Champions League
Well done to the three English clubs who have made it through to the last four, as a neutral I don't mind who wins, you would expect barely minutes had passed after the final whistle in the Liverpool v PSV game and already people were saying look at the Premiership, best in the world.
Yes, look at the Premiership, dominated by the same clubs year after year. If you want to see strength in depth look at the Spanish and Italian leagues, Spain has actually produced three of the four UEFA Cup Semi-Finalists, but that gets written off as a waste of time - try telling that to Spuds this morning. Where is the Premiership equivalent of Sevilla or Palermo?
Whilst it was a good week for the three clubs concerned from an English perspective it was the usual depressing spectacle, only 10 of the nearly fifty players named in the starting XI or subs qualify to play for England. It won't get any better in the short term either, Liverpool are lining up a raid on Spain this summer, Manchester United may be signing Owen Hargreaves and that will take the total England Internationals in their first team squad to nine, Chelsea have five and Liverpool 2. We won't even bother with Arsenal.
3 comments:
Do you think introducing a "quota" for the numbers of foreign players in an English side would be a good idea?
Would it actually be legal these days? Telling someone they can't play for an English club because they're French or German or whatever sounds like it could be viewed as discriminatory.
U.E.F.A have said that the new quota system must be introduced by 2009. Unfortunately there are ways round this, you can sign a player from Africa and put him through your youth system until he acquires assimilation (i.e he becomes British).
I'm not in favour of 'passport, football but when you realise that there are only 80 players in the Premiership between 25 and 30 who qualify as English you do wonder
if we'll ever win anything.
80! Is that all? What? Only four per club on average. It's pretty miraculous we have anything like a decent national side. Well, maybe we don't but you know what I mean.
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