Players age. Player Peak Performance: Analyzing Age Curves Across Football Positions

At what age do football players reach their peak performance. How does player age impact abilities in different positions. Why is measuring peak age in football more complex than in other sports. What metrics can be used to assess player performance across age groups.

Understanding the Concept of Peak Player Age in Football

The notion of a “peak” player age in football refers to the period when players exhibit their highest level of performance and skill. While age is often considered just a number, in the world of football, it carries significant weight. Determining the precise age at which players reach their peak is a complex task, as individual development rates vary considerably. Some players may shine early in their careers, while others bloom later.

Factors influencing a player’s peak age include:

• Physical development
• Technical skill acquisition
• Tactical understanding
• Experience gained
• Position-specific requirements

To gain insight into how age impacts player performance, it’s crucial to identify appropriate metrics that encapsulate overall effectiveness on the field.

Challenges in Measuring Football Player Performance

Assessing player performance in football presents unique challenges compared to other sports. Unlike baseball or basketball, which have well-established metrics like Wins Above Replacement (WAR) or Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), football lacks a universally accepted, comprehensive performance indicator.

Why is measuring performance in football more complex?

• The game’s fluid nature
• Highly specific roles on the pitch
• Positional variability
• Lack of a single metric applicable to all positions

These factors make it difficult to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to player evaluation across different positions and age groups.

Position-Specific Metrics and Their Limitations

While certain position-specific metrics can provide insights into player performance, they often fall short in offering a complete picture. For instance, goals or expected goals per 90 minutes might be suitable for evaluating strikers but prove inadequate for assessing defenders or midfielders.

Take-ons per 90 minutes for wingers illustrate how playing style evolves with age. Young wingers in their teens and early 20s tend to attempt more dribbles, showcasing their explosiveness and energy. As they age and lose some of that explosiveness, their tendency to take on defenders decreases significantly, necessitating a change in their role on the field.

However, these metrics have limitations:

• They focus on specific actions rather than overall effectiveness
• They don’t account for defensive contributions
• They may not reflect a player’s true value to the team

The Case for Using Minutes Played as a Performance Indicator

Given the challenges in finding a comprehensive performance metric, minutes played emerges as a practical alternative for assessing player effectiveness across age groups. This approach offers several advantages:

1. It accounts for player durability, which tends to decrease with age
2. It implicitly reflects a player’s quality, as managers generally field their best players
3. Data on minutes played is readily available for multiple seasons

By analyzing minutes played across different age groups and positions, we can gain valuable insights into when players typically reach their peak performance levels.

Age Curves Across Different Positions in Football

Analysis of Premier League data over the past decade reveals intriguing patterns in age curves across various positions. The study considers both starting and substitute minutes, with player ages calculated as of August 1 for each season. Players are categorized into seven positional groups based on their primary roles on the field.

Key findings from the age curve analysis include:

• Goalkeepers tend to peak later and have longer careers compared to outfield players
• Central defenders and defensive midfielders often maintain high performance levels into their early 30s
• Attacking midfielders and forwards typically reach their peak in their mid to late 20s
• Wingers and full-backs, who rely heavily on pace and explosiveness, tend to peak earlier

These age curves provide valuable insights for clubs in terms of player recruitment, contract negotiations, and long-term squad planning.

Factors Influencing Peak Age Variations

The variations in peak ages across different positions can be attributed to several factors:

1. Physical demands: Positions requiring high-intensity sprints and frequent changes of direction (e.g., wingers) may see earlier declines in performance
2. Technical skills: Roles that rely more on tactical awareness and technical ability (e.g., central midfielders) may allow for sustained performance at older ages
3. Experience: Positions benefiting from accumulated game knowledge (e.g., center-backs) often see players peaking later
4. Injury risk: Positions with higher injury rates may experience earlier declines in playing time
5. Adaptability: Players who can modify their playing style as they age may extend their peak performance period

Understanding these factors can help clubs make informed decisions about player development and career management.

