Football Academies: What does it take to succeed?

But what people don't see is the years of dedication and sacrifice that have led football players to their moments of glory. The vast majority of this dedication comes in the years playing at an academy, an often cutthroat environment whose mission is to find the next generation of top players and give them to the world.

According to research conducted by The English FA in 2015, the former FA Head of Talent Identification, Richard Allen, revealed that less than 0.5% of the players aged under nine that sign for professional teams go all the way to play for the first team. There could be hundreds of footballers with world-class potential who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and slip through the net due to circumstances other than purely their footballing ability.

There are good examples of household names almost being victims of this but managing to squeeze through in one way or another. Ronaldo Nazario, known to many as the 'original' Ronaldo, almost lost his career as a child because he couldn't afford the fare for an hour-long bus ride to his trial with Flamengo. Swedish international Zlatan Ibrahimovic struggled to get picked up by clubs until a lower-league Brazilian club in Rio de Janeiro, São Cristóvão, took a chance on him.

One of the world's top academies is in Merseyside, at Liverpool Football Club's state-of-the-art academy complex in Kirkby. The academy is responsible for producing some of football's most legendary talents, including Champions League winners Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, Ballon d'Or winner Michael Owen and more recently, Premier League winner Trent Alexander-Arnold. But these talents can only be produced and developed at a facility and club with incredibly high standards.