Time is a flat circle, space is a multidimensional donut, it’s all quantumly entangled, and everything that will ever happen has already happened and is currently happening. That’s at once a thrilling, frightening, mind-blowing concept, and, when we tell you what we’re about to tell you, it will all make perfect sense.
Some players peak early, some get better with age, some go on forever, some burn out fast and call it a day in their prime. Each to their own. Horses for courses.
However, we cannot fathom that these ballers are the same age. Our brain has gone to soup. We’re wondering what other assumptions we’d made about the world are actual falsehoods. Here are nine pairs of players that have left us questioning the nature of time.
Luka Modric & Charlie Adam
Charlie Adam’s birth certificate will have you believe the ex-Scotland international and current Fleetwood Town manager was born on 10th December 1985, making him 38 years old.
Nope. Disagree. There’s no way you’re convincing us Adam wasn’t born in the early 1960s, in the basement of an Irn-Bru factory, or that he wasn’t raised by a deep-fried packet of ciggies on the picket lines of the miners’ strikes.
The fact that Luka Modric is three months older than Charlie Adam and the Croat is still winning Champions Leagues and captaining his country at major tournaments… We’re gonna have to stop thinking about it now before we malfunction.
Danny Ings & Heung-min Son
Danny Ings has been 35 years old for the past seven or eight years in our head. Turns out he’s only just turned 32. The bloke is marginally younger than Heung-min Son. Just weird. Sonny hasn’t aged a day since he came to England.
Ings peaked early—that Championship season with Burnley when he was 21—and, let’s call a spade a spade, his hair’s migration toward the back of his head and subsequent forced recolonisation of his frontal dome has almost certainly played into our inaccurate perception of his age. Still…
Wayne Rooney & Jesus Navas
Whilst Wayne Rooney was cutting his teeth as a regular pundit at Euro 2024, looking like your uncle who used to hustle you at pool and darts—the human embodiment of eight pints of Carling, Jesus Navas was busy playing in the semifinals and winning the damn thing with Spain.
It’s not just a pair of exceptionally piercing blue eyes that these two have in common, though. Incredibly, they were also born within one month of each other. Both of them are 38 years old. Bizarre.
Pepe & Michael Essien
Essien has always played with an assuredness and authority that made him seem far older than he was, but the Ghanaian legend was only 22 when he signed for Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. He’s only 41 now. It feels like Essien is from a different era, though.
And he is, really. He was playing in a Chelsea team with Damien Duff, Claude Makelele, Hernan Crespo… So the fact that he and the ever-monstrous Pepe are the same age is perhaps more testament to Pepe’s longevity than anything else.
Andres Iniesta & Stewart Downing
Andres Iniesta, who—let us remind you—is still playing professional football for Emirates in the UAE, is one of the greatest midfielders of all time. If you disagree, you can get the f*ck off our website. It’s not up for debate. Name five better creative midfielders. Zidane? Yeah, maybe. Who else? Exactly.
Now, Stewart Downing only retired three years ago, but it’s been 11 years since he left Liverpool for West Ham, and nine years since he left West Ham for his second stint at Middlesbrough…
He was good, was Downing. A left-footed winger with 35 England caps, and widely regarded as an excellent winger at the time. His drop-off feels like an awfully long time ago now, though, and we can’t believe both he and Iniesta are 40 years old.
Obafemi Martins & Cristiano Ronaldo
Right… We haven’t put an asterisk next to Obafemi Martins’ name because, honestly, the whole trope of African players and fake ages feels a bit icky to us. However, the Nigerian has always been one mysterious bastard.
During his spell at Newcastle, even the Geordies had no idea which was his dominant foot. He took penalties with both feet, he did back flips, he was extremely unpredictable, and nobody seemed to know how old he was.
The internet has Martins down as a 5’7″ 39-year-old man. Could’ve sworn he was taller. Made his debut for Reggiana in Serie C aged 16. His last club was Wuhan in 2020… A deeply, deeply mysterious man.
He’s also married to Mario Balotelli’s sister, and they have a kid called Kendrick. What?
Anyway, Martins and Cristiano Ronaldo are the same age.
Bojan Krkic & Kevin De Bruyne
We were signing Bojan on Football Manager like 17 years ago, and somehow he’s the same age as Kevin de Bruyne.
Bojan was the original new Lionel Messi, to be fair. A wonderkid for the ages who never truly lived up to the early hype. He and KDB don’t belong to the same football generation in our mind, but they’re literally the same age (33), so we’re not really sure how to argue our point.
Miguel Almiron & Emre Can
Miggy Almiron is obviously 19 years old and Emre Can is clearly at least 36. Except they’re both 30 according to the internet.
We are living in a post-truth world. Nothing is real. All a simulation anyway. Reality is drunk.
Josko Gvardiol & Bukayo Saka
It’s difficult to accept that England’s fresh-faced starboy and Man City’s lumberjackian centre-half-turned-left-back are both 22 years old, but they are.
It’s probably the beard that throws us in Gvardiol’s case. A proper beard. The beard of a bloke who looks like he could survive for longer than the average person in the wild. The beard of a man who could perhaps domesticate a bear with a calming hand and a brief scrap.
Saka, on the other hand, has that youthful vitality combined with skin that makes you think he must’ve been conceived at a Nivea work party.
Source: Planet Football
