Football Dissected

I recently read John Sinnott’s article “Small talent pool hurts England” on the BBC sports website and I have to say something about it. Here’s the article in its entirety

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7241484.stm

First of all, I’ll accept what he writes about is fairly true. To have a chance at winning a trophy at the international stage you’ve got to have the quantity of talented players to pick from. Let’s take Brazil as an example. Brazil is always considered one of the favourites in international tournaments, whether that be World Cups or Copa Americas. The coach, currently Dunga, always has a massive pool of talent to choose from. Here’s a list I’ve made (in no particular order):

1. Ronaldinho (Barcelona)
2. Kaká (AC Milan)
3. Luis Fabiano (Sevilla)
4. Diego (Werder Bremen)
5. Robinho (Real Madrid)
6. Anderson (Manchester United)
7. Afonso Alves (Middlesbrough)
8. Daniel Alves (Sevilla)
9. Adriano (Sevilla)
10. Alex (Chelsea)
11. Lucas (Liverpool)
12. Gilberto Silva (Arsenal)
13. Fred (Lyon)
14. Dida (AC Milan)
15. Doni (Roma)
16. Julio Batista (Real Madrid)
17. Alexander Pato (AC Milan)
18. Gilberto (Tottenham Hotspurs)
19. Breno (Bayern Munich)
20. Lucio (Bayern Munich)
21. Elano (Manchester City)
22. Daniel Carvalho (CSKA Moscow)
23. Vágner Love (CSKA Moscow)
24. Marcelo (Real Madrid)
25. Júlio César (Internazionale)
26. Luisão (Benfica)
27. Naldo (Werder Bremen)
28. Maicon (Internazionale)
29. Juan (A.S. Roma)
30. Mineiro (Hertha Berlin)
31. Edmílson (Barcelona)
32. Ricardo Oliveira (Real Zaragoza)

And there’s even more. Veterans like Cafu and Roberto Carlos are still around, despite the fact that they have yet to be picked by Dunga. Relatively unknowns like Reinaldo and Marcinho, who are currently playing for Queensland Roar in the Australian A-League and Luciano Emilio and Fred who are playing for DC United in the MLS are good quality players. Plus youngsters like Renato Augusto, who’s been likened to Rivaldo, are looking like real stars for the future.

But in the article John writes that there’ll only be 11 English players playing in the Champions League this week. Well what about Argentina? They’re one of the best teams in the world (the best according to FIFA rankings, but who considers it a real reflection of football?), and yet they’ll only have 8 players in the Champions League according to the article. The Dutch will only have 5, again according to the article.

And this is a reflection of footballers playing in foreign lands. There are no Dutch teams left in the Champions League and yet the Dutch have 5 players who are probably going to play this week. The same goes for Brazil and Argentina. Why aren’t there any high-profile English players playing aboard like there used to be, like there was with Keegan (Hamburg) and Lineker (Barcelona)? Are English players so arrogant to think the English Premier League is the be-all and end-all of football?

The only high-profile players I can think of who have played aboard in recent times are David Beckham, Michael Owen, Jonathan Woodgate and Owen Hargreaves. Out of those four only Beckham and Hargreaves have made it successfully during their times at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Owen had his injuries and never really reached the form that made him so dangerous at Liverpool and Woodgate was also sidelined for the majority of the time with injuries.

Pundits (I’m not going to name names) keep saying the likes of Darren Bent and Peter Crouch can’t get first-team football for Spurs and Liverpool respectively and that this is hurting the England national team. Well I’m sorry, but why doesn’t Bent think about going to the Netherlands or why doesn’t Crouch think about going to Italy or Spain for some first-team football? Is the reason because they love getting paid thousands of pounds to just sit on their asses week-in, week-out?

And then there’s the English youth players. Again pundits keep saying young English players can’t get into the first-teams for Premiership sides and that this is hurting the national team because there’s not enough talent coming through. Apparently the amount of young foreign players in the academies of Premiership clubs outweigh the number of English youngsters. So again I’m going to ask you, why can’t these young players go aboard and take the place of a Frenchman at a French academy, of a Spaniard at a Spanish academy, of an Italian at an Italian academy? Lionel Messi left Argentina for Barcelona when he was just 13. Cesc Fabergas left Spain for Arsenal when he was just 16. So there’s no point in arguing that young players shouldn’t go aboard when they’re so young because now Cesc and Lionel are two of the best players in the world and in the case of Messi the second best player as voted at the 2007 FIFA World Player of the Year awards. The example of Theo Walcott is perfect. He can’t get into the first-team of Arsenal. Yes he may decide that he wants to work his way into the team, but if he keeps failing to do or if he keeps failing to hit form when he does play in the first-team, will he think about moving aboard to another club playing in Europe like, for example, Lyon or Sevilla, to (a) get some first-team football (b) experience a different league and playing style, and (c) experience a different culture?

There’s also a point to be made that both young English players and the players in the senior national team are not technical gifted enough. Where are the Chris Waddles’, where are the Steve McMahons’, where are the Alan Shearers’? Where are the English Lionel Messis’, Juan Román Riquelmes' and Ronaldinhos’? Maybe England should concentrate more on youth development instead of taking the easy route of blaming foreign players and then maybe they’ll win a World Cup.