Implications for Player Recruitment and Development

The insights gained from analyzing age curves have significant implications for football clubs in various aspects of player management:

Recruitment Strategy

Clubs can use age curve data to inform their transfer policies, considering:

• Optimal age ranges for different positions
• Potential longevity of players in specific roles
• Balance between immediate impact and long-term value

Contract Negotiations

Understanding peak age patterns can guide contract decisions, including:

• Contract length based on expected performance trajectory
• Salary structures aligned with projected peak years
• Performance-based incentives tailored to age-related expectations

Youth Development

Age curve analysis can inform youth academy strategies by:

• Identifying optimal ages for position-specific skill development
• Guiding decisions on when to promote young players to the first team
• Informing loan strategies to maximize player growth during crucial developmental years

By leveraging these insights, clubs can optimize their squad composition and player development pathways, potentially gaining a competitive edge in the long run.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

While the analysis of age curves based on minutes played provides valuable insights, it’s important to acknowledge its limitations:

• Lack of quality differentiation: Minutes played don’t distinguish between high and low-quality performances
• Contextual factors: Team quality, league competitiveness, and tactical systems can influence playing time
• Individual variations: Some players may deviate significantly from the average age curves
• Limited historical data: The analysis is based on recent Premier League seasons, which may not be representative of long-term trends

Future research directions to enhance our understanding of peak player ages could include:

1. Incorporating advanced metrics: Developing comprehensive performance indicators that account for both offensive and defensive contributions
2. Cross-league analysis: Comparing age curves across different leagues and playing styles
3. Longitudinal studies: Tracking individual players throughout their careers to identify personal peak ages
4. Position-specific performance models: Creating tailored metrics for each position to better capture peak performance
5. Injury impact assessment: Analyzing how injuries affect age curves and peak performance periods

As data collection and analysis techniques continue to evolve, our understanding of peak player ages and their implications for football management will undoubtedly improve, leading to more informed decision-making in the beautiful game.

What age do players in different positions peak?

They say that age is just a number, but in football, that number is extremely important.

The notion of a “peak” player age — the time at which they are at the very best of their abilities — isn’t an overly new concept. Most fans recognise when players are raw, great or past it. Putting a number against that, however, isn’t overly straightforward.

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For example, how do you find out when the peak happens? And don’t players develop at different rates, with some being early starters and others being late bloomers? Do players in different positions peak at different points?

It’s all a bit of a headache, but here The Athletic dives into the science of player ages, considering how to measure them and what they are.

To get an understanding of how player age impacts performances, it’s important to first decide on a good metric to incapsulate performance in the first place.

This is a far easier task in other sports — particularly baseball and basketball — that have better, publicly available top-down metrics that can give an overarching notion of a player’s impact on his team’s ability to win. Metrics such as Wins Above Replacement in baseball or Value Over Replacement Player in basketball have their flaws, but mapping player ability by these metrics across the years can show the impact of age on performance.

In football, it’s not as straightforward. For a start, the games are more fluid and the roles on the pitch are highly specific, even getting to the point when players that are playing in a given position do not play like someone who would traditionally play in that position at all (yes, I’m looking at you, Joao Cancelo).

Due to that positional variability, there’s not a single figure to explain performance for every role and position on the pitch in the same currency. Goals or expected goals per 90 are perhaps ideal stats to use to measure strikers, but that’s a poor stat to use for, say, centre-backs.

Different metrics could be considered per position to get an overall understanding of how things change from a stylistic point of view, however. For example, here’s how many take-ons per 90 wingers average at different ages in the Premier League, inspired by previous work done by Colin Trainor.

Notably, as wingers age and lose their explosiveness, their tendency to take on defenders plummets. The young, high-energy players in their teens and early 20s are keen to dribble past as many players as possible, but their roles have to change a lot in their early 30s as they offer less of a direct one-on-one threat.

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But metrics such as those don’t give a good indication of a player’s general effectiveness. They only offer an insight into how much (or little) of a given action they did on the field at a given age.

Expected threat — and similar models that indicate how a player’s actions increase their team’s chances of scoring — might be a good alternative to use as it offers a common measure of value added across positions. Sadly, though, these possession value-type models only cater to the on-ball abilities of players, completely ignoring the defensive aspects of their performances.

The solution, then, isn’t some fancy all-encompassing metric that tries to look at a player’s true value on the pitch. Such a model doesn’t exist, at least in the public sphere, and likely won’t for many years. No, the best stat to use here is just plain, basic minutes played.

There are several reasons for that. For a start, part of the impact of ageing on players isn’t just that their abilities drop off, but also that their bodies become less and less durable. It is a cliche, but the best ability is availability, and that’s a big factor when it comes to rating a player’s ability at any age.

Second, there is some implicit notion of a player’s quality captured in their minutes played. Managers pick their teams for many different reasons — form, injuries, suspension, player preference, tactics — but more often than not, they’ll want to play their best players to win a game. The mere presence of a player on the pitch, therefore, says something about how good they are.

