Your average professional football career takes its toll on even the fittest and best-prepared of players as the years roll by, meaning that by the age of 35 or even earlier, most outfielders are already considering when and how to finally hang up their boots.
Not Andres D'Alessandro.
The ex-River Plate, Wolfsburg, Real Zaragoza, Portsmouth, Internacional and Argentina star turned 40 on April 15, a milestone which the vast majority of footballers greet while enjoying the comforts of retirement.
'El Cabezon', on the other hand, continues to put his body on the line with Uruguayan giants Nacional, the seventh club of a career that has spanned both sides of the Atlantic and enjoyed glory at both club and international level.
He may have more than 700 professional games under his belt, but the playmaker is happy to keep going for as long as he can, and with the commitment and enthusiasm he has shown throughout his career.
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“My career has been going for 21 years now,” D'Alessandro tells Goal shortly after Nacional downed Wanderers last week to pull ahead of arch-rivals Penarol at the top of the Primera Division table, with the Argentine playing the last half-hour off the bench.
“To be honest I never imagined playing football for so long, but now I have the chance to be playing at 40 in a huge South American club, one of the most successful, Nacional, it is something I did not expect to happen.
“I've always loved football, I was born with the ball under my arm, as they say, my whole family loves it, they took me to games and instilled in me that love of playing football.
“I didn't always know if I'd make it as a professional or just as an amateur, but I would never have stopped playing football. I've always given everything to play, since I was four or five.
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I'd say that footballers are privileged because they work at what they most love doing, and on top of that get paid for it! It's a brilliant job.”
Already a veteran of two of South America's fiercest derby clashes, River and Boca Juniors' Superclasico and Porto Alegre's Grenal between Inter and Gremio, he is also revelling in the Nacional-Penarol rivalry which splits Montevideo down the middle, even if Covid-19 has robbed the historic clash of some of its famous fervour.
“A Superclasico is always huge, whether it's River and Boca, Inter and Gremio, now we have the Copa Sudamericana [where Nacional and Penarol meet in the last 16] and on Sunday [July 4] in the league at home, we have three straight derbies, Montevideo comes to a standstill, Uruguay comes to a standstill,” he explains.
“So far there have been no fans [in the Clasico games], it's a shame but we understand like everyone else the times we are living through. Let's hope things get better soon because football without fans is like an actor or a theatre without its audience.”
D'Alessandro broke through in the River ranks at the start of the 21st century as a teenager, and by 2002 could already boast to his name two Primera titles and his first international call-up, handed to him by then-Argentina boss Marcelo Bielsa in a pre-World Cup friendly against Mexico.
The 10 years between 1995 and 2005, immediately after Diego Maradona's retirement from the national team, saw a glut of talent emerge in his iconic No.10 position. As well as D'Alessandro, River also saw Ariel Ortega, Pablo Aimar and Marcelo Gallardo star in their ranks, while the Millo's chief adversaries Boca were no slouches either with Juan Roman Riquelme pulling the strings on the edge of the penalty area.
All of those players suffered at one point or another with the inevitable label of the 'New Maradona', a tag that D'Alessandro, who as well as the great, late star looked up to Racing Club and Uruguay favourite Ruben Paz and River's own Celeste idol Enzo Francescoli as a youth - “My father always used to point those players out to me, to make me see how they moved and operated on the field” - believes was always unrealistic.
“Whoever used to say it, they were really mistaken,” he adds. “Maradona is unique, there will never be another player like him. No doubt about it. We still use the present tense with him because sometimes we still cannot believe he is gone. We are still talking about Maradona in the present tense.
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“Whenever a good player came along there were comparisons because he is the greatest idol Argentine football has, now Leo [Messi] has come along and he might make it, a lot of people already think he is there.”
The admiration D'Alessandro holds for Messi, with whom he shared a few fleeting moments in Argentina colours, is clear, and the Nacional man believes that even at an early age he could see the Barcelona wizard was going to go a long way.
“He is one of the greatest of all time, no doubt about it,” he explains. “I am in no doubt.
"I was with Leo for only a while. I was there when he debuted in 2005 against Hungary, I was with him as a youngster, but you knew what he was capable of. You could see it in training, in matches, I'm not breaking any new ground here if I'm talking about Messi but we saw everything he's still doing now and has done for many years, he used to show it day in, day out in training.
“The most impressive thing about Leo is that it is so hard to keep to the same standard for so long in football, and he is still doing that. He has been at the same level for years and years, that makes him even greater still. For him to keep making the difference at his age, because he's not young anymore, that show just what kind of a player he is.”
D'Alessandro endured mixed fortunes with the national team. A regular under Bielsa, starring in Argentina's 2004 Copa America campaign as they finished second behind Brazil, and their gold medal-winning Olympic Games team that same year, he received scant opportunities once 'El Loco' resigned and went five years without playing for the Albiceleste before earning a brief, final recall from Sergio Batista at the end of 2010.
“It's difficult to look back and say now, but at the time I thought I could have been there a little more, I could have been given more of a chance,” he admits. “It's not fair to talk about deserving it or otherwise because we know that it is a very tough thing in football, sometimes you deserve it and you're not there for one reason or another and sometimes you don't deserve it as much and you get the chance.
