This is the harsh reality for each of us as we enter our 30s but, for elite footballers, this is nature sapping their superpowers. Fighting against it is futile. And yet, in the era of cryo chambers and placenta therapists, ageing gunslingers are dominating Europe’s goalscoring charts.

Robert Lewandowski (33) is the top scorer in the Champions League this season and he has already scored more than 30 goals in the Bundesliga; Ciro Immobile (32) is the joint-top scorer in Serie A; Karim Benzema (34) is top of the pile in La Liga; and Wissam Ben Yedder (31) is the top scorer in Ligue 1. How do these veteran forwards continue to thrive in the twilights of their careers?

Athletes should reach the peak of their powers in their mid-20s and then fall into an irreversible decline. This correlates with data extracted from the Premier League record book. During the mid-1990s, a vintage crop of English strikers decorated a golden era with a shared passion for goals, simple celebrations and setting records in their 20s.

Andy Cole, third on the all-time Premier League scoring list, registered his highest single-season return of 41 goals during the 1993-94 season at the age of 23. Once he edged over 30, his best tally amounted to 13. Michael Owen never bettered the 28 goals he scored for Liverpool as a 24-year-old. Robbie Fowler scored 36 goals in the 1995-96 campaign when he was 21 – a haul he would never surpass. He did not hit double figures in a season after turning 30. And then there’s the greatest goalscorer in Premier League history, Alan Shearer, who had his most fruitful season in 1994-95, scoring 34 goals at the age of 25.

“Young players have the raw materials – pace, power, strength, endurance – which is why you often see them burst on to the scene,” says Nick Grantham, a performance enhancement specialist who works with Premier League players. “Then they experience a bit of a dip when the intensity of competition catches up with them. The best players are playing every three to four days, hitting maximum speeds, covering big distances and getting wrestled to the ground. To keep recovering from this is challenging.”

All the collisions, sprints, shots and headers take their toll. Those little knocks turn into long-term niggles. “You can have a very minor injury as a young player but, as you get into your 30s, that minor cartilage problem in your knee becomes more pronounced,” says former director of performance science at Southampton, Mo Gimpel. “If you’ve rolled your ankles 10-12 times in your career, the joint will eventually become unstable and start to rub. Your ability to heal decreases and the pain becomes too much.”

Scientific advancements have given players the knowledge they need to slow down the effects of ageing and a new generation of managers have embraced these methods and encouraged their players to listen to their bodies instead of trying to “run it off”.

“Ice baths used to be a wheelie bin full of water and ice,” laughs Gimpel, who started out at Southampton as first-team physio 23 years ago. “Now we have cryo chambers that expose the whole body to temperatures as low as -150°C, rather than standing in these bins that just go to your waist. This aids recovery by reducing muscle soreness and inflammation. There’s been a shift in mindset from the coaches at the top level. You don’t hear them say things like ‘he’s weak, just run through it’ anymore.”

The modern player is graduating from the academy having been educated in fitness and nutrition. Drinking clubs have been replaced by WhatsApp groups that ping with training tips and diet plans. Footballers have become more professional. “You have a different breed of athlete now – athlete is the key term,” explains Grantham. “Modern footballers, particularly strikers, are athletes now. Sports science is part of the reason why players can do what they’re doing in their 30s – nutrition and physical preparation have been part of their lives since day one.”

This ripple effect of this learning is reflected in the rising age of players competing in the Champions League. Researchers from the University of Vigo found the average age of players in the competition between the 1992-93 and 2017-18 seasons increased by 1.6 years, from 24.9 to 26.5 in that 25-year period.

Jamie Vardy has scored 94 of his 128 Premier League goals after his 30th birthday. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters

Many players say they have an epiphany as the end creeps closer. To stave off retirement they transform their lifestyles and squeeze every marginal gain out of their body. They are smashing the egg timer and using the sands of time as a garnish for their avocado and rye bread. Jamie Vardy, who has scored 94 of his 128 Premier League goals while in his 30s, has a vegetable patch and cryo chamber. Lewandowski employs a sleep coach and drinks beetroot juice. Cristiano Ronaldo wears speed-boosting rugby studs.

This dedication applies at all levels. Jamie Cureton, veteran of more than 1,000 senior games and 300-plus goals, likes to slip into a pair of tights. “I was fitter the older I got because I looked after myself,” says the 46-year-old, who is still banging them for Enfield in the ninth tier.

“It comes down to knowing your body and understanding the sacrifices you have to make. As I got older, I changed my diet and stopped drinking. I knew if I had a heavy drinking session it would take me two to three days to get over it whereas, when I was younger, I could go out and get up the next day and be fine. I knew I didn’t have to play every minute of every game and I’d give myself longer to rest if I needed it. As soon as a game finished, it was rest, recovery tights, ice and plenty of fluids.”

