In 2024, 16-year-old Lamine Yamal scored in the European Championship semi-finals and was named in the Team of the Tournament.
Earlier that year Luke Littler reached the PDC Darts World Championship final at 16.
Also in 2024, Brit Oliver Bearman became the youngest-ever racing driver to compete for Ferrari at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, aged 18.
The signings of 15-year-old academy talents are now well documented across the football landscape.
We are witnessing a generational shift where adolescence is no longer a stepping stone to the elite level – but the main stage itself.
But is this pressure on literal children becoming too much, and where does it come from?
Dean Whitehouse coached at the Manchester United Academy for 23 years, working with several generations’ worth of future stars including Cristiano Ronaldo, until he left the club in August 2023.
“Our whole ethos and philosophy was to take pressure off players,” he said.
“We want our kids to be unknown – we won national championships and we weren’t raving on social media about individual players.”
Yet he believes that in his final few years at the club, “I started seeing it creeping in more” – with the pressure on youngsters ratcheting up.
He was part of a pre-season tour that took 14-year-olds Cristiano Ronaldo Jr and JJ Gabriel, two of the most famous young talents in football, to Spain.
“It’s like going away with the Beatles,” he said.
“I’d gone to Spain times with teams over several years and Manchester United always get a great reception as people are looking for the next generation of superstars.
“But that was a new level with people wanting to have pictures.”
This increased obsession with young players has not appeared overnight but attempts from the media to hype up stars used to be quashed in a way that is not seen today.
Whitehouse stated: “The first time I’d ever even experienced it was a guy called Rhain Davis, and a journalist picked up a story on him.”
A montage of Davis dribbling past opponents at nine years old went viral, reaching five million views – an impressive number now, but practically unheard of in 2007.
“Sir Alex [Ferguson], I remember, wasn’t impressed,” says Whitehouse.
“Everybody got quite told off about the fact that he was a young academy player all over the press.”
Whitehouse is clear that age shouldn’t be a barrier to progression up the ranks: “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
“But, if they’re there as a ‘Right, I’m going to get the youngest player ever to play in the Premier League’ – if they’re doing that for the coach’s ego or the club – then is that right?
“I think Jose Mourinho was trying to get Mason Greenwood in early.
“That would have been a nice little feather in his cap to have the youngest ever player to play for Manchester United.”
On top of coaching pressures, Whitehouse feels that parental burdens are often the most intense.
He said: “If any pressure was on players, it was probably put on by parents.
“I’ve coached the sons of Ryan Giggs, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo.
“Their dads were all amazing because they got it, they understood it.”
Whitehouse describes how Mickey Mellon, who manages Oldham Athletic after playing for Burnley and Blackpool, would sit reading a paper whilst his son trained. Mellon would ask his son if he’d had fun and that would be it.
“Where you probably had more problems were the parents who maybe haven’t played the game.”
He continued: “With coaches, they still potentially say the one thing that can kill a kid – you can lose that kid for the season.
“So you can imagine how many things that an emotionally attached parent can say when they’re not educated in sports science, or football, or child psychology.”
Yet Alex Wade, an 18-year-old cricketer, doesn’t feel the pressure as heavily from parents.
He believes there was more parental pressure when he was younger – “there’s more riding on it,” he said.
“My parents were taking me to all the matches and spending a lot of their time.”
Alex recently signed his first professional contract with Yorkshire County Cricket Club and could debut alongside England captain Harry Brook.
“Now we’re in a more professional setup there’s less pressure from parents – it’s kind of like you’ve made it a bit,” he explains.
“When your parents come to the game, it gives you some support.”
For others, the pressure is abated by help from fellow players.
Lily Murphy has had a stellar debut season with Manchester City Women, scoring on her UEFA Women’s Champions League debut at just 19.
She revealed: “Alex Greenwood [the Manchester City Women captain] – she’s so good with us young girls.”
Murphy agreed there was pressure when moving from Blackburn to Manchester City: “Because it’s such a big club, you’ve got to be switched on all the time.
“There’s a mental aspect as well as a physical one, that you’re just constantly working hard with the best players.
“The teammates helped so much – they always encourage you on the pitch and off the pitch.”
‘You start to overthink stuff’
Wade played for the England cricket team at under-19 level when he was 17 but he doesn’t know “how these young footballers play in front of 50,000 people when they’re 16.
“I’m playing in front of maybe 500 people and I’m still feeling pressure.
“If I was 16 being pressured by agents or all these commercial deals it would be too much.”
He describes the pressure he feels as not coming from youth coaches or parents, but – as many pros would probably agree – as mainly “internal”.
“I’ve signed my contract a year early – you normally sign at 18 but I signed it at 17 – so that adds that bit of expectation.
“There’s pressure there to perform and show the coaches why you’ve been chosen.
“We don’t speak about it too often. The people I know my age, I would say that I can’t tell that they’re feeling pressure in games.
“But then when you’re at home, almost because you’re a bit bored, you just start to overthink stuff.”
Feature Image: Nathan Rogers via Unsplash
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