Although England is still a prime location for Americans to go abroad, its clearly become less important for our best players. If Bradley goes to Hamburg, and Dempsey doesn't start, we could have no starting field players in WC 2010 play in England. Instead, we may have 2 play in Scotland, up to 4 in Germany (Pearce, Subotic, Bradley, Cherundolo), and others from France, Belgium, Spain, and Scandanavia. Indeed, its more than possible for us to a field a starting 11 that includes only 1 player in MLS (Donovan) and only 1 player in England (Howard). Is this a positive or negative development for the National Team and for Yanks generally? Is going to a variety of places going to help the team develop more flair, and get more Yanks a chance to go abroad? Or is the lack of opportunities in England going to make it harder? Does a bunch of players coming together from different leagues with different skills give the Nats depth, or is it going to make cohesiveness difficult? I'd love to hear people's thoughts, assuming they agree with the premise.
Overall - no. The Premiership is where the best money is right now and, when they don't want you there, it means you are less valued. That said, for the development, I hope the younger players go to Holland or France, as the Spanish and the Italian leagues are a bit too restrictive in that regard. But cream rises to the top and that top is currently in England.
I wouldn't really paint the players with that vague of a brush to be honest. For all that's good with the premiership, it isn't necessarily the best league for all players and all types of players. And on top of that, with so many foreigners in the premiership, those players were already hailing from "lesser" leagues to begin with. And when the 'lesser' league is Spain, or Germany, or France or Italy for example, those are still very good leagues that can add dimensions to a young player's game and football IQ. In the end it just depends on how you look at it. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of the national team then to me it isn't so bad that some other players are trying their luck elsewhere. It just depends on the circumstances for that player (where they go, what position they play, if they get time, etc.)
Well, most British (Scots, Welsh, Irish, N Irish) NT players play in England and last time I checked neither one made to the Euros and only England is capable of making the WC, although Scotland is catching up. I much rather have Dempsey playing for AEK Athens in the CL than playing at Fulham, even when he was starting. The EPL has become a big time league where you need to be a big name to get signed, with the exception of Arsenal, developing players isn't exactly their number one priority. To me, the French league is the best for our young YAs because its a tougher than the Scandinavians and Dutch league, they sell their players very fast so there is always space for new players, they play the traditional possesion soccer, techinique and creativity is encourage. But as long as our players are doing well in good teams and leagues it doesn't matter where they play. What I would like to see is more club mobility (ie moving to bigger clubs and leagues), our players are waay to loyal to their clubs. Gooch should've been with a club in France before the WC so by now he would be shooting for a good EPL team, instead he'll be lucky to sign with Hull or some newly promted team elsewhere. That's how these big teams like Argentina get their players into the biggest clubs at a young age, you can't spend 7 years in a lowly team in Norway..you gotta move on up fast!
I have never believed this. A far greater percentage of players who made the last couple of rounds at the last WC came from the other top 3 leagues. I believe the EPL was disproportionately underrepresented. The EPL pays well, and the top 4 teams are very good. The rest play some version of rollerball. It is very rough and very tough, but not skillful in terms of ball control. As a country we are already pretty athletic- particularly skilled we are not. I would say germany, Spain or Italy, even Holland are better destinations for player development.
The EPL has a SUPERB top 4. But last time I checked none of our players play there. So yes, it is. Considering most of our players play on bottom to mid tier teams id rather them be in Spain, France, Italy, or Germany. Then again i'd prefer our players go to Holland or Portugal originally and then to top tier teams.
I'd rather see more guys playing in Spain or Italy. In England, you face top quality teams eight times during the season. That is it. The top four in England is as good as it gets, but the rest of the league doesn't stack up to the non-elite teams in either of those other leagues. Since none of our guys are too likely to break into top 4 sides, let them go somewhere else. They will almost certainly end up as better players. If you need more proof of the superiority of La Liga and Seria A, think about this. Spain just won the Euros with a squad based with just a few exceptions in La Liga. Italy are the current World Champions, a feat accomplished with a team comprised almost entirely of Serie A players. All of the England players are based in the Premiership, and England are crap. It may be hard to turn down the paychecks, but if you are a young player starting your career, Spain, Italy, and even France are much better places to learn your trade. Better coaches and better opposition week in, week out ultimately produce better players. In short, yes, it is definitely good that we are no longer reliant upon England as the sole market for exporting players.
