely seen as a late bloomer in his homeland, when that may not be really quite an accurate description for him. His growth over that year should be seen as the final product of years of training and a couple of managers (who were coincidentally Dutch) who were smart to give a key role to Konstantin. From there on, his performances showed the value of having a midfielder of his quality in your side.

Goalimpact should be used to assess player development patterns, such as determining a peak. Kuper’s report wasn’t as comprehensive as it could’ve been, and to be fair to him, the piece he was writing was to suggest that Landon Donovan was simply too old to perform well at the World Cup. It was written, probably in a hurry, in light of Donovan’s removal from Jurgen Klinnsman’s 30 man roster for the 2014 World Cup. Yet that method of data collection should be retired, and Goalimpact should be used instead to determine a player’s peak, rather than individualized collection of data based on on field actions. Appearances don’t necessarily mean performance, and a manager’s goal is to put out a team that wins the match. What Goalimpact measures is how important a player is to winning, and an indication of his peak should be that he plays well, his team wins. That is a mark of a great player.

“I want players who can make decisive moves in small spaces, I want them to work as little as possible to save energy for that decisive action.” – Johan Cruyff, Played for and managed Ajax (1964-1973, 1985-1988) and FC Barcelona (1973-1978, 1988-1994)

Playing football in the vision of Johan Cruyff is no easy task, as it requires a certain type of player. In addition to needing technical proficiency, the team needs to be in sync on all matters when it comes to transitioning from one stage of play to another. Each transition, such as going from build-up to chance creation, can be called a “decisive action”, to reference the quote above.

In the vision of Cruyff, he wants a team of players who increase their work intensity during these transitions, and rests while his team is either in possession, or using stoppages of play when necessary. The team’s tempo speeds up at opportune times to punish their opponent, with the other team unable to react to the change of pace.

Therefore, an older passing midfielder is not only able to play the game Cruyff imagined, but is ideal. Successful older footballers tend to utilize their energy in more efficient ways, so that they can use their limited energy when needed. While playing in smaller, tighter spaces, less distance needs to be covered. A style that is built around using these spaces effectively is auspicious for a slower, older player from both a physical and practical standpoint, as it puts him in a position to use his best attributes, while not requiring him to exert his body too much.

A player who fits this characteristic almost identically is the famous Carlos Valderrama. The Colombian deep lying playmaker hardly moved off of the ball and walked around the pitch at a sluggish pace at times. Yet he controlled games in his career because of his ability in tight spaces when it came to ball protection, and the ability to play a final ball to break the last defensive line. When “El Pibe” kept the ball, he did so by using his energy in a conservative way, as Valderrama was never a remarkably quick player. However, he was quick with his head and with his feet, which was the only thing that mattered on the pitch.

Essentially, these sorts of older players are wrongly subjected as being past their best days when in fact, they can still play at a high level. While the players profiled in this piece for the most part are incredibly gifted footballers that will go down as among the best of their time, part of that assessment is because of what they were able to achieve in their later years. For clubs that discard these types of players at an age where they can still contribute to a team winning top honors, there are stories of rival club paying the dividends of the individual class of that player.

In the 2014/2015 season, Bayern Munich bought 32 year old Xabi Alonso, coming off of an embarrassing performance at the World Cup for Spain, in which the defending champions were knocked out at the group stage. When Toni Kroos was bought for Real Madrid, it appeared as if Alonso’s days at the top were over. However, an injury crisis in Bayern’s midfield forced Pep to dive into the transfer market. Some were baffled at the signing, especially at the £8 million transfer fee. Guardiola had other ideas though…

“We need a player with his quality and vision. I know he’s 32 but that doesn’t matter in this position, where you need intelligent players, rather than the legs and stamina for the flanks.” – Pep Guardiola on signing Xabi Alonso for Bayern Munich from Real Madrid in August 2014

Pep Guardiola knew that it would turn out to be a bargain for his side, and Alonso proved to be a key player for Bayern over the course of the season. He knew that age for that type of player hardly matters when it comes to the abilities that they bring to a side. Regardless of the wide variety of opinions on Xabi Alonso and his overall effectiveness in his passing decisions, he showed in multiple games this year that he is still one of the game’s premier passers of the ball.

Guardiola and Bayern can be pleased with the transaction, as they got a top quality player at a cut price, mainly due to his age. This transfer can act as a paragon for the value that can come from signing a quality playmaking midfielder in his 30’s, as the characteristics that made him great have likely deteriorated very little. For clubs that are trying to find value in the transfer market with restricted budgets (I’m looking at you, Brentford), the best value of all might be these sorts of players discarded wrongly due to their age. While wages for these sorts of players may be high, the cost saving aspect is the transfer fee, which typically resembles the bulk of money being paid for a player in any sort of transaction. It is a move on the field that can gain results in the short term, and save money for the long term. In other words, it’s the perfect signing for those who wish to replicate Billy Beane and his “Moneyball” recruitment policy.

“Taking people for granted is not a mistake you are necessarily aware of at the time… It was in my mind for too long that Paul (Scholes) was coming to the end of his career.” – Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United Manager (1986-2013)

It happens to the best of us. Sometimes people are overlooked for a variety of reasons which seem ridiculous in hindsight. Sir Alex Ferguson regretted not playing Paul Scholes as much in the concluding seasons of his career, as he had just assumed that Scholes could no longer perform at the highest level because he wasn’t getting any younger. However, that shouldn’t happen to a player in the mould of Scholes, Zyryanov, Xabi Alonso, or any player with a play style similar to those top class names. They can play at a high level for a long time, because the skills that come with being successful at that position allow it. Hopefully the managers who are in charge of them understand that, and not take them for granted. Otherwise, they run the risk that some other club can unlock the best of his remaining playing days, which could be some of his most productive.