Finally, it’s also something that is fairly accessible for the past few seasons in the Premier League, and to calculate anything to do with peak ages and age curves, plenty of data is required.

So in terms of minutes played, when do players look to peak? The chart below — inspired by the original work of Michael Caley — looks to answer that.

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Both starts and substitute minutes are taken into account here from Premier League matches over the past decade, with the player ages on August 1 of every season taken into account. Players are split into one of seven different positional groups depending on where they featured in games.

The graphic below maps all ages between 18 and 38 years old, broken down by position. The colours on each scale denote the share of the total minutes played for each age, over the past 10 Premier League seasons.

The redder that the age is shaded, the higher the share of total minutes played for that age within their position. 

Goalkeepers are the oldest positional group, with the latest peak age and plenty of players playing well into their early 30s too, as denoted by the lighter shading. It’s a position in which fewer opportunities are given to younger players, and experience seems to be prioritised over younger, fitter goalkeepers.

Centre-backs also peak relatively late, at around 27, with plenty of players featuring heavily in their late 20s and early 30s. As with goalkeepers, the nature of the role isn’t as comparatively physically demanding in terms of needing to hit top speeds or cover great distances. However, a player’s ability to read the game will improve with time, sometimes making up for the speed lost in a player’s later years.

On the other hand, full-backs peak far younger, with the majority of their minutes coming at 25. What’s interesting with full-backs — and deserving of an article in itself — is how the increasingly demanding nature of the role has impacted the age curve at the position. Full-backs are now asked to get up and down the pitch far more. They also need to be technically gifted and have a high level of tactical understanding. For that reason, they are likely to be one of the most athletic players on the pitch, which explains why fewer minutes are going to players in their late-20s.

It’s a similar story in central midfield, another position that requires plenty of ground to be covered at different speeds. The most common age for a player in this position is around 25, with a fairly large spread of players playing consistently between the ages of 24 and 30.

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As shown in the take-ons example previously, wingers and wide attackers hit their peak earlier, reaching the height of their powers around 26. It makes sense, then, that they see plenty of minutes in their early 20s and fall out of the game or are required to change position to stay in it by the time they hit their 30s.

Central attacking midfielders — or No 10s in non-data-speak — are the least common playing position on the pitch, as fewer teams are playing with a single playmaker these days. There’s a peak for them at age 26, but theirs is a position to take with a pinch of salt.

Due to their relative scarcity in the modern game, there’s something of a sample bias here, with just 1,098 players in the last decade playing in that position in a single season and there only being 55 player records with 1,000 minutes or more. There’s an early spike around 22 years old in the data thanks to this, with Ross Barkley, Christian Eriksen, Oscar and Dele Alli to name just a few all featuring heavily in the Premier League at that age.

Finally, strikers seem to have the most well-defined ageing pattern of all the positions. They rise to prominence in their early 20s and peak around 27, with only the proper outliers able to sustain themselves in the game past their early 30s. Similarly to centre-backs, their feeling of the game increases over time, but they are limited more by the physical drop-off in their late 20s and early 30s.

Taking all of this into account means that a rough band of “peak ages” can be formed for each positional group. This is calculated by taking the peak year and adding and subtracting a year from either side. For goalkeepers, any player aged between 27 and 29 will be considered in their peak. For full-backs and central midfielders, that’s any player aged 24 to 26.

With this data, a more custom squad profile can be built, showing a more appropriate peak age banding. Here’s what that looks like for Arsenal, with them having plenty of pre-peak players across the pitch.

Arsenal are a particularly pertinent team to consider because considering all players who’ve played 400 minutes or more in the league this season, Arsenal’s are on average 1.6 years away from reaching their peak, the lowest of any side in the league and almost double that of Aston Villa’s 0.9 years away from their hypothetical peak. At the other end of the scale are Watford, whose most common starters are 3.0 years beyond their peak on average, most likely dragged up by their veteran 38-year-old goalkeeper Ben Foster.

Over the next 10 days, we will be running individual pieces using the peak age of positions to look at the squad profiles of each Premier League club, and those we cover closely in the English Football League and Scottish Premiership.

