Future footballers may look more like the slender bodied Marcus Rashford than the stockier looking Wayne Rooney, scientists say.
Significant changes to footballers' body shapes due to improvements to football pitches and increased workload, researchers have found.
The new, better maintained pitches favour leaner body types than the muscular physiques of older generation of players.
These changes have reportedly created leaner and more slender body shapes in footballers.
Well-maintained pitches of today, along with tough new training regimes, have had a major impact on the evolution of footballers' body shapes.
Muscle and power, epitomised by the likes of Alan Shearer, Emile Heskey and Wayne Rooney – have been replaced by the lean, slender physiques of today's top players such as Jamie Vardy, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford, say scientist.
A new report led by University of Wolverhampton sports scientists, reveals that the well-maintained pitches of today, along with tough new training regimes, have had a major impact on the evolution of footballers' body shapes.
Lead researcher Professor Alan Nevill, at the University of Wolverhampton, said: 'Footballers of today have adapted to the modern game, and as a result their body shape has altered.
'Today's players are more like endurance athletes than power athletes. To compete at today's high levels, they are also working harder and harder so are much leaner.'
'Modern players are ectomorphic, characterised by a lean, slender body, as opposed to the muscular, mesomorphic builds which were more common in the seventies and eighties.
'A lot of this can be attributed to the increased quality of playing surfaces where footballers train and compete.
'Modern pitches are immaculate and well-maintained and not the mud baths that they
