‘Every goal could be my last’: why strikers are improving with age

The ability to pump oxygen around the body is the first thing to go. The heart can’t beat fast enough to feed the grinding pistons. Fast-twitch muscle fibres start to deteriorate. Speed, power and agility lose their snap. Energy reserves deplete. Muscle mass retreats. Then there’s the aches and pains, the stiff limbs and creaking joints.

This is the harsh reality for each of us as we enter our 30s but, for elite footballers, this is nature sapping their superpowers. Fighting against it is futile. And yet, in the era of cryo chambers and placenta therapists, ageing gunslingers are dominating Europe’s goalscoring charts.

Robert Lewandowski (33) is the top scorer in the Champions League this season and he has already scored more than 30 goals in the Bundesliga; Ciro Immobile (32) is the joint-top scorer in Serie A; Karim Benzema (34) is top of the pile in La Liga; and Wissam Ben Yedder (31) is the top scorer in Ligue 1. How do these veteran forwards continue to thrive in the twilights of their careers?

Athletes should reach the peak of their powers in their mid-20s and then fall into an irreversible decline. This correlates with data extracted from the Premier League record book. During the mid-1990s, a vintage crop of English strikers decorated a golden era with a shared passion for goals, simple celebrations and setting records in their 20s.

Andy Cole, third on the all-time Premier League scoring list, registered his highest single-season return of 41 goals during the 1993-94 season at the age of 23. Once he edged over 30, his best tally amounted to 13. Michael Owen never bettered the 28 goals he scored for Liverpool as a 24-year-old. Robbie Fowler scored 36 goals in the 1995-96 campaign when he was 21 – a haul he would