Brief 63: Professional footballers are good at what they do

I'm going to shock you. Footballers are good at football. But, really. More than you think. Every single one of them, even the ones who look like they're a bit rubbish.

And football (the playing side, only, of course) is arguably the world's greatest meritocracy. Imagine, an actual meritocracy.

Here's one way to understand it - I was probably the best player in my school year when I was 11, and it was the prep school of a prestigious private school, and then, throughout my school life, going forward, I loved football, played football, more than anything else, to the detriment of my education, socialisation, any other sport. I played all the way through as many lunch breaks as i could till red, muddy and exhausted, played in teams, did keepy-ups and shooting practice at home - I was utterly obsessed with football. I would have given everything, or thought I would, to be a professional footballer.

And I never got within a million miles of getting anywhere. Nowhere near a trial, not even for Brentford or Barnet or Charlton or any club people think is not "the top level". Because I was only doing what everyone else was doing, and lots of them were better and prepared to do even more to prove it. Not just everyone else at my school, some of whom got better than me as the years went on, though they never got near it, either. Ever other half-talented kid in every school in almost every country in the world. 

You don't play at being a professional footballer. You don't toy with it while you try something else. You don't take a gap year then come back to it. The ones that have made it have been utterly, punishingly committed to it since long before their voices broke. And not just the ones who made it to Chelsea and Man Utd but also the ones who made it to Crawley and Salford. And not just the ones who made it, but also the ones who didn't quite make it, who were in the youth team but didn't make the first team squad.

They have all been through a fiercely competitive, professional system and any one who plays one game of professional football has, relatively triumphed.

Doesn't this apply to every sport? No, not to the same extent. Nowhere near. No game is anywhere so universal, so sought after, and many sports are nowhere near so precisely skilled. Sometimes rowers become cyclists. Basketball players become boxers.

Every sport requires skill and tactics, some more than others. Football requires each individual to make countless high-pressure decisions every minute. It is physically and mentally exhausting.

Another, minor, anecdote about the level of fitness required to play football well. Most of my adult football, from uni to the leg-breaking end at 30, was played in a state of vague disrepair, relying on ever-decreasing levels of natural fitness. But one summer, after one football season had ended around April, I got properly fit, was running about 40 miles a week, had lost a stone or two, felt sharp and fresh.

The  first football friendly of the new season, in a park in August, just a friendly, and I remember collapsing pretty much being sick 15 minutes before the end. The point - football is hard. Harder, aerobically, to play at full tilt, than almost anything else. They're all superb athletes..

They all make several complex calculations every minutes, and getting any one of those wrong could result in disaster for themselves and their team.

The best are irreplaceable. Literally, no amount of money could replace Lionel Messi in his prime. The worst are still near the top of the mot substantial, competitive pyramid in the world.