Can you, with a healthy workout and program and appropiate diet, become more fit in your 30’s than you were in your 20’s?

Hello, my question is quite self explanatory, however it goes deeper than that, I will also explain why I ask this.

I am currently 27 years old eastern european, since the age of 17 to 22 I was very active physically, I used to run a lot and worked out every day while also having more than decent eating habits. The main purpose for this was my goal of becomming a football player (which I achieved, but not profesionally).

However, at around the age of 23 life happened, I had to take up abroad jobs I didn’t really like but were paying well, the result was that I had to stop playing football (which is my only passion in life) and I gained a lot of weight to the point wherr now I am 1st class obese (25 kg extra weight, about 60 lbs I think).

However the money is gone and now and I regret that I exchanged those good years for money instead of following my passion, even if it would’ve been at a lower level.

I know it’s generally considered too late to reenter sports at this age, since most players are already beyond their peak at this age, however I don’t care about that, since my fear is that if I do not do what I can in football while I can I will regret it forever, and it already hurts bad.

Now we get to my question, more precisely I would like to listen to your succsessful stories, of people who were kind of in the same situation I am in right now but still managed to get their life around against what people said.

I read somewhere that physical ability only decreeses with about 5% after the age of 30, and I still have a few years until then. My idea is that I could lose most of the extra weight in half a year, I still wouldn’t be 28 then, and that’s when I could resume my football career until the age of about 35 and that is when I could become a coach (since it would be near impossible to be considered as a reputable coach if you didn’t have at least a few years of foothall behind you).

I know all of this may seem silly, however it’s not like I am betting everything on this, because I am at college meanwhile and I can support myself financially.

There are examples of big footballers who manage to play at a high level at a relatively old age (Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo, Modric), so why wouldn’t I be capable of having a way better physical condition now or in a year or two than I had at 20 (if my work is done properly)?!

Thank you a lot for reading, it really means a lot to be “heard”, because I do not have many people to talk about this with.

So please, let me hear your story!

Thank you!