Are Foreign Players Holding Up Our Chances In International Football?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262629/Sepp-Blatter-England-win-World-Cup-unless-influx-foreign-players-brought-control.html

[emmie]

would suggest that megabuck salaries for players, managers and all in the top leagues are to blame as well. It's killed what one used to call English football stone dead. And one thing that was apparent is that the likes of players like Wayne Rooney can't hold a candle to some of the worlds top foreign players. If you took out all the foreign born players from the premier league how many good players would we have left.

[craft1948]

Wayne Rooney

[pdq1]

http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/index.html

According to the world ranking list England are 6th. Maybe its because we have played some cra?p teams lately and that has boosted our position.

[Booldawg]

I often driven past football fields of a weekend and witnessed 3 or 4 games simutalneously running and pondered why Britian doesnt produce more world class players. Especially when you consider how endemic football is in British society. You cant get away from it even if you want to.

So there is no lack for enthusiasm - plenty of youngster are playing competetive football. A professional footballer will be picked up by a talent scout and nutured from a very young age.

We're just not good enough - like with most sports we lack the passion and commitment to win. These young British footballers can still drive around in sports cars without being particularly motivated to 'do well'.

[emmie]

booldwa that just isn't so, that our sportsmen and women lack commitment, considering how well we did in the Olympics, and Paralympics. as well as cricket, not to mention rugby, and other sports besides. Look at Bradley Wiggins, he won the tour de France, gold medal in the Olympics, so we are not short of sporting prowess, perhaps it's just
football we are rubbish at.

[Snafu03]

most of these pro players are from countries where education is secondary to football.

british kids are brought up with a focus on to do well academically, homework before leisure - a far cry from the kid from brazil who does little else other than kick a ball round with his mates.

also with expensive electronic 'toys' soak up leisure time, poor kids from less wealthy countries dont have these distractions.

whilst on holiday in tenerife last year I was looking out from the balcony from the hotel room and watching this young local girl, mustve be 12 or 13, just kicking a ball round in the street, bouncing it off walls, catching it on the volley - incredible skills.

[Booldawg]

yes, you got a point em - forgot about the olympics really. it is just football. no other sport is so well supported or funded in uk and we cant get it together.

[jno]

rugby and cricket are minority sports; a world cup will barely round up 10 teams. It's competing in football, a genuine world sport, that shows British teams up. And yet if England is ranked 6 that's not too bad: in terms of population it's ranked about 20th, so it's punching above its weight.

[anotheoldgit]

Since most of our clubs seem to be owned by 'foreigners' these days, perhaps it is all down to hard cash, and lack of patriotic pride.

These English teams would sooner 'buy in' ready made stars than go to the trouble, time and expense, developing a star from home grown talent.

Maybe another good idea would be for players to be paid on results.

[Booldawg]

I've never understood how the ranking system is structured. We always seem to be alot higher than we should be.

[emmie]

i think most of our footballers are rubbish, then again what do i know...

[anotheoldgit]

em10

/// i think most of our footballers are rubbish, then again what do i know... ///

You and I both Em.

How some can turn out on a wet cold winter's day to watch such rubbish, and pay a vast amount of money for the privilege, is very strange to me.

[emmie]

i don't, and i suspect that you wouldn't either, but millions do..

[Zeuhl]

The success and high standard of our Premiership is the issue.

All the Premiership Clubs have excellent academies that develop home grown talent and produce players who go on to play for that club and for others in the English leagues.

But there is a whole world of excellent players to choose from.

The Premiership teams need to be competitive so they want the best.
Many of the best from overseas are interested in playing here.

Excellent for club football but not so good for the national side as it limits opportunities for English players, though there's nothing to stop them going overseas to develop their skills assuming they have the potential.

There have been ideas mooted to ring fence a certain percentage of the clubs' squad for English players to help with the issue.

But we need to remember, the clubs' responsibility is to be the best they can be, not to worry about the national side. There is no benefit to them in that.

One benefit there is to them in having home players is that they are not being called back to Africa or South America for national duties or regional competitions.

[FredPuli43]

When was there a time when British players weren't rubbish? We always deluded ourselves that we had the best players, though the arrival of the Hungarians should have altered that belief in the 1950s.

[Quizmonster]

Based on their World Cup results since 1966, the best England can claim is to be something like twelfth-best-equal alongside the likes of Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal and South Korea. Their sixth place in world rankings at present is presumably based just on recent matches against whomever.
After the idiotic anthems of earlier years..."It's Coming Home" etc...even The Sun came up with a perfectly reasonable motto in 2010: "Maybe, just Maybe." In other words, even they could at last see the Cup was just as likely to end up in Seoul, Sofia, Brussels or Lisbon as it was to end up in London.
I don't know how many Premiership players are foreigners, but I cannot see how their presence can be anything other than detrimental to the national team, despite no doubt their being wonderful for club fans.

[jno]

a remarkably long-term view, Quizmonster! I don't think anyone can be rated according to what they were doing in 1967 (thank goodness, in my own case).

[Duncer]

"most of these pro players are from countries where education is secondary to football.

british kids are brought up with a focus on to do well academically, homework before leisure - a far cry from the kid from brazil who does little else other than kick a ball round with his mates."

I'm not sure I'd agree with that entirely. In Brazillian favellas and the back streets of Africa, granted, but Holland and Germany place a heavy emphasis on the educational side of things when it comes to their young footballers, and they do alright nationally. I also can't remember too many nobel prize winners or poet laureates emerging among our own young superstars.

However, loath as I am to do so, I would agree with Sepp Blater when he said we have too many foreigners in the British game. They may have influenced us for the better when it comes to diet and preparation, not to mention application, but there should be more chance for home grown players to break through.

[Quizmonster]

J, I didn't rate them according to what they were doing in 1967, I rated them according to what they have done in World Cups throughout the entire 45 years since!
However, if you choose. you are free to rate them just according to the very latest World Cup. Having done so, have you reached any conclusion other than the one I came up with?

[keyplus90]

Just few years ago people suggested that for cricket as well. Now no one can find those people when England cricket team has become number one. Usually there are five or more players out of playing eleven who were born and raised outside England, mainly South Africa.