A year ago tomorrow was the World Cup final, a downbeat evening dominated by the sullied departure of a great, Zined-ine Zidane, the end of a month that left little evidence of who might take up the baton of greatness. There had been some signals. The hosts, Germany, would celebrate a sense of revival, epito-mised by the youth and dash of striker Lukas Podolski. Spain had sensed a coming of age for their centre-forward, Fernando Torres. Argentina's Carlos Tevez had announced himself as a man for the big stage.
Twelve months later, Torres and Tevez are the impact strikers in the Premiership's transfer summer, a pair of 23-year-olds fetching either a huge fee - Liverpool's up to £22m to Atletico Madrid for the Spaniard - or prompting a determined pursuit, in the case of Tevez and Manchester United.
Their suitors anticipate them becoming guaranteed goalscorers, though with figures of seven goals in 19 matches, as Tevez scored for West Ham last season, or 13 goals in 36 Primera Division games, Torres's latest return with Atletico, it is a projected excellence.
Liverpool's head coach Rafa Benitez felt obliged to put the Torres fee in the context of a peculiar market. "If someone pays £20m for a midfielder, what is the value of a striker?" asks Benitez. "For his age and his position, there are not too many strikers of Fernando Torres's age playing at his level." Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief-executive agrees: "Obviously strikers, particularly the younger ones, are at a premium."
Sir Alex Ferguson, the United manager, had made the same point midway through last season, that to find strong, youthful goalscorers seemed unusually tough. He said so even before Tevez began to show his value in the latter half of West Ham's season. By the end the evidence had become abundant. Look at the hierarchy of the Golden Shoe, a slightly contrived but still revealing ranking system to find the best goalscorer in league football across Europe.
Advertisement
The new holder is Francesco Totti of Roma, whom you are as likely to find classified as a midfielder as a striker if you leaf back through reference annuals over his career. He wears No 10 and will want to be regarded as a No 10 for posterity. Totti scored 26 times in the Serie A campaign, so prolific that for much of it Roma operated without an orthodox centre-forward. Totti is not just a midfielder-cum-striker, he's nearly a veteran. He will turn 31 in September.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, meanwhile, was 31 last weekend, the proud owner of a Spanish championship medal, the award for being the Spanish first division's leading scorer in his first season with Real Madrid and a little unfortunate not to have overtaken or at least matched Totti's total. Van Nistelrooy limped off during the first half of Madrid's final game when he needed a single goal to reach Totti's 26. Look further down the Golden Shoe list and you'll find only one man in the top 10 who is under 25. He may well be over 25 before we hear too much more about him. The Bul-garian Tsvetan Genkov, 23, scored 26 goals for Lokomo-tiv Sofia in a patchy domestic league and will stepping up in class only so far when the new season begins. He has joined Dynamo Moscow.
Across Europe, the perception that the best strikers will thrive into their thirties has a stronger and stronger currency. Juventus, recruiting vigorously on their return to Serie A, have renewed the contract of David Trezeguet, who will be 30 in October. Trezeguet's advisers had been issuing their customary alerts to possible suitors for the France international and his 15 goals in Serie B last term might be considered below par for a man who was consistently among the leading scorers in Serie A for most of the six preceding campaigns. But Juve wanted him and Trezeguet has accepted a contact to 2011, when he will be 34.
Incidentally, Juve's leading scorer last season was a bright young thing called Alessandro Del Piero, 33 this November.
Milan, where age has long been a recommendation rather than a handicap, recognised back in January that the market for younger strikers was unreliable. In the summer of 2005, they signed Italy's brightest young goalscorer, Alberto Gilardino, then 23, for about £17m.
Advertisement
Gilardino's Serie A record since his teens had been spectacular. In his first season at Milan, it was good, too. But his contribution to the Champions League triumph last season can best be described as marginal.
Gilardino scored twice in nine matches, and gave way to Pippo Inzaghi, 33, for the final. As if to confirm 2007 as the year of the thirtysomething, Inzaghi scored twice to win the European Cup.
At least Gilardino made the bench. Twelve months ago, Milan thought they had bought an exciting Brazilian goalscorer, Ricardo Oliveira, who had just turned 26. They paid £10m plus the midfielder Johan Vogel. Six months later, with Oliveira struggling dreadfully, Milan bought a tried and tested Brazilian, Ron-aldo, who will be 31 a month into the new campaign, and he was immediately among the goals. Milan's fond target for the new season is a nostalgic one: their president Silvio Berlusconi dreams of a return by Andriy Shevchenko, 30, from Chelsea.
Neither age nor his injury-hampered 2006-07 has put Bar-celona off Thierry Henry, who will be 30 by the time he first jostles for position in an attacking quartet at the Nou Camp that includes the one truly outstanding striker of his rather patchy generation, 26-year-old Cam-eroonian Samuel Eto'o, and the man who has just stopped being the most exciting teenager in the game. Leo Messi turned 20 a fortnight ago. He is not a centre-for-ward by any strict definition, being a player who likes to attack from wide or deep positions, but he does score goals: more of them, notably, in the season just completed than Torres, despite missing four months with injury.
The rarity of high-class goalscorers under 25 puts a premium on Torres, Tevez and the likes of Ajax's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
Advertisement
Aged 23, and with two prolific campaigns behind him, the Dutchman is valued at £14m. Rolando Bianchi, who scored freely for Reggina in Serie A last term and is 23, has also stirred the beginnings of an auction.
As for the striker voted best young footballer at the World Cup 12 months ago, poor Podolski, 22, has lately found himself touted less as a target than as a possible makeweight in transfers. He scored four Bundes-liga goals for Bayern Munich last season and can expect to be understudying new signings Miroslav Klose, 29, and Luca Toni, 30.