Should Liverpool defeat AC Milan tonight, the media tomorrow will be full of reports about the ’superiority of English football’.
Interesting how this so-called ’superiority’ only manifests itself at club level, and never translates to the national team. Could it have a little more (than is acknowleged) to do with the skilled foreigners playing at club level? Perish the thought!
I would appreciate it if the media stop deceiving themselves. Superiority of English football? I think not. Superiority of foreign players in English clubs? That’s more like it.
UPDATE. Oh dear. It seems we won’t be seeing those headlines after all.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:00 am
Agree, Bel.
I remember a few weeks ago when, of the four teams left in the competition, three were from England. The media went into overdrive with ’superiority’ talk. It was maddeningly frustrating. Just take a look at the make-up of the three that were left in at that stage (Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea) and count how many English players there are in there.
Yes, those clubs are superior, but it is not completely down to the English players in them.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 am
Dave, true words.
I’m not denying that some English players (eg Gerrard for Liverpool; Terry for Chelsea; and even Rooney (when sane) for United) contribute a lot, but for the media continually to claim superiority for English football as if no foreigners (and skilled foreigners at that) were in the team, I just don’t get that.
No wonder they (the media) always appear stunned whenever England make their early quarter-finals exit from major competitions, going as far as blaming others (eg a winking Cristiano Ronaldo) instead of their poor players. Obviously it can’t be the players’ fault, they are ‘world class’ (hate that expression!) after all!
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I used to be a Liverpool as was my Father & Grandfather. I started to lose interest when these was alarge influx of foreign players. It was no longer (for me) LFC but a floating population of mercenary players who for the moment wore a Liverpool jersey. Oh for the days of Mr Shankly and the only foreigners were the Jocks.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Hello Jon Gregory, welcome to my blog.
But is it not better for fans like you that the club choose the best players they can buy? And if those players happen to be foreign, does it/should it matter all that much? Is not the most important thing that the club wins trophies?
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
No one has said anything about the non-English MANAGERS in the English Premier League. That certainly plays a part in the equation.
Mercenary players aren’t only in football, and they aren’t only foreign. The Los Angeles Dodgers used to have somewhat of a reputation for team consistency. Not perfect, of course - most of the star infielders of the 1970s were let go, and even Jackie Robinson was jettisoned - but the Dodgers did have a reputation for developing players from within, as their string of rookies of the year in the 1980s will attest. But the Dodgers lost their reputation for consistency (and lost me as a fan) when Fox bought the team and jettisoned manager Bill Russell and players Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo within the space of a month. Now I have no idea who the Dodgers are this year, or where said players will be next year.
And then there’s basketball. LeBron James returning to Cleveland is an anomaly. Most of your star players jump around (take Shaq, from Orlando to Los Angeles to Miami to who knows where).
Sorry for routing the conversation across the pond, but the presence of mercenary players in English football isn’t just a football issue.
P.S. Did Real Madrid really try to keep Beckham?
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Bel talking football - now I really have seen everything!!!
But on a more serious note I was astonished/horrified to see the poor BBC reporter this morning trying to file a report from wherever this match is being held. Either most of those people were on the intravenous Starbucks or the vino collapso. Shouting, screaming and general bleating was the order of the day. My two favourites being two boys of about 14 who were supposed to be in school but had decided it was more fun to be there even though they had no tickets. I would suspect that they were not there on their own but hopefully their head has seen them and they will be issued lines (remember them!) when they return. “I will learn to read and write so I can become an MP rather than a footballer” x 1000 times - that should put them on the straight and narrow 
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:17 pm
“I will learn to read and write so I can become an MP rather than a footballer” x 1000 times
Morag, why would a child of today, brought up with today’s values and distaste for education, want to be an MP rather than a footballer? Have you not seen the glamour of a footballer’s life?
Having said that, the way our MPs are going, they will probably claim ‘expenses’ equal to a footballer’s salary, and, ‘freedom of information’ being what it is, we would never get to hear about it.
So yes, ‘lines’ for the skiving boys!
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:04 pm
My team are mainly English.
But then again we don’t have much silverware either.
Liverpool aren’t as bad as some teams for Foreign players.
The overlap between Arsenal and the French National team has always been high.
And as for Chelski…
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:18 pm
awww bel how often is it that england have something to be proud of…..
Earlier this week sky even reported we are no longer the most irritating tourists having fallen to 5th in that world league.
Hopefully we can still be number one at self delusion
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Bel - well if you become a MP you get to date the cheeky girls - so there are some perks, after all if you are only a footballer then you have to date people like posh spice.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Hello Bel
I think what I was trying to say in my bit about Liverpool is that the game has changed and I probably have not. When I was younger the fans of LFC were all from the Merseyside area, as if you were a West Brom fan, you lived there. Now Liverpool fans are in Ireland, Basingstoke, London, Hong Kong etc. What we/I have lost is the sense of belonging it was our club we lived here. It is possibly part of the globalisation of all cultures, and I think we are poorer for that.
Regards
Jon
May 24th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Just shows how out of touch I really am over here. I think Liverpool lost, didn’t they?
May 24th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
“Hello Jon Gregory, welcome to my blog.
But is it not better for fans like you that the club choose the best players they can buy? And if those players happen to be foreign, does it/should it matter all that much? Is not the most important thing that the club wins trophies?”
Might be better (short term) for the fans (like him) but in the long run that simply means that the english will not get good enough to be the ‘best money can buy’ because they aren’t playing o.O
May 27th, 2007 at 11:17 am
sadly but true..since 2004, there are many foreign players in LFC,and i wont let liverpool became 3rd international team in EPL after arsenal and chelsea