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For every footballing wonder kid that has failed to live up to his potential, there have been players who were seen to have had no chance of making the grade at a big club, but still managed to shine in the later stages of their career.Here are the 8 best ‘late bloomers’, who realised their potential at an age when many would have passed their peak.
#8 Dado Prso
He might have appeared in the UEFA Champions League final and accumulated 32 caps for Croatia, but Dado Prso was hardly a big prospect in his younger days, rising from obscurity rather quickly to become the Champions League’s joint-top scorer in one match with his 4 goals against Deportivo La Coruna.
Prso spent his early 20s playing in lower division and amateur French clubs along with working as a car mechanic, before then-Monaco manager Jean Tigana accidentally saw the striker play and signed him up for the Ligue 1 outfit.
Prso helped Monaco reach the Champions League final in 2004 with his 7 goals, and won the Scottish Premier League and League Cup with Rangers before retiring in 2007.
#7 Rickie Lambert
Arguably one of the most improbable football stories of the current generation, Rickie Lambert has seen his career take off much later than most others would, but still has managed to reach the pinnacles of the footballing world in that short period.
A beetroot farmer by profession in his not-so-successful days, Lambert came into prominence with Southampton, helping the Saints reach the Premier League with two consecutive promotions in successive years. His Premier League debut came at the age of 30, but the striker didn’t stop there, scoring 29 goals in his two years in England’s top division.
England manager Roy Hodgson and Liverpool both came calling for the frontman this summer, meaning that Lambert now boasts of having played the World Cup, and is expected to feature in Liverpool’s UEFA Champions League campaign this term.
#6 Luca Toni
A journeyman in every sense of the word during his early footballing career, Luca Toni moved clubs almost every year between Serie B and Serie C1, struggling to make a big impact at any of the sides that he took the field for.
However, his big break came at the age of 27 when he was at Palermo, as the striker scored 30 goals to help the Rosanero climb to Serie A for the first time in three decades. Two years later, Toni won the European Golden Shoe with Fiorentina, with his goal-scoring prowess seeing the Italian spend time at Bayern Munich and Juventus after he had turned 30.
#5 Ian Wright
A player whose career started relatively late, Ian Wright spent his teenage years playing for non-league teams, and even managed to land himself in prison for driving offences during that time. He earned his first professional contract only at the age of 22, and that too by chance when a Crystal Palace scout accidentally noticed him, but went on to win the the Premier League Golden Boot with the club.
He joined Arsenal at the age of 27, winning Premier League and the FA Cup with the club, and was even their all-time top goalscorer till Thierry Henry overtook him.
#4 Didier Drogba
Having never attended a football academy and begun training daily only as an adult, the Ivorian striker signed his first professional contract at the age of 21, with then-Le Mans coach Marc Westerloppe saying about Drogba, “It took Didier four years to be capable of training every day and playing every week.”
His break came when he was signed by Marseille, as his solitary season with the Ligue 1 club saw him score 32 times. Chelsea came looking for him the following summer, signing the striker for £24 million. The rest, as they say, is history.
#3 Miroslav Klose
Playing in the 7th division of the German football at the age of 20, no one would have imagined that Miroslav Klose, who was also working as a builder and brick-layer then, would end up as the highest goalscorer in World Cup history when he retired from the game.
A couple of solid seasons at FC Kaiserslautern and a goal-laden 2002 World Cup later, Klose came into the spotlight, and has performed consistently at Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen and Lazio ever since, not to mention his exploits in the following three World Cups as well.
#2 Fabio Grosso
January 2004: Age 26, Palermo, Serie B.
July 2006: Age 28, Palermo, Serie A and World Cup Champion
An unknown entity even in his own country for a large part of his career, Fabio Grosso was called up for the 2006 World Cup on the basis of his strong performances for Palermo following their promotion to Serie A in 2004. At the World Cup in Germany, Grosso scored arguably Italy’s two most important goals, with his 119th minute winner against Germany in the semifinal and the winning penalty against France in the final handing the Azzurri the trophy.
His success with the national team helped him make the grade with Europe’s big-name clubs, as Grosso spent time thereafter at Inter Milan, Lyon and Juventus before retiring in 2012.
#1 Antonio Di Natale
Born in Naples, Di Natale joined Empoli’s youth system, but struggled to make the grade in his early years there, and was subsequently sent out on loan to earn more playing time. It was only when the striker was 25 that he started getting noticed, as his 16 goals helped earn Empoli promotion to Serie A.
However, after their relegation in 2004, Di Natale moved to Udinese, where he has spent the last 10 years and counting, scoring over 200 goals for the Italian club. Part of the Serie A Team of the Year in three of the last four seasons, Di Natale has endeared himself to the Bianconeri faithful over his decade-long stay at the club, and even at the age of 36, looks as sharp as ever, having already scored 6 goals this season in a mere 2 games.