Until clubs like Wigan can line up against someone like Mallorca or Cagliari in anything resembling a meaningful competition then this will never be anything other than an unprovable opinion. Which is fine. I suspect however that there's probably not much separating Wigan from Mallorca or Cagliari and that any difference probably has as much to do with the differences between the clubs as any differences between those leagues. Point being don't confuse style with quality.
I'm not confusing anything. Since when did Wigan ever have a Dani Guiza or any other player to see time at the Euros? When is a Wigan or a Bolton ever going to put a 5-1 aggregate defeat on Werder Bremen in UEFA cup competition? Never, but Espanyol did that very thing just two seasons ago. There is a very strong correlation between style and quality in this game. Overall, I just think the players would learn more from being in Spain than from being at a relatively equal team in England.
Wigan just had Heskey capped and Wilson Palacios is considered a $10M-$15M winger. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2008082...gerbusiness;_ylt=An23irCdZ4.7yw_Te.1zANcLMxIF
Do you really want me to believe that Heskey is as good a player as Guiza? Everyone knows there is more money in England, and the fact that someone is valued that highly within England doesn't do much for me. Transfer fees within the league are always grossly inflated. A Wigan might even beat some the lower level teams from La Liga or Serie A, but it won't be because the team is made of better players. Our players can learn the physical crap at any point in their careers. I'd rather they start out somewhere else and then move there later for the paycheck.
thanks for Googling. We knew you could do it. Everyone has already said that the EPL is the richest league. EPL is also the roughest and the least skillful of the big 4 leagues. I have a feeling that EPL being the roughest league is a very important factor as to why the England team never goes where it should and why it is a lousy place for development. If you actually control the ball and play with skill, you have a very serious chance of getting badly hurt. Not only is the style super-fast by tradition, it is also a matter of survival. Unless a bone is showing, there is no card, so of course the tackling is super-rough. It makes for very fast, exciting, and highly paid rollerball. It is fun to watch, but eye-candy it ain't. And it teaches rushed and bad soccer for our young guys.
I've never liked the roughness of the premier league although there is some good futbol still played by the likes of Arsenal, Man U etc... But some of the tackles are down right unprofessional. Personally I'm more excited than ever for La Liga to start. I've really enjoyed following that league the last few years. I would much rather Donovan goes to Spain if he does indeed move abroad.
i think overall, the quality of players in epl is excellent... the top sides are quite good, but as you drift down the table, the style of play of epl creates a far more brusing game.. as to england, it think it's more about the players themselves than the league they play in... epl, more clubs can out spend others, so a value inflation occurs... as to americans, keep getting into more competitive leagues, where you face a better game all the time.. as more americans see a better game, the development of the usmnt is more probable....
Single results aren't proof of anything, they're anecdotes. Now if Espanyol did it again, I'd be more inclined to agree with your opinion. I don't doubt the Spanish league is better than the German league but we're not talking Yankees-Columbus Clippers here, more like Colts-Texans.
The Spanish clubs have dominated the UEFA cup in the last couple of years. It isn't just about any single team doing it. Everyone is welcome to his opinion, and mine is that the Premiership has inferior depth of quality clubs when compared to La Liga and Serie A, and as our guys aren't likely to make it into the Big Four clubs right now, I'd rather see them developing outside England. If Wenger wants to teach some of our guys to play the beautiful game, I'm all for it.