“At a certain point I didn't get the chance to prove myself, perhaps I do feel I could have been part of the team a little longer.”
The player points to 2010, a year in which he helped Internacional be crowned Copa Libertadores champions and beat out Juan Sebastian Veron and young Santos prodigy Neymar to the prestigious South American Footballer of the Year award, as one moment that he could have helped the Argentina cause.
“The fact I wasn't at the 2010 World Cup and couldn't show my talents in a year which was amazing for me... there I will say that I felt I deserved the chance to shine in the national team at that time, it didn't work out,” he says.
One positive that did emerge from his Albiceleste days was the chance to work alongside Bielsa, a privilege that D'Alessandro still values more than a decade and a half later.
“Marcelo was the best coach I ever had, without a shadow of a doubt,” he recalls. “A stand-up kind of guy, honest, a man who lives for football, that's why they call him El Loco. Obviously, sometimes with that crazy thing he has he is obsessed with his work, but that makes him special, right?
“He came to me at the perfect time in my career for me to train with him. He made me a better player and a better person, tactically and technically, and for me he really was the best I had, a guy who pointed out your mistakes, who was fair, which is one of his greatest virtues.
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"He never picked the biggest name or the player with the most titles, he picked the best player. Having worked under him was a pleasure, and I always say he was the best coach I had.
“Marcelo would grab you after games one by one, he would come up and point out all your mistakes. Footballers don't always like that, you're embarrassed, you might have thought you played well and then he shows you the game and kills you, because he found 200 mistakes!
“It happened sometimes and Marcelo pointed them out to you and that was something which made me grow... there was a dialogue with each player where there was trust and you could talk about football.”
As well as playing the game, D'Alessandro is an avid observer of football from across the globe.
He keeps close tabs on the leagues he used to play in such as the Bundesliga - “It's become a lot more technical, it's changed a lot and in a good way since I played there” - and the Premier League, where he spent six months in 2006 with Portsmouth and had a big influence on one current England star - “it ticks all the boxes, tactically, physically, technically” - and is also paying attention to both major international tournaments currently taking place, Euro 2020 and, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Copa America.
“[Argentina] look good, they're getting better,” he says of his home nation, who close out their Copa Group A campaign on Monday against Bolivia with qualification to the last 16 already assured following narrow victories over Uruguay and Paraguay and a draw with Chile.
“At the Copa they have shown good spells of football at times. They are a competitive, proactive team, which can keep the ball, press and dominate possession and know what to do with it.
“Sometimes they struggle to maintain that over the 90 minutes, there are times they lose the ball and sit back. But you have to play both ways, pushing forward and also dropping back and hitting on the counter, and Argentina have done that because they have players who can play with the ball and on the break.”
D'Alessandro singled out Exequiel Palacios, his former River team-mate from his second spell at the Monumental, and new Fiorentina signing Nicolas Gonzalez - “He's surprised me a lot, I'd seen him play in Germany but he's adapted really well to the national team” - as two of his favourite players from the current Argentina side, but he believes the key to success will be taking the pressure off their No.10.
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“It is important that they don't always depend on Leo, not that he feels that weight but to allow him to rest and doesn't have all the burden on him,” he insists. “It is vital to have other players who can take that role on the pitch to give him a break, so he can be best used when it counts the most and his team needs him, and he can be that match-winner.”
The future for Argentina once Leo retires, though, is somewhat more uncertain. The great No.10s that the country produced on a consistent basis for more than two decades seem to have dried up after Messi's emergence, a fact that has not escaped D'Alessandro's attention.
“It's true, there are fewer now,” he says. “I cannot explain, or perhaps I can, we stopped working like we used to in the clubs, with the youth and infant divisions, I think Argentina will continue to produce players because it is a country which has great riches in that area, I always try to think that the No.10 is always going to be there, I don't want it to disappear.
“That's part of the evolution of football, but I hope it isn't lost, and that we can get back to working like we used to, with the kids and in the Argentina youth teams which I think are doing good work, with [Diego] Placente and Aimar, they are working hard so that Argentina keep producing quality players.
“Times have changed. We used to play in the street, now you cannot do that. We played in parks, now there aren't pitches in the parks. Before we'd go out and at 3am we'd play a game of football, that's gone now. That's part of the reason and the other part is a lack of interest in preparing players.
“[We need to] prepare players not just to play well, but so that they are ready to handle any situations that might come up, handle themselves in different situations, not just arrive and let players loose, it's from an early age, we must teach them everything but also non-football matters, everything that surrounds players, which can be a problem for players who are not properly prepared mentally.”
On the other hand, the Nacional veteran also sees no reason why Messi, who last week celebrated his 34th birthday, cannot follow his lead and push his career into another decade.
“I think he can [play until he is 40]," D'Alessandro states. “To be the best player in the world, first you have to be different to everyone else mentally, and he is, he's shown that, not just as a player but as a person too.
“I think that if he wants to, he could make it. These players end it all when they get tired. You might have some problem or other because the years catch up with us all, but he's the kind of player who always wants to win, seeks the next record and then break their own personal bests.
"I think Leo can keep playing for as long as he wants, I'm in no doubt of that.”
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