Raheem Sterling

[Drago]

empireofthekop Empire of the Kop
RT @JakeLFCTV: 4-1 lfc, sterling! The under 18's can't stop scoring!

empireofthekop Empire of the Kop
Sterling has scored 7 goals in 5 days. Amazing.
2 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
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[Rich]

Difficult not to get carried away with this kid.

Let's hope his pace and scamper works against adults!

[Liverpel]

Football has always snuffled hungrily after new things: new faces, new stories – and above all intact and unruined youth. This week Raheem Sterling caused a stir by almost but not quite becoming Liverpool's youngest ever player: promoted to the first-team squad for the half-term holidays, Sterling travelled to Prague but failed to appear against Sparta. He is 16 years old. Not 17 or 18 or 21 – all of which still count as extremely young – but 16: the age of moping and loafing, of experimenting disastrously with basic heavy-metal guitar; of loitering quite near groups of girls and hoping to appear fascinatingly aloof rather than pustulous and gaunt.

The promotion of Sterling had a rush of event-glamour about it. Partly this is down to the happy combination of his extreme youth and the freewheeling, cash-hurling, kid‑blooding, one‑liner‑quipping style of the new model Kenny Dalglish, who in his Kenny 2.0 incarnation seems brilliantly drunk on management, top hat rakishly askew, a tap-dancing Glasgow swell in floor‑length padded sports gown.

Kenny-momentum aside, there are other reasons to celebrate the rise of Sterling. If we can believe the evidence of those who know him best – not to mention those steamrollering YouTube clips that make him look like a cross between Romário and Spider-Man – he looks like a bona fide prodigy. And prodigies are one thing you never tire of in football.

Partly this is the simple pleasure of inhaling that vital scent, gorging vicariously on great dripping vampire handfuls of downy-cheeked pep and vim. But mainly it is the faint thrill – the distant, outside chance – of proximity to greatness. There is an unforgiving Venn diagram here. All great players are sensational when they're young; but only the tiniest fraction of sensational young players go on to become great. But still they just keep coming, doomed infantry battalions of junior jinkers, trainee poachers, apprentice pivots, bringing with them the same old jangling excitement, the sense that maybe this time, maybe this might be The One.

It is important to distinguish here between types of prodigy. Most common is the muscle-prodigy, a player who is a prodigy simply because he seems averagely, or even above-averagely, good at a very young age. James Milner was this kind of prodigy, performing at the age of 16 with all the grizzled poise of a 26-year-old. Aged 26 he will still be performing with all the grizzled poise of a 26-year-old. This is the static prodigy phenomenon, where early gains ossify into a state of frowning and manfully borne stasis, a condition known in sports science as Huddlestone's Mooch.

Less common, and more exciting, is the skill-prodigy, the ferrety junior ballerina who comes snorting out of his elite rabbit hole ready-made. Sterling looks to be one of these, the skill-merchant for whom an entire wildly optimistic career map is instantly projected in prancing fast-forward. These are our most fragile prodigies. Often they will simply disappear, or congeal, or stick around, gravely burdened in their spangled boots and faded No23 shirt.

The few who make it to adult greatness often take a slightly crooked path. Wayne Rooney was a hybrid prodigy – part muscle, part skill – who came barrelling out of obscurity clenched with adolescent resolve. The early Rooney was often portrayed as somehow semi-feral, a man-boy, a dustbin footballer, discovered complete in a carpark shopping trolley. In contrast mid-period Rooney has prevailed above all by a triumph of will and wit, of unblinking resolve rather than untameable inspiration. Perhaps the hysteria that greeted his atypically spectacular goal in the Manchester derby had at its core a release of pent-up prodigy anxiety, a reclutching to the maternal bosom, slot-mouthed with buried disappointment, of our puppyish infant-genius. Ryan Giggs also made it and stands now as the prodigy complete, still lithe and slippery in old age. But it has been a circular process. Old Giggs has justified the lull of mid‑Giggs, and formed a boomeranging reinforcement of early Giggs. Perhaps the same process will occur with late Rooney.