(Photos: Getty Images; Design: Tom Slator)

League Age Determination – Little League

Your player’s league age is determined by the Little League Baseball® and Little League Softball® Age Charts. The dates for baseball and softball are different, but each determines the division in which your Little Leaguer will play this season. The Age Determination Date for a Little League Baseball player is the actual age of a child on August 31 of the current year. The Age Determination Date for a Little League Softball player is the actual age of a child on December 31 of the previous year.

League Age Calculator

Little League® Divisions By Age

• Players who are league age 4-7 are eligible to be selected to a Tee Ball team.
• Players who are league age 5-6 that have participated for one regular season in the Tee Ball Division are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division (coach pitch or machine pitch) team.
• Players who are league age 7-12 are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division team (player pitch, coach pitch, or machine pitch) for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide the age-cutoffs within this age grouping.
• Players who are league age 9-12 are eligible to be selected to a Little League (“Major”) Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may restrict this division to players who are league age 10-12 or 11-12.
• Players who are league age 11-13 are eligible to be selected to an Intermediate (50/70) Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Intermediate Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 12-13.
• Players who are league age 12-14 are eligible to be selected to a Junior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Junior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 13-14.
• Players who are league age 13-16 are eligible to be selected to a Senior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Senior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 15-16.

Those who are not included among the league ages listed above are not eligible for any baseball division in Little League® for the current season.

• Players who are league age 4-7 are eligible to be selected to a Tee Ball team.
• Players who are league age 5-6 that have participated for one regular season in the Tee Ball Division are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division (coach pitch or machine pitch) team.
• Players who are league age 7-12 are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division team (player pitch, coach pitch, or machine pitch) for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide the age-cutoffs within this age grouping.
• Players who are league age 9-12 are eligible to be selected to a Little League (“Major”) Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may restrict this division to players who are league age 10-12 or 11-12.
• Players who are league age 12-14 are eligible to be selected to a Junior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Junior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 13-14.
• Players who are league age 13-16 are eligible to be selected to a Senior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors (or district administrator, if the program is operated by the district) may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Senior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 15-16.

Those who are not included among the league ages listed above are not eligible for any softball division in Little League® for the current season.

The local league will establish the age structure and levels of play for the Little League Challenger Division based upon the ages and abilities of the participants.

• Players who are league age 4-18 are eligible to be selected to a Little League Challenger Division team. If a player is still in school and the league is not operating a Senior League Challenger Division, a local league may allow players up to age 22.
• Players who are league age 15-above, and who have aged out of the Little League Challenger Division are eligible to be selected to a Senior League Challenger Division team.

• Baseball Divisions
  

  • Players who are league age 4-7 are eligible to be selected to a Tee Ball team.
  • Players who are league age 5-6 that have participated for one regular season in the Tee Ball Division are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division (coach pitch or machine pitch) team.
  • Players who are league age 7-12 are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division team (player pitch, coach pitch, or machine pitch) for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide the age-cutoffs within this age grouping.
  • Players who are league age 9-12 are eligible to be selected to a Little League (“Major”) Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may restrict this division to players who are league age 10-12 or 11-12.
  • Players who are league age 11-13 are eligible to be selected to an Intermediate (50/70) Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Intermediate Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 12-13.
  • Players who are league age 12-14 are eligible to be selected to a Junior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Junior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 13-14.
  • Players who are league age 13-16 are eligible to be selected to a Senior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Senior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 15-16.

  Those who are not included among the league ages listed above are not eligible for any baseball division in Little League® for the current season.

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• Softball Divisions
  

  • Players who are league age 4-7 are eligible to be selected to a Tee Ball team.
  • Players who are league age 5-6 that have participated for one regular season in the Tee Ball Division are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division (coach pitch or machine pitch) team.
  • Players who are league age 7-12 are eligible to be selected to a Minor League Division team (player pitch, coach pitch, or machine pitch) for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide the age-cutoffs within this age grouping.
  • Players who are league age 9-12 are eligible to be selected to a Little League (“Major”) Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may restrict this division to players who are league age 10-12 or 11-12.
  • Players who are league age 12-14 are eligible to be selected to a Junior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Junior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 13-14.
  • Players who are league age 13-16 are eligible to be selected to a Senior League Division team for the regular season. The local league board of directors (or district administrator, if the program is operated by the district) may decide to have a different age-cutoff for this division, provided it is within the grouping noted. For example, the Senior Division in a local Little League could be limited to players who are league age 15-16.

  Those who are not included among the league ages listed above are not eligible for any softball division in Little League® for the current season.

