Football beyond 35: the science keeping players on the pitch | OneFootball

Footballers are stretching careers well past 35, reshaping old ideas about age and selection. As reported by as.com, personalised training, advances in sports medicine and tighter nutrition are central to this shift.

Getafe’s medical head Christopher Oyola links the trend to wider longevity and better diets, saying modern professionals are leaner and more rigorously conditioned, with excess weight now rare. He notes medical departments have grown markedly at Getafe since 1998, from two staff to 15.

Oyola details practice, from creatine and magnesium within regulated ergogenic support to routine blood tests and thermography to set daily loads. Clubs pair GPS and AI with tailored gym work for explosive strength and injury prevention, and recovery tools such as low-frequency lasers, hyperbaric chambers, hydrotherapy, radiofrequency and magnetotherapy.

Examples include Cristiano, 41, Modric, 40, Messi, 39, Aspas, 38, Lewandowsky, 37, and De Bruyne, 35, with Koke, 34, close. The last World Cup set a record with eight players aged 40 or more, headed by Craig Gordon, 43, and featuring Cristiano at 41 alongside several 40-year-olds.

The exceptional benchmark remains Horace Harry Lowe, who played a LaLiga match for Real Sociedad at 48 in 1935 when Donostia FC travelled to Valencia with 11 players and one fell ill. Aside from that one-off, the oldest to feature in LaLiga was Joaquín Sánchez at 41.

Source: as.com