Sink or swim, prodigies seem to speak to something vital, a football-centred sense of enduing national fecundity, of great, untapped footballer-pockets still walled beneath the granite slopes. Brazil has always done this better than most, celebrating its own twig-thin ball-jugglers with an almost sacrificial zeal. In England the initial trumpeting around Theo Walcott, the Berkshire boy, seemed to portray him as a kind of wood sprite, a rural foundling, glossy-coated and wet-nosed, ready to hare out of the tree line.

But really, alluring as they are, the big thing with prodigies is probably just to stop talking about them (something I promise to start doing in about 100 words time, and only once I've finished pencilling Sterling into my World Cup 2022 winning team alongside Jack Wilshere, Josh McEachran and Romeo Beckham). Prodigy-talk is a vice that feeds greater vices, a substitute for rigour and systemic excellence, pinning hopes instead on the fluke of random greatness. This is just another reason to wish Sterling well as he faces the usual challenge of trying to wring every drop from his considerable talent – and to remember that, in every sense, we are extremely lucky to have him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/feb/19/football-progidy-raheem-sterling

[Gibbo]

im buzzing i aint even signed pro yet and they gave me a new deal i swear iv made it

EDIT:

really sorry Michael Ngoo took me fone n started talking rubbishh on me status he wrotee about contractt sooryy

, It came up on the popular news feed ffs

[Charly]

And they say schooling standards have dropped...

[Vermilion]

Originally Posted by Raheem Sterling
im buzzing i aint even signed pro yet and they gave me a new deal i swear iv made it

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Raheem Sterling
really sorry Michael Ngoo took me fone n started talking rubbishh on me status he wrotee about contractt sooryy

, It came up on the popular news feed ffs

That N'goo, he's a real joker.

[Craig_H]

He wont be laughing when Sterling pinches his passport on their way to their next europa halfterm trip.

[Lee]

really sorry Michael Ngoo took me fone n started talking rubbishh on me status he wrotee about contractt sooryy

The ****? Jesus wept.

[Kenneth]

[yamiedo]

Wouldn't mind giving him a small cameo appearance before the end of the season - see if he makes an impact. We are lacking on width right now, and though he might be bullied around it'd be interesting to see. Jack Robinson got a debut at 16 so I don't think he's too young.

[Lecter]

Wouldn't mind giving him a small cameo appearance before the end of the season - see if he makes an impact. We are lacking on width right now, and though he might be bullied around it'd be interesting to see. Jack Robinson got a debut at 16 so I don't think he's too young.

Robinson was much bigger physically than Sterling is and even then you have to remember that Robinson has played again before today

From what I'm hearing they will be very cautious about Sterling

The expectation was that Flanagan, Coady & Wisdom would all come through before Robinson but obviously injuries have meant that Robinson has had to be thrown in because we dont have anyone else capable of playing there

[DannyMan2006]

Robinson was much bigger physically than Sterling is and even then you have to remember that Robinson has played again before today

From what I'm hearing they will be very cautious about Sterling

The expectation was that Flanagan, Coady & Wisdom would all come through before Robinson but obviously injuries have meant that Robinson has had to be thrown in because we dont have anyone else capable of playing there

Wisdom has been unlucky with injuries or he could already have had a chance methinks. Nice for Raheem to travel with the squad though, like it was for Coady and Suso.

[RedSince1964]

Wisdom has been unlucky with injuries or he could already have had a chance methinks. Nice for Raheem to travel with the squad though, like it was for Coady and Suso.

[Tee]

Raheem was sitting right in front of SlurAlex yesterday at The Emirates... hope there was no tapping up going on!!

[dww]

Raheem was sitting right in front of SlurAlex yesterday at The Emirates... hope there was no tapping up going on!!

Yeah, I would really hate it if Mr Fergusson became our next manager.