  View More

• Challenger Divisions
  

  The local league will establish the age structure and levels of play for the Little League Challenger Division based upon the ages and abilities of the participants.

  • Players who are league age 4-18 are eligible to be selected to a Little League Challenger Division team. If a player is still in school and the league is not operating a Senior League Challenger Division, a local league may allow players up to age 22.
  • Players who are league age 15-above, and who have aged out of the Little League Challenger Division are eligible to be selected to a Senior League Challenger Division team.

  View More

How old are doters – The average age of Dota 2 players

The average age of dota 2 players from your pubs is 27 years old on average The age of pro players varies from 17 to 32 years The oldest doters in eSports are coaches

ordinary doters and the average age of the Dota 2 pro-scene. Today, doters are not schoolchildren, but fathers of schoolchildren.

Guides statistics players

Alliance.Loda real photo of 2022 without maxi aging

Defense of the Ancients or the first DotA appeared in March 2003 as a map for WarCraft: The Frozen Throne, and today, in 2023, the first dota is 20 years old . Already in December 2005, DotA was quite popular, the official GetDota website was opened, where the latest versions of the map and updates were published, a little later, the leading game studios paid attention to the idea of ​​protecting the ancients.

In September 2009, the developer of the first DotA IceFrog and Valve agree on a joint future and the development of Dota 2 began. 0009 in 2023 Dota 2 turns 12 years old . The official release of Dota 2 took place only on July 9, 2013, but by that time, life in the game had been in full swing for a long time and NAVI were already the champions of the first The International.

A new scheme for making money on Dota has been revealed

Over the years, Dota has had ups and downs, in 2023 Dota 2 has more than 81 million users, and about 1 million players play Dota every day. Previously, we published a detailed study of how many dotas are in the world, where we showed online dotas by year and region, and in this article let’s talk about the age of doters . How old are the players from your publics, and how old are the Dota 2 esports players?

The average age of an ordinary doter

Based on age statistics on Steam and polls on cyber forums, we have compiled a graph of the average age of players from your public. In 2023, an ordinary dota player is not yet retired, but the average age in public is 27 years old , players under 20 years old still prevail over the age of 40+ in DotA, but the trend towards aging of players is clearly visible.

Average age in Dota 2 pubs

Speaking of the industry as a whole, the average age of PC game players according to the Global Gaming Awards 2022 is 32, which is higher than the age of doters. In summary, the average gamer today is no longer a young person, but the Dota 2 community remains on average younger than the global gaming community.

As in classical sports, Dota 2 professional performance is the destiny of the young. For analysis, we took all the players of the first division of Winter DPC 2023, these are 6 regions or 48 teams or 240 pro-players. For 2023 The average age of esportsmen in DotA is 24.35 years.

The age of the participants of the first division DPC 2023

Sorted by region, the oldest esports players in Southeast Asia are 25.05 years old on average, and the youngest pro-players in the CIS are 22.65 years old on average.

The oldest doters in eSports

Historically, the oldest pro-doters occupy coaching positions. Today, Dota 2 veterans train top esports clubs, for example xia8 – PSG.LGD, and Heen – Team Secret.

Coaches are the oldest in Dota 2, photo 2022

Speaking of the oldest players , we are talking only about active players in the pro scene. We have great respect for retired legends like LightOfHeaven or Vigoss, but this article is about active players today.

The oldest pro doters, all photos from 2022

Secret.Puppey, B8.Dendi and HR.Solo continue to be among the oldest players on the pro scene. All of them will turn 33 in 2023.

Kuroky

Kuroky, 30 years old, photo from Nigma 2023 team announcement

The legendary German player, Nigma.Kuroky, has been playing since the first DotA. Kuroky will celebrate his 31st birthday in 2023.

Ceb

Sebastian Ceb Debs, 30 years old, photo from 2022

Two-time The International champion – Ceb, also known as 7ckngMad, continues to play Dota2 under the Old G tag, despite his 30 years.

The youngest pro-players in Dota 2

Speaking about the youngest talents today is wrong, without historical background. In Dota 2 pro-player Suma1l will remain forever young, who has been playing in competitive dota since the age of 15, and at the age of 16 he won The International 2015. In 2023, Sumail turns 24 years old.

The youngest esports players in DotA, photo 2022

There are no such young players left in modern DotA, the minimum age in teams is 17 years old , moreover, BZM and ATF turn 18 years old in 2023, and the CIS player Malr1ne will celebrate 19 years old in 2023 .

