The age of the superstar in top-level team sport is coming to an end. Trends come and go in sport, and individualists have been usurped by coaches, collective philosophies and systems.
Lionel Messi will probably play for Barcelona for as long as he wants. The same goes for Tom Brady with the New England Patriots. However apart from that, individualists are struggling to adapt to modern sport.
The days where you can just let the best player do everything are gone. Opponents have seen hundreds of hours of video footage and analyzed tonnes of data before the game even starts.
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As Neymar is finding at club and international level, simply turning up and being outrageously talented is no longer enough. Players need to fit into a complex, analytical system.
His struggle is similar to Leroy Sane at Manchester City, whom Pep Guardiola grows increasingly frustrated with despite his world class potential.
Two players who will decide the fate of the superstar model next season are Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James. Both are ageing masters of their respective sports. Both signed for historically successful teams who need help reaching their former heights last season.
Both failed.
The Los Angeles Lakers have missed the NBA Playoffs for 6 consecutive seasons. For a team that believes they ought to be winning the championship, this is a huge failure.
Their solution was to sign NBA Finals expert LeBron James last season. However, Lebron suffered the worst injury layoff of his career, and couldn’t help them back to the playoffs.
Juventus have won the Serie A title eight seasons in a row. The title is not a given for Juve, but it is definitely not enough. They want to win the Champions League. After two Champions League final defeats in 2015 and 2017, their hunger only grew.
So, they signed Cristiano Ronaldo, who at the time had won the three previous Champions Leagues with Real Madrid. He is the competitions’ top scorer and has won it five times overall.
Juventus crashed out of the Champions League to surprise package Ajax last season. The final was eventually won by Liverpool over Tottenham in a contest between to collectively focussed teams.
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As a result, the Lakers and Juventus have gone into ‘win now’ mode. Both teams need to achieve their goals before the superstars they signed to do it are too old.
The Lakers added six-time All-Star Anthony Davis to pair up with James in the hopes of doing so. Juventus signed Aaron Ramsey, Mathjis deLight, Adrien Rabiot, Lonrenzo Pellegrini and Danilo this summer. They even brought back Gianluigi Buffon.
The spotlight will still be on Ronaldo, as it will be on LeBron. If neither player can lift their team to glory, the superstar will be well and truly dead.
