Ndiaye, Harlem Globetrotters-Style Skills and Revealing Football Stats

YOU’RE TELLING US THERE’S A CHANCE?

If you haven’t seen the footage of Iliman Ndiaye pulling off a backwards bouncing trick at Everton’s training ground, it’s worth viewing. By pulling off a move so nasty that it would have fit right in at a Harlem Globetrotters exhibition match, the skill instantly ended what was meant to be a lighthearted kickabout to conclude what had been – up to that point – an informative discussion about how non-professionals can get another opportunity after being dropped from professional academies.

Ndiaye, who featured in non-league games directly before being signed by Sheffield United at 19, is perfectly positioned to speak on this topic. “Don’t focus on the rejection and one day your luck is going to arrive,” he informed a young player just before executing said impressive trick on his victim, in doing so clearly demonstrating the gulf between Premier League and amateur footballers he had been working to minimize.

Ndiaye is far from the only professional footballer to push the boundaries. Peak Michael Owen gleefully humiliating a 13-year-old goalkeeper in front of a annoyed Neville Southall is undoubtedly the prime example in this specific category – but the former Liverpool man is not alone in this. Both Christian Eriksen and Shinji Kagawa have made young children cry with a series of harsh skills, although it’s believed that the latter was at least motivated by the Japanese player’s social media regretful message – “difficulty breeds resilience” – and the related tag of #friendship.

Kagawa’s former Dortmund teammates Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Nuri Sahin at least had the manners to suffer a loss against 100 children when the three played during the interval of their last appearance for BVB. A Real Madrid XI that featured Cristiano Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso were not so generous when they faced 109 Chinese kids in a similar experiment. But back to the start, it’s calculated that only 180 of the 1.5 million boys currently playing organized youth football in England will ever play in the Premier League, a stark reality for toddlers and teenagers across the country.

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FEATURED STATEMENT

“Soccer carried me but it never abandoned me because I never abandoned my dream. I went from team to team. The love of football carries you. I couldn’t always see where it was taking me. But today I have the understanding” – Serbia coach Veljko Paunovic pauses briefly from his planning to share his journey.

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