Ndiaye, Globetrotters-Level Moves and Revealing Soccer Stats

YOU’RE TELLING US THERE’S A CHANCE?

Unless you’ve missed the video of Iliman Ndiaye pulling off a unusual dribbling move at Everton’s training ground, you should check it out. In executing a move so spectacular that it would have fit right in at a Harlem Globetrotters friendly display, the skill instantly ended what was meant to be a casual practice to wrap up what had been – up to that point – an informative discussion about how amateur players can get another opportunity after being dropped from professional academies.

Ndiaye, who competed in amateur leagues directly before being recruited by Sheffield United at 19, is perfectly positioned to speak on this topic. “Don’t concentrate on the rejection and one day your luck is going to arrive,” he told a young player just before executing said spectacular skill on his victim, in doing so clearly demonstrating the gulf between Premier League and amateur footballers he had been attempting to dispel.

Ndiaye joins a list of professional footballer to take things that little bit too far. Peak Michael Owen happily embarrassing a 13-year-old goalkeeper in front of a smouldering Neville Southall is clearly the benchmark in this unique area – but the former Liverpool man is far from the only offender. Both Christian Eriksen and Shinji Kagawa have made young children cry with a series of merciless tricks, although it’s thought that the latter was at least motivated by the Japanese player’s social media disgrace caption – “this frustration makes a person stronger” – and the accompanying hashtag of #friendship.

Kagawa’s former Dortmund teammates Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Nuri Sahin at least had the decency to be defeated against 100 children when the group competed during the interval of their final match for BVB. A Real Madrid XI that included Cristiano Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso showed less mercy when they took on 109 Chinese kids in a like situation. But back to the start, it’s approximated that only 180 of the 1.5 million boys currently playing competitive youth leagues in England will ever appear in the Premier League, a sobering statistic for aspiring footballers across the country.

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DAILY HIGHLIGHT

“Soccer carried me but it never abandoned me because I never abandoned my dream. I went from team to team. The passion for soccer propels you. I couldn’t always see where it was leading me. But today I have the answer” – national team manager Veljko Paunovic pauses briefly from his training to share his journey.

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