The last five years have seen an immense improvement in the performance of English teams in Europe. Five of the last eight champion league finalists were English teams (Arsenal - 1, Chelsea - 1, Liverpool - 2, United - 1). The most notable feature of last season's champions league was, no English team was eliminated by a non-English team. Arsenal lost to Liverpool, Liverpool were eliminated by Chelsea and Chelsea were defeated by Manchester United. A similar pattern seems to be developing this season.
Football history shows, domination of a club or a set of clubs from a particular country often coincides with the domination of that country at the World/Europe level. For example, consider the Ajax team of the early 70's. They were the European champions in '71,'72 and '73. The Dutch international team were World-cup runners-up in '74 and '78 (thanks to Johan Cruijff). Bayern Munich were champions from '74 to '76. The German National team won Euro in '72 and the World Cup in '74. Another example, Juventus were European champions in '83 and runners-up in '85. Italian national team won the '82 world cup. In spite of the indomitable performance of English clubs over the last few years, England national team hardly showed any domination at the world level. Forget domination, they haven't even managed to qualify for Euro '08.
Thanks to the global transfer market, over the last two decades, the correlation between Club domination and National team domination reduced significantly. One, very obvious reason for the current English domination is their wealth. United, Chelsea and Liverpool all owned by billionaires can afford to buy the cream of footballers in the world. Though Arsenal does not have any rich owners, it has a stadium that makes more money than any other stadium in the entire world. Another gargantuan source of income for english clubs is the global TV rights. Putting the economic advantage aside, do English teams have the advantage of playing a more competitive breed of football week-in and week-out? Does this help them at the European stage? It sure is more physically demanding than other leagues (not including the Socttish and Irish leagues). It is quicker than other leagues - one of the main reasons for long adaptation time of immigrant players.
It would be very interesting to see the trend at European level, if FIFA and UEFA seek to impose a quota system on the immigrant players in a club.
It would be very interesting to see the trend at European level, if FIFA and UEFA seek to impose a quota system on the immigrant players in a club.
2 comments:
Well firstly how many English players playing in the league can be truly called world class and amongst the best in the world .
Rooney , Gerrard, Rio,Terry,Lampard, Hargreaves , probably Carrick and Barry on their day.Theo will be there one day. Other than these 6 players who can be called genuinely world class there aren't any English players playing in the league that can be called World Class.
Take , for example Spain and count the number of Spanish world class players playing in EPL ,let alone La liga. You have Cesc, Alonso,Torres and am not even counting Reina and Arteta.
It shows a massive gulf in talent.
If Italian football or German football go onto dominate at the European stage , then you know for certain that their respective national teams are going to dominate as well.
My point is FA keeps bragging that EPL is the best in the world , but hardly they say that it is because of the massive foreign talent.
UEFA and FIFA are totally anti British football , and it comes as no surprise that they are pulling all stops to prevent foreign players from making a switch to EPL.
Good points.
my 2 cents - how English Football is targeting and capturing a great fan base in Asia? Thanks to convenient timing and great TV coverage and promotion. It would be soon we will be seeing their soccer schools here.
Post a Comment