Pure

Pure, age 18, photo 2022

A young and promising CIS doter Pure managed to get to The International as a player at the age of 18. Pure is 19 years old in 2023.

depressed kid

depressed kid, 18 years old, photo from 2022

It’s not without reason that our region is considered the youngest in the world – another esportsman from Russia is at the top of the ranking of the youngest doters. HellRaisers player – depressed kid will be 19 years old in 2023.

You don’t need to play gray hair DotA to be successful – 23Savage case. Talon team player 23Savege, at the age of 20, has a top MMR, being the first in the world to break the 13k MMR bar.

Young and old Dota 2 teams

The youngest teams of the first division of Winter DPC 2023 from America – the average age of Evil Geniuses, the new roster with Chris Luck, was 20.7 years, followed by the 5RatForceStaff team, the average age in the team was the same 20.7 years . In CIS , the youngest team is Nemiga Gaming with an average age of 21.1 years. Of the top teams, the youngest today are the guys from Team Spirit.

Team Spirit players age

Player	Age	Date of birth
Yatoro	19 years old	03/12/2003
Larl	20 years old	01/22/2002
Collapse	20 years old	02/25/2002
Mira	23 years old	03. 11.1999
Miposhka	25 years old	11/30/1997
Medium	21.4 years old	–

Age of BetBoom Team players

The status of the oldest team was given to the TSM team, in which the average age of the players was 25.5 years, in second place is the Dendi team – B8 with an indicator of 24. 9 years, the veterans from Nigma close the top three – the average age of the team is 24.5 years.

Age of Tundra Esports players

During its 20 years of existence in DotA, a whole generation has changed, today those children who stood at the origins are already teaching their children to play. In his 30s, the author of this article does not shy away from playing a couple of DotA rolls when he is free from writing good content for you.

21 out of 30 players were kicked out of Cameroon’s youth team. All because of failed age tests – did you see that? – Blogs

Did you see it?

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Determined by the wrists.

Cameroonian football is in the midst of yet another scandal: most of the players on the youth team have not passed the age verification test.

The African Football Federation has announced that 21 of the 30 players called up to the U17 squad for the African Youth Championship qualifiers have failed the MRI tests required to verify their age.

Players who fail the test will be replaced by other players.

“This measure is the result of strict instructions given by the President of Fecafoot [Cameroon Football Federation]. Their goal is to get rid of the falsification of civil documents, which in the past spoiled the image of the supreme body of Cameroonian football. Fecafoot strongly urges all involved to ensure that age ratings are respected,” the federation said in a statement.

The Cameroon Football Federation was wary of player age manipulation last summer when 44 players from eight clubs were called to Fecafoot for alleged age or identity fraud (yes, sometimes players impersonate other people) in a hearing on alleged age or identity fraud. Federation President Samuel Eto’o was determined to eradicate the problem. So far without success.

How is age determined?

For persons under 18 years of age, by MRI or X-ray of the hand. The procedure itself is called the determination of bone age – it indicates the level of biological maturity of a person.

During the examination, the doctor analyzes the obtained picture and compares it with the data recognized as the norm in the patient’s age group.

In persons over 18 years of age, age is determined by radiography of the clavicle. True, the technology is limited by high radiation exposure.

Age can also be determined from the teeth, the ilium and the head of the femur, but the last two options do not yet have standardized methods of assessment.

Has this happened before in Africa?

The extent of cheating in Cameroon’s youth team is staggering, but cheating scandals happen regularly in Africa – this is not a false stereotype.

•‎ Back in 1989, FIFA banned Nigeria from tournaments after it discovered that the dates of birth of three of its Olympic players were 1988 years are different from the dates of birth of the same players in previous tournaments.

• Cameroonian defender Toby Mimbo changed his date of birth more than once. For a long time he played for Paraguayan clubs, where he did not carry out any fraudulent manipulations with age. In 1996, Mimbo moved to the Turkish Genclerbirligi. The date on his birth certificate was June 30, 1974, although Toby was actually born 10 years earlier. At the 1998 African Cup, the date of his birth changed again – then in this column Mimbo drew 1970 year.

•‎ There is a curious story of Gambian Yusuf Yaffa . Since 2014, he played for the youth teams of Milan, Bologna and Eintracht, but in 2015 it was revealed that the player was 9 years older than indicated in his documents – they indicated that Jaffa was born in 1996 .