Arsenal youngster scores 10 goals against Liverpool, but teenage fame is a dangerous beast

Arsenal wonderkid Chido Obi-Martin has already trained with the first team this season. Photo: Getty Images/David Price

Huge weekend for a rare 14-goal tally. France's 14-0 win over Gibraltar is impressive if you enjoy international football humiliations, Ware kicks and Olivier Giroud's bicycle kicks. There was even more excitement at home for Arsenal's Under-16s, who beat Liverpool 14-3 on Saturday.

Chido Obi-Martin, 15, scored 10 of those goals, and the compilation industrial complex posted them on social media within hours. There's a lot to admire here, not least Obi's height and commanding presence, which gives off the impression of schoolteacher Brian Glover playing the role of Bobby Charlton in Kes. Obi has better contact than Glover, which makes his opponents look leaden. He dribbles past the goalkeeper, past sliding defenders, delivers a powerful header and finishes with ease. He looks untouchable.

We've certainly seen similar teenage promises go unfulfilled. The underachieving prodigy is such a football stereotype that the names roll off the tongue. The road to glory is paved with Freddy Adus, Cherno Sambas and Sonny Pikes.

Chido Obi-Martin scored 10 goals for Arsenal U16s against Liverpool today 16 years. victory with a score of 14-3. 💫

Obi-Martin has already trained with Mikel Arteta's first team and is eligible to represent Denmark, England and Nigeria. 🇩🇰 🏴ResultSminigofootball 🇳🇬 pic.twitter.com/THIkFvT9u7

— Chris Wheatley (@ChrisWheatley) November 18, 2023

There are good reasons to believe that Obi will avoid such a fate. He was already training with Mikel Arterta's first team, a level never reached by poor Sonny Pike, whose football career rose and fell with a trial run at Ajax at the age of 13. Obi is not yet featured in Football Manager as he is under 16 years old. , therefore, the hopes of a million Artetas imitators cannot be pinned on him, as was once the case with Samba. And he played youth football for Denmark (and was also eligible to play for Nigeria and England). Thus, he does not bear the burden of a nation searching for its Pele, like Adu.

There is another category of highly promoted football teenagers who have made stellar careers. Scott Parker, a McDonalds commercial star at 13, played for 20 years and was FWA Footballer of the Year in 2011. Joe Cole, who rose to prominence at West Ham around the same age as Obi, won three Premier League titles with Chelsea and both domestic cup titles. Even a player like Jermaine Pennant, who Arsenal signed at 15 for a then-record £2 million from Notts County, eventually made it to Liverpool, Zaragoza and the Champions League final.

Most young footballers, not to mention most people, are willing to die during this career. And yet, even with a man like Cole, anyone who remembers his teenage hoopla might feel left out. This is because in the imagination the potential is exponential. Any player who views the oceans separately from his opponents at junior level is expected to continue down that path. It's easy to forget that when they reach adult football, most of their peers were also once unplayable teenage geniuses.

Joe Cole, the child prodigy who was to light up the Premier League and break England's records. Photo: Getty Images/Gary Pryor

It is best if your talent is identified early in the game, but it will only be more widely appreciated once you start playing first team football. Erling Haaland, with whom Obi is already being excitedly compared, chose a wisely low-key path. Two years in Norway, another two in a bigger club in Norway, two years in Austria, Borussia Dortmund and now Manchester City. No one blames him for failing to live up to his potential because most people only found out when he was scoring regularly in the Champions League.

You want your youth football to be told through shaky phone footage in a documentary rather than played out on social media away from the pressure of the crowd. Obi's 10 goals this weekend were scored at under-16 level only because the under-21 and under-18 teams he usually plays for these days did not have games this weekend.

Football now, especially at a high level. A club with Arsenal's resources must be created to prevent Sonny Pike scenarios. That's as long as players can avoid uncontrollable factors that could derail careers: serious injuries, off-field distractions or loss of the competitive mania needed to thrive. The football education provided by a top academy should make a career in football viable and be holistic enough to offer a future free from it. Arsenal have the rare example of Martin Odegaard, a player destined for stardom and playing for the first team at 15, who suffered a major setback early on (at Real Madrid) but is now still thriving in his mid-twenties years.

So they definitely have reason to be excited about Chido Obi. In the meantime, Arsenal fans should try to forget his name. For young footballers, there is nothing better than obscurity.