The World Cup is wasted on the old guard - the stars of tomorrow deserve better | OneFootball

Comment: Cristiano Ronaldo’s vanity tour and Manuel Neuer’s calamitous goalkeeping indicative of a deeper problem undercutting football’s greatest show

Germany were marching with power and purpose towards nine points from a possible nine in World Cup Group E, until Sunderland’s Nilson Angulo’s spirited run and decent swinging strike from distance cancelled out Leroy Sane’s early opener seven minutes after he’d scored it.

One of the 17 of Ecuador’s 26 World Cup squad members produced by the country’s talent-factory Independiente del Valle, Angulo’s pot-shot took Manuel Neuer by surprise. The 40-year-old was slow to get down.

He was beaten, for the third game in a row. Germany are group winners and already were before today, but from a group containing Ecuador, Ivory Coast and the World Cup’s smallest-ever nation, Curacao, zero clean sheets. It is a sour note to their so-far impressive showing in North America.

It raises some questions. Why Manuel Neuer? With Hoffenheim’s Oliver Baumann on the bench, is Neuer even the best goalkeeper Germany have got anymore? He retired after Euro 2024 and only came back for this World Cup, but is nothing like the commanding presence he was 12 years ago when Germany conquered all in Brazil.

Manuel Neuer is starting for Germany despite well past his prime

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It wasn’t so different watching Enner Valencia, Ecuador’s creaking 36-year-old striker, who should have at least been attributed with an assist for the man-of-the-match, record-breaking performance of Curacao goalkeeper Eloy Room when the two teams drew in Kansas City last weekend. Valencia missed a catalogue of chances. He came into the Germany game with zero goals from 2.00 xG at this World Cup.

It was no different at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where Ecuador saved themselves and reached the knockout rounds but Valencia, constantly trying to work half a yard to shoot from an unscoreable angle, was forever on a different frequency from his teammates. The Ecuadorian reporters sat near me in both the Curacao game and the Germany match certainly made it clear that’s how they felt.

This World Cup has a record tally of over-40s taking part, and many are world stars who have stayed around in the game for decades.

The classic example is Cristiano Ronaldo, of course. He celebrated his two goals against Uzbekistan as though they had won Portugal the World Cup. Was that any surprise?

Debate has raged throughout this tournament over how Roberto Martinez should use Cristiano Ronaldo - if at all

Ronaldo was desperately yearning to play at this tournament, because he knew he could. Now 41, he accepts his body cannot do what it could for so long, and has changed his game accordingly. He is now chiefly a goal-hanger, a figure lurking in the box, a rare creature that feasts only on crosses into the area or pullbacks put on a plate for him.

Conversations, even after his brace, continue to simmer over whether Portugal boss Roberto Martinez should bench him. Martinez finds them laughable, but plenty find Ronaldo still starting laughable. This is the greatest group of players Portugal have ever sent to a World Cup. They are not playing to their strengths, because they are having to play to Ronaldo’s.

It was lovely to see the iconic cult figure of Guillermo Ochoa introduced for Mexico as a 78th-minute substitute on Wednesday. But then, when you actually come to think about it, was it lovely?

Ochoa could then claim to have played a part in his sixth World Cup. Also at their sixth are Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who, even at 39, is still Lionel Messi and is absolutely not relevant here.

Guillermo Ochoa graced a sixth World Cup as he made a brief cameo against Czechia

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Ochoa is reasonably far down the list of Mexico’s best goalkeepers now. This was an appearance made for unsporting reasons. There was nothing meritocratic about it. It was a cap handed out as a freebie, not a cap won or earned.

World Cup veterans are inevitable in a sport where different players peak at different times. But this World Cup has taken the trope to a new and unsightly extreme.

It is just what FIFA want, just what the World Cup’s sponsors want, just what the players themselves want, probably what fans want.

Is it right, though — or fair? Before Tuesday, Ronaldo had failed to score in ten consecutive major tournament appearances. Plenty will feel that on every occasion — and certainly at Euro 2024 and this summer — his place might have been depriving a better player of an appearance they actually deserved.

Further questions come to mind. Why is an unfit Neymar, who had not played for Brazil since October 2023 before coming on meaninglessly against Scotland, in their World Cup squad? He was looking until recently as though he might be about to join Cincinnati FC. I’ll tell you who would be way out of Cincinnati’s league: Joao Pedro, Chelsea’s 20-goal-a-season striker who was snubbed by Carlo Ancelotti.

The journey each player takes to get to the World Cup is a phenomenally complex and difficult one. It takes decades of their early lives, including most of their childhood, to utterly dedicate themselves to the sport to even become professionals in the first place. Reaching the World Cup from that point is to scale another mountain range on top.

The World Cup should feature global stars, but they should be today’s stars, not yesterday’s. Otherwise it is hard to believe in the integrity of the greatest show on earth. It should be a live show, not a scripted one.

Ecuador saved themselves at the MetLife, defeating the Germans to avoid a humiliating group-stage exit. As Kevin Rodriguez gets the flick-on from a late corner, Neuer — the game being played half a second ahead of him — comes to claim but is beaten to the ball by the quicker reactions of goalscorer Gonzalo Plata. It is Neuer’s fault.