The damaging effects of booze have never been an issue for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The 40-year-old is a physical marvel partly because he hasn’t “been drunk too many times”. When he joined Manchester United in 2016, aged 34, he broke the club’s record for power output during his medical. He finished the season as their top scorer, winning the Europa League and League Cup along the way. When he returned to Milan in 2020, he fired them back into the Champions League for the first time in seven years with 15 goals in 19 league games.

“Just watching the Milan highlights. What a player Zlatan still is. 38 years old,” tweeted Mbappé after watching the ageless Swede score twice in a 4-1 win over Sampdoria. His performances are even more impressive when you consider he suffered a career-threatening injury in 2017. Knee ligament damage was meant to keep him out for nine months or even end his career, but the black belt in taekwondo returned to action in seven months. Surgeons were so impressed by his physical condition they wanted to complete further tests. “If there is a project that stimulates me, I could play at the same level until I’m 50 years old,” said Ibrahimovic.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is still scoring goals in his 40s. Photograph: Isabella Bonotto/AFP/Getty Images

Could the secret to his longevity lie in his DNA? “There’s growing evidence to support the theory,” explains Gimpel. “Around 2006 I put Southampton into a research study at the University of Nottingham, looking at DNA and saliva. We were studying collagen markers and whether their presence correlated to injury status. Collagen is a protein that underpins your tendons and ligaments, so in theory if you’ve got poor collagen, logic says you’re going to be at greater risk of injury. If you’ve got good collagen, you’re going to be more robust and able to heal faster. This is a little controversial, but I believe there’s something in that.”

Having good genetics, avoiding injuries and being diligent gives a player the physical capabilities to run around the pitch, but scoring goals, the most coveted and difficult skill in the game, requires an intelligence that can improve with age. “As I got older, I felt like I could have played higher because I understood the game better than ever,” says Cureton, who was voted Dagenham & Redbridge player of the year in 2015 after she had scored 20 goals as a 39-year-old.

“I started to realise you don’t have to run loads of channels all the time. I learned to read the build-up play, when to make a run and where the ball would drop. I was able to stay a step ahead because my brain was sharper. I’d hold positions and conserve my energy for the key moments.”

Data shows there is a clear loss of physical performance in players over 30. After analysing 10,739 players from La Liga during the 2017-18 season, researchers discovered that the total distance covered, high-intensity sprints and the maximum speed reached by over-30s decreased significantly. However, the technical performance appears to improve in senior players. The percentage of successful passes was 3-5% higher in players over 30 compared to players between 16 and 29 years old.

But none of this is possible without the obsessive nature of an addict who is chasing the sweet ecstasy of that first high. “My hunger to play became greater the older I got,” says Cureton. “I’m coming to the end and I don’t want that to happen. It’s the same for the other older forwards – such as Ibrahimovic – they’re not in it for the money, they’ve had successful careers. They have an incredible desire to keep playing and putting themselves through the rigours of training and matches.

“It’s easier for strikers to keep going than it is for defenders because we have the enjoyment of scoring goals. You don’t want to be 40 years old and still heading balls and getting smashed. As a striker you never want that feeling of scoring to end. You’re always chasing it. It’s why I’m still playing non-league. Every goal at this stage of my career could be my last.”

Only it wasn’t over. Pedri’s goal had defeated Sevilla 1-0 but this was just beginning, both on Sunday and beyond. If Sport named him three times, Barcelona went for 40. He had acted as their “messiah”, El Mundo wrote. “Pedri provides the music,” El Periódico said. “Astonishing,” El País called him, “evocative of Messi and Ronaldinho.” El Mundo Deportivo declared him “wonderful, magisterial, unforgettable”. And while it’s an idea not to use up the superlatives, if only because he’s 19 and you get the feeling you’ll need them again, it was a bit good.

There was a little over quarter of an hour left and it was 0-0 between Barcelona and Sevilla, second place at stake, when Pedri got the ball and pressed pause. It was noisy at the Camp Nou, the second highest crowd of the season – well, the third – and it was tense too, but that didn’t matter: he’s a teenager and he’s timid, his manager says, yet nervousness isn’t his thing, not once he’s out there. So the kid who says he plays like he’s back home in the garden with his brother and who had walked the ball in against Galatasaray in Istanbul a fortnight ago, defenders sliding by and out of shot, did much the same on Sunday. Only from further away.

