Ndiaye, Harlem Globetrotters-Level Moves and Sobering Football Stats

COULD IT ACTUALLY HAPPEN?

If you haven’t seen the clip of Iliman Ndiaye executing a backwards bouncing trick at Everton’s training ground, it’s worth viewing. In executing a move so impressive that it would have fit right in at a Harlem Globetrotters show game, the skill immediately shut down what was meant to be a casual practice to wrap up what had been – up to that point – an illuminating interview about how Sunday league footballers can secure a fresh start after being dropped from professional academies.

Ndiaye, who played Sunday League football directly before being picked up by Sheffield United at 19, is perfectly positioned to discuss this topic. “Don’t focus on the rejection and one day your luck is going to materialize,” he advised a young player just before using said ninja move on his teammate, in doing so vividly showing the gap between Premier League and amateur footballers he had been working to minimize.

Ndiaye isn’t the first professional footballer to go slightly overboard. Prime Michael Owen cheerfully overwhelming a young shot-stopper in front of a fuming Neville Southall is obviously the gold standard in this specific category – but the ex-Anfield star is not alone in this. Both Christian Eriksen and Shinji Kagawa have reduced toddlers to actual tears with a series of merciless tricks, although it’s thought that the latter was at least motivated by the Japanese player’s social media apologetic post – “difficulty breeds resilience” – and the accompanying hashtag of #friendship.

Kagawa’s previous Borussia partners Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Nuri Sahin at least had the good grace to be defeated against 100 children when the group played during the mid-game pause of their farewell game for BVB. A Real Madrid XI that contained Cristiano Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso were not so generous when they faced 109 Chinese kids in a comparable scenario. But returning to the beginning, it’s calculated that only 180 of the 1.5 million boys currently playing organized youth football in England will ever appear in the Premier League, a sobering statistic for aspiring footballers across the country.

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FEATURED STATEMENT

“Football took me but it never deserted me because I never stopped believing. I went from team to team. The passion for soccer drives you. I couldn’t always see where it was directing me. But today I have the answer” – Serbia coach Veljko Paunovic takes time out from his training to discuss his career.

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