The Case of Nii Odartey Lamptey

Pressure + youth = failure

With news that Manchester United have signed a nine-year-old child in the hope he will turn out to be the next Cristiano Ronaldo, eurosport suggests the pressures put on ever younger players these days is far too great for them to succeed at the highest level.

And to back up our claim, we have delved back in time to find a handful of other youngsters who have failed to live up to the great expectations placed on their small shoulders.

Nii Lamptey - Perhaps the most unfortunate of all the players on our list, Lamptey has endured terrible heartache since his rise to prominence as a 16-year-old at Anderlecht. Dubbed the 'new Pele', the Ghanaian dazzled fans with his silky skills and he won a move to PSV Eindhoven before Ron Atkinson brought him to Aston Villa in 1994. Once there though, his problems began as a legal wrangle with his agent led to a rapid decline in his fortunes. A string a clubs and four continents later, Lamptey returned to Ghana after being subjected to terrible racism during a spell in Germany and losing two children, one to a rare disease and the other soon after birth.

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