“If I see legs, I cut back,” Pedri said afterwards. Receiving the ball on the edge of the area, in no hurry in the middle of a frantic crowd, he could see a lot of them. Rakitic flew at him so he applied the brakes, a moment’s still as the game whizzed by, not so much going past his opponent as inviting his opponent to go past him. Diego Carlos did the same, and so he calmly repeated the manoeuvre, a second cartoon character sent careering off the cliff. And then Pedri accelerated and hit a shot that raced into the far corner beyond Bono, the place erupting. As he ran off, teammates grabbed him, threw him to the ground and piled on top, Dani Alves using his body as bongo drums.

“FJHGHFHKGBHFDGBHFBHBHJSBHGFQBGHJBHSBHFSABHJGBHF,” responded the club’s Twitter account, which is at least as coherent as most tweets and as expertly typed as anything this here computer has ever experienced. The coach, Xavi Hernández, responded by leaping into the assistant coach Óscar, brothers in arms. He began not so much punching the air as trying to knock it out. “The ball didn’t want to go in and there was a feeling of anger and impotence,” he explained afterwards.

‘Teammates piled on top of Pedri, Dani Alves using his body as bongo drums’. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

This was big, after all. Sevilla were the only team that could realistically challenge Real Madrid for the title and now Pedri’s goal had lifted Barcelona above them and into second. Few believe Barcelona can actually win the league: Madrid’s 2-1 win at Celta on Saturday leaves them 12 points ahead having played a game more, with eight weeks left – the same gap Xavi inherited, it might be worth noting. But they have climbed seven places. Madrid and Barcelona hadn’t been the top two since the end of the 2019-20 season, this was Barca’s sixth league win in a row, their 14th game without defeat, and they have beaten Atlético, Real Madrid and now Sevilla. It had been difficult on Sunday, chances slipping away, tension growing, but they had found a way through.

Pedri had. Nor was it just the goal, which might not even have been the weekend’s best – Real Betis’s William Carvalho and Álex Moreno scored beauties against Osasuna, slightly similar to this and even more like the one Pedri got at Galatasaray. Asked, a little giddily perhaps, if this strike would go down in history, Sevilla’s sporting director replied: “I don’t know about that, but it’s a great goal from a player who might.”

The sense of control and calm goes beyond the moment itself to a player quietly taking responsibility for a team emerging as challengers again. “The leader of the opposition,” AS called him, and it was nice to know there is one. Injured at the start of the season, Pedri has now played 11 league games. He hasn’t lost any of them.

When the goal went in and the Camp Nou chanted his name, the echoes were inescapable, even if they were exaggerated. Even Sport’s “Pedri, Pedri, Pedri” had been done before, only with Messi. So had the Candyman line, but hey, come on, it’s 15 years ago now. In El Periódico, Marcos López described the Camp Nou as “Pedri’s garden”, a line he always used for the Argentinian. One columnist even claimed: “Pedri rhymes with Messi.” Which it doesn’t, and it would be wise not to get carried away for everyone’s sake, but Pedri has already done something Messi never managed – he has played at the Carlos Tartiere – and that he is different, and may be the future, is not just an invention for a one-off moment.

Xavi can see similarities between Pedri and his former teammate, Andrés Iniesta. Photograph: Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images

This wasn’t entirely new. Pedri provided the pass for Messi to score his 644th Barcelona goal, another sign of something special. On Cadena Ser radio, commentator Lluis Flaquer has long referred to him as Pedri Potter. Golden Boy winner, the Euros announced him to the world and so did his coach, another more pertinent parallel drawn than the one likening him to Messi. “Anyone who knows anything about football knows that no one has ever seen that from anybody at 18, not even Sir Andrés Iniesta,” Luis Enrique insisted in the summer. “It’s incredible, just unique.” The man who coached Spain before Luis Enrique agreed. “He’s special, one of those players that only comes along every so often,” Julen Lopetegui said after he was finally defeated by Pedri on Sunday night.

The first day Iniesta trained with the Barcelona team, Luis Enrique was the player sent up to meet him and show him to the dressing room. Over the coming years, no one was closer to Iniesta than Xavi and, like Luis Enrique, he too sees something of his former teammate in the player he now coaches. The quality of the touch and the timing. The control and clarity, the understanding, the management of the match and its moments. The awareness of his superiority, even if only at some subconscious level, that is implicit in his willingness to ask the ball and hold it – not for his sake but for theirs, an act of responsibility.

“It’s wonderful watching Pedri play. In terms of talent, I haven’t seen a player in the world like him,” Xavi said a month or so ago. “And I’m not saying that to eulogise him because he doesn’t like that. There are players with different characteristics, like De Bruyne or Modric, but not with his talent. He reminds me of Iniesta. If we’re talking pure talent, he’s the best in the world.”

Pulled up on those remarks, Xavi later insisted that Iniesta, “the greatest talent I’ve ever seen”, had a career that couldn’t be equalled but he insisted the comparison came out “naturally” and doubled down on it, “even if I get criticised for it”. It is not one he only expresses publicly, done for effect, and the analytics confirm it too: the things that need to be taught to others come naturally to Pedri.

