Cristiano Ronaldo refusing to call time because he knows Kylian Mbappe is coming for his records
Should Kylian Mbappe go on as long as Cristiano Ronaldo at the sharp end of football then France’s captain can expect to lead his team out at the 2038 World Cup, by which time even Emmanuel Macron will be little more than two years short of his nation’s official retirement age.
Mbappe v Ronaldo in Hamburg on Friday night could be the farewell to one of the greats of the European game, and the celebration of his young successor. There is enough of an age difference between the two men – 13 years and six months – that Mbappe’s childhood bedroom walls were festooned with pictures of Ronaldo, just as one imagines Ronaldo’s bedroom walls are now. The curious aspect is that Mbappe’s development has been even more precocious.
The great Frenchman has 82 caps and 48 goals for France at the age of 25 years and six months. Ronaldo, 39, who has amassed a record 211 caps and 130 goals for Portugal, reached the 82-cap mark in August 2011. At that point, scoring once from a free-kick in a 5-0 win over Luxembourg, he was 26 years and six months - one year older than Mbappe is now. That goal was Ronaldo’s 27th for Portugal – an impressive record but far behind the 48 that Mbappe has already.
All of which suggests, in theory at least, that Mbappe is on track to surpass even the giant numbers that Ronaldo has accumulated. The more pertinent question is whether Mbappe would wish to keep going for so long. Or indeed whether the French football nation, and its federation, would be quite so eager for him to pursue that quest for longevity in the same way the Portuguese have for Ronaldo.
The 39-year-old is once again expected to start this quarter-final, at his sixth European Championship. So too his team-mate Pepe, 41, winning his 141st cap for his country. No-one knows whether Ronaldo is prepared to go on to the World Cup finals in the United States and elsewhere in 2026 when he will be a similar age to Pepe now. His pursuit of bigger and bigger numbers in international football has started to feel a bit like the quest for eternal life. A generation of young Portuguese forwards waited for him to be substituted against Slovenia in the last-16 tie on Monday, but the moment never came.
Ronaldo is an outlier. A great footballer and also one of the world’s most recognisable individuals. There are lots of reasons why the Portuguese football federation and its incumbent manager might wish to buy into the story of Ronaldo, such a compelling figure for his nation. We may not see that combination of sporting figure and sporting brand for many years to come. Now that his connection with European football is long since broken, Portugal is his connection back to the European game and it is obvious why he is keen for it to continue.
It can seem, however, that the numbers have become the thing and that Portugal are in Germany to win the Euros with Ronaldo in the team regardless of whether that is the most effective way of accomplishing it.
Come the advent of his mid-30s, Mbappe may decide that time is up for his international career as a new generation snap at his heels. Injury may decide it for him. The game is likely to get ever more ferociously quick and competitive, but the developments in maintaining great athletes will also make strides too. As for the bigger picture, it is clear that something is happening.
In the Champions League, the strongest club competition in the world, the average age of the competing players is rising. According to Twenty First Group (TFG), the leading sports intelligence agency, 30 per cent of the top 200 outfield players today – by TFG’s model - are more than 30 years old. That compares to just 15 per cent in that cohort in 2012. In the most recent Champions League season, the percentage of minutes played by those aged more than 32 years old was 1.25 times greater than the historical average.
As to what is making these players go on for longer, the reasons are vast and hard to quantify. Leaps forward in sports science, preparation, nutrition and surgery will all have played their part. So too the changes in the quality of pitches and the attitude of the game’s lawmakers to the kind of tackles that were once deemed acceptable. The incentive of earning the salary of an elite professional footballer for longer cannot be discounted. But all these are just guesses as to the reasons – it is the data that reveals the essential truth.
TFG has not found the same trends in the Premier League. The average age of outfield players for the top three-finishing teams in the league has been relatively steady at 26.6 years for the past 16 seasons. That dropped to 25.7 for the top three teams - Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool - in the most recent season. The overall average age across the 20 teams has been falling year on year from 2016-17 according to TFG. It now stands at 26 years in the most recent data for season 2023-24, down from 27.1.
Again one can only surmise the reason. Certainly older players cost more in salaries and have no resale value. The current financial controls - profit and sustainability rules – are likely to push clubs towards younger players to a greater or lesser degree.
Real Madrid are signing Mbappe as he reaches his peak years. His grand introduction will be soon after the Euros and this time next summer he will be competing at the Fifa Club World Cup finals at the end of his first season for his new club. For Ronaldo, that will not be an option. His club Al-Nassr have not taken any of the four spots allocated to the Asian Football Confederation. He may be glad of the rest that summer – depending on whether or not he has set his sights on one more tournament with Portugal in 2026.
