He has barely figured in the national team, only barely made the final squad selection, and faces an immense contest to win a starting position, with Real Madrid's Gonzalo Higuaín, Barcelona's Lionel Messi, Atletico Madrid's Sergio Aguero, Manchester City's Carlos Tevez, and Boca Juniors' aging striker Martín Palermo all higher in Maradona's estimation than Milito.
"It's a simple numbers game - that's why we've got one or two in the top 100 and they've got eight or nine, because they've got eight times the number of juniors competing aged seven, eight, nine and 10.
More than 200 "Nippers" – junior lifesavers aged as young as five – resume training at the start of September.
Born in Belfast, the middle child of three, Branagh junior was aged nine when his family relocated to Reading to escape the Troubles.
From September, primary schools in England will have to teach junior children – aged seven up – a second language, though concerns remain that many are ill-prepared to do so.
Hingis won junior Wimbledon aged 13 in 1994, the year Robson was born, and then the women's event at 16, making the Swiss the youngest winner for 100 years.
A Taiwanese businessman offered a prize of $1m for the first program to win a match against a Taiwanese junior champion aged 13 or thereabouts, but he died before the goal could be accomplished and it is probably still a decade or two away.
Before Tweddle came along, no British gymnast had even won a medal at a World Championships, but she leaves as the standard bearer for a sport which has made significant strides since she first represented her country in junior competition aged nine.
Gebrselassie first came to the fore at international level when he won both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the 1992 World Junior Championships, aged 19.
He describes himself as "[not] what you would call real polished" in his first year of junior hockey, aged 17.