This was his eighth Barcelona goal: he is no goalscorer but he has got there 68 games faster than Iniesta. “He controls space and time,” Xavi said. “We’re encouraging him to shoot more.” On Sunday night he did, but not just like that and not until the moment was made, two men left on the floor and thousands more on their feet, path cleared with a pause.

Telemundo's Roberto Rojas was among the first to report the news.

The sources added that Ferreira, 23, is expected to fly to Houston in the next few days to finalize the deal, with the agreed transfer fee around $6 million.

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If the deal is completed, Ferreira will join a Houston side in need of attacking help, with Dynamo's 36 goals in 2021 tied for the second-worst mark in Major League Soccer.

Ferreira began his professional career in his native Paraguay with Olimpia in 2016. He subsequently was loaned to Paraguayan second tier side Independiente FBC, where he scored 13 goals in 19 matches in 2018.

Later that year he moved to Liga MX with Morelia -- now Mazatlan -- where he went on to score 16 goals in 52 league and cup appearances. In 2020, Ferreira was loaned to Libertad in his home country, where he has scored 34 goals in 78 league and cup appearances.

At international level, Ferreira has represented Paraguay at under-17, under-20 and under-23 level, but has yet to make an appearance with the senior team.

Data from these transition possessions ends up being one part quality, one part philosophy. As you might expect, rich and athletic teams like Bayern and PSG (before 2020-21, anyway) have generally been the best at combining transition scoring opportunities while limiting opponents' chances. But for everyone else, it's a tactical card to play.

Take, for instance, Mainz and Wolves.

Mainz have generated 24 points in 17 matches (1.41 per match), good for ninth place in the Bundesliga and four points from the top four. Their matches are chaotic and exciting, featuring 1.35 combined goals per match from transition possessions -- 0.71 for Mainz, 0.65 for opponents.

Wolves, meanwhile, have pulled 25 points from 18 matches (1.39 per match). They're eighth in the Premier League, three points from the top five. They have been the anti-Mainz: They've yet to score a transition goal this season, and they've allowed only one. These clubs have produced nearly identical results with approaches that couldn't be more different.

Manchester City, led by the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, are among the best at quick transition play, which is key to their dominance. Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images

Another example: Napoli and Atalanta.

Napoli has 39 points in Serie A play, Atalanta 38. Napoli's possession rate is 58%, highest in the league, while Atalanta's is 56%, fourth-highest. But Napoli matches have featured just five combined transition goals this season (three for, two against), while Atalanta matches have featured 25 (16 for, nine against). Statistics from these transition moments belie your manager's philosophy more than possession rate or perhaps anything else in the analytics arsenal.

Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment.

When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.

Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said,

"Richness, can you take me with you?"

Richness answered, "No, I can"t. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you."

Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!"

"I can"t help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered.

Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you."

"Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!"

Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her.

Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come, Love, I will take you." It was an elder. So blessed and overjoyed, Love even forgot to ask the elder where they were going. When they arrived at dry land, the elder went her own way. Realizing how much was owed the elder,

Love asked Knowledge, another elder, "Who Helped me?"

"It was Time," Knowledge answered.

"Time?" asked Love. "But why did Time help me?"

Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, "Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is."

你能相信一个8岁左右的男孩是爱情专家么？这个有趣的事件发生在美国。一个小男孩正在街上做他的生意，他从每个客人身上得到一美元。当然人们不是来听他的建议，他们需要的是一个忠实的聆听者。

Most people feel depressed today. In the public occasion, the powerful person is in charge of everything, who is the shinning star and enjoys to be followed by others. While most people have less chance to express themselves. Sometimes they need to listen to their inner voices, that’s why the little boy’s business is favored.

如今很多人都会有些抑郁。在公共场合，一些有头有脸的人平时都是主管一切，是耀眼的明星，享受着别人的崇拜。然而大多数人都缺少诉说情绪的机会。有时候他们也需要倾听自己内心的声音，这就是小男孩的生意受到青睐的原因。

To be a good listener can help us to learn things. Once a celebrity said that a good listener was not only popular everywhere, but after a while he also got to know something. When we learn to know how others feel about the same incident, we start to consider the way we deal with it. Am I too forced? Or do I forget others? So we can know better how to deal with things next time.

成为一个好的聆听者可以帮助我们学到一些东西。曾经一个名人说过，一个好的倾听者不仅是受欢迎的，一段时间后，他也学到了东西。当我们慢慢知道不同的人对同一件事的不同看法，我们也会开始考虑自己的处理方式是否得当。我是不是太强势了？或者我是否遗忘别的因素了？因此，我们可以知道下次如何把事情处理得更好。