A footballer is someone who plays football. Anyone can play football.

A Premiership footballer is someone who plays football at an elite level, and has inherent traits as well as some honed traits that he worked on directly himself and which were further developed via the expertise of his coaching team, whether that be fitness, temperament, tackling, taking (or saving) penalties and other such likes.

I can play football. Sometimes I’m deluded enough to think I’m good at it.

If I played football against 6 year olds I’d be relatively exceptional. If I played in the Premier League, I’d be embarrassing.

A 27 year old middling, journeyman division one player is infinitely better than a 50 year old Messi, or a Gascoigne, who, when observed together in real time show clear differences in their footballing prowess. But the former is not, and never has been better than the latter on equitable grounds – age matched without the time handicap.

A 27 year old middling division one player who ends up scoring a goal or two in a regional Sunday league is never a Messi, save for the mirage his pontifications create in the eyes of brain dead subordinate acolytes who bow the alter of his delusional stupidity. But he will still look pretty good in relative terms.

Anyone can play football. If you’re young, if you have the basic attributes needed to play football. You can also play football if you’re older. What’s stopping you? And if your attributes are sharpened to such a degree, you may find yourself playing way better football than people in your age deme (and who knows, maybe even better than those a couple of divisions up from you). But never lose sight of the fact that If you play football in a league substantially below your middling skill level, this does not by correlation make you a Gascoigne or a Messi. Your skillset is as plastic as is your results.

Yep, this post wasn’t about football.

BroodingSea, January 2026