England under twenty-one coach Stuart Pearce
I thought it would be worth a look at the eight teams left in the quarter-finals of the world cup to see how many of these players, presumably the very best eighty-eight players in the world, certainly the most successful currently, actually ply their trade in England.
Starting
I have looked at the starting eleven for each of the sides in the round of sixteen. None of the Uruguay, Brazil or German players play in England. Holland have four, Heitinga, De Jong, Kuyt and Van Persie. Paraguay also have four, Da Silva, Alcaraz, Riveros and Santa Cruz. Argentina and Ghana have three each, Mascherano, Maxi and Tevez, Kingson, Pantsil and Prince-Boateng respectively. Spain have Fernando Torres.
Fifteen out of eighty-eight players are to be found in the Premier League. Does that suggest to you that the Premier League is the best league in the world?
Ignore
If you ignore the fact that all eleven Germany players play in Germany and ten of the eleven Spanish players play in Spain, the other top leagues have the following number of players representing them.
Italy, ten.
Spain, nine.
Germany, six.
France, five.
Holland, five.
Portugal, four.
It is clear that the Premier League comes out well on top and even if you do add back in the German and Spanish players who play in their homeland, England remains only just behind them.
Poor
Like Germany, all of England’s starting eleven in their game in the last sixteen, played for clubs in their own country. So how come Germany and Spain can be so good and England are so poor?
One of the problems as I discussed in an earlier article is that Spain and Germany take nearly all of their players from their top sides, whereas England have players from the top, middle and bottom of the Premier League.
Wonderful
The problem in England is not that foreign players are paid a fortune to play in the Premier League per se. The likes of Bergkamp, Zola, Henry, Drogba and Ronaldo were wonderful additions to the league who made the game better, and by playing and training with young English players made them better as well.
The problem is that for some reason, average foreign players are bought into the Premier League and play at the expense of equally or more talented young English players. This trend has to stop if England are going to progress.
Regularly
The last team fielded by England at under twenty-one level contained just three players who regularly play for their club first team in the Premier League. Micah Richards of Manchester City, Lee Cattermole of Sunderland and Fabrice Muamba of Bolton are all regular Premier League players but of the rest, four play for Championship teams and four are Premier League players who rarely get a game and spend time on loan at lower league clubs.
Take a look at the teams who finished in the bottom five of the Premier League last season. Portsmouth, Hull, Burnley, West Ham and Wigan.
Portsmouth’s regular starting line-up included just two English players, Hull had five, Burnley six, West Ham five and Wigan three.
Opportunity
So the five most unsuccessful clubs in England’s top league had just twenty-one English players playing regularly. That means that thirty-four places were taken by non-English players. Could young English players not be found who could have done just as well? Couldn’t those lower clubs give an opportunity to the eight England under twenty-one players who can’t get a game in the Premier League?
The reason they don’t, of course, is that to buy an average English player costs a whole lot more than it does to buy an average player from overseas. Until that changes, I’m afraid that the England national team will never have any success.
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