No, but beating up on the quality of talent in the Premiership is absurd. Serie A has top 5-7 clubs and then garbage. Bundesliga falls off to a lesser extent but I'd find it hard to believe that a club like Hannover has much on the Fulhams of the Prem. France has Lyon and the rest. La Primera is the strongest from top to bottom, as Zaragoza's relegation should prove, but I don't see too many Spanish clubs clamoring for Yanks. Plus, its economy is in a freefall and the real estate magnates that were supporting many clubs are leaking cash and are unlikely to keep up with the spending. What has saved it so far is its "come and get it" policy for the Latin American and African players, which allows them to keep costs down. But remove a Villa or a Silva or a Luis Fabiano out of that league and you'll soon have Real, Barça and a bunch of UEFA quality clubs. To prove my point, Dani Güiza has already left Spain and is earning his income somewhere else.
Where am I beating up on the talent of the Premiership? I am simply saying that I rate the lower level teams of two other leagues as at least slightly better, and given the fact that the financial dominance of the Premiership means that those teams can at any moment bring in someone to replace any American that might go there, I'd rather see them start their careers elsewhere.
It's not important in development terms that the players play in England. After all, how many of the French and Italians who started in the WC final plied their trades in England? Historically not too many Germans, Argies, or Brazilians play in England either.
- The Italian team that won the last world cup in 2006 had 0 players playing in England, 100% playing in Serie A. - The Brazil team that won the world cup in 2002 had 0 players playing in England. The Brazilian league being the most represented, followed by Serie A, then La Liga - Spain in 2008 had 5 players playing in England v 18 from La Liga. - Greece in 2004 had 2 players playing in England. After Greece, Italy was the mostly represented league with 3 players playing in Serie A I would say I'd love to have a lot of Americans playing in the EPL. However, the above stats don't really prove that having a bunch of players in the EPL is a necessary requirement to be successful. Only 7 out of 92 players have come from the EPL of the last 4 major international tournament winners + 0% were from WC winning sides.
Obviously, it's not important for our players to be specifically in England, but since it's the most high-profile league in the world, the easiest one for Americans to transition to, and the one that has shown by far the most interest in Americans, it's silly to see so many of our international starters failing to make a long-lasting impact there as a positive. (I realize that you didn't say it was a positive.) As a sort of aside - just jumping off the one word in your post - I'm not sure any of this has anything to do with development, unless guys are going to go over at a younger age á la John O'Brien and Michael Bradley. We keep talking about our guys going over to Europe to learn, but it's too late for that when most of them show up. They're there not to learn but to compete for spots; this is where the "magic Euro dust" retorts fail-- the problem isn't that Europe isn't a fairytale land where guys get better via osmosis, it's that from 12-21 the U.S. is woefully behind the top-tier nations in player development, and guys excelling in a physical, pretty solid, and rapidly improving but more tactically and technically naive league like MLS often struggle to get time and/or be consistent in a more competitive league. I find it bizarre than that so many people think that our players-- already, on average, behind the curve tactically and technically, and I think most people here do agree with that-- should go at 22, 23, 24 to an even more technical league. These clubs are looking for guys who can step in and play, not projects. If our guys are tactically and technically wanting in England, it's going to be worse in Spain.
Considering the performances in the recent U-20s and U-23s The Program is doing OK with regards to producing technically and tactically proficient players. Game management is another story...
The Italian team that crashed spectacularly out of Euro'08 had zero players in England. The Brazilian team that crashed spectacularly out of WC'06 and Olympics'08 had one (Gilberto Silva) or zero players in England. England that went to the Euro quarterfinals in 2004 had all of its players (with the exception of Beckham and Hargreaves) playing in England. Clearly, Beckham's PK taking improved in Spain. France's Euro'2000 winning team had Vieira, Petit, Desailly, Deschamps, Henry, Barthez and Lebouf in England. The Dutch team that should have won the Euros until it failed to convert two PK's vs. Italy in the semis had Stam, Bergkamp, Overmars, de Goey (not a starter) and Westerveld (not a starter). Clearly, that means that the Greek League is where the Yanks should go. Hire a German coach for them and the US won't ever lose.