It seems that at last Asian footballers are starting to break through into the top levels in the game, after decades of under representation. Some pretty ridiculous stereotypes like the Asian build and diet is not fit for football are starting to be debunked and later this year the FA are launching a drive to recruit more Asian players and coaches into the game. This is a great scheme in my opinion. I think it's true to an extent that the Asian community hasn't encouraged kids into the game in the same way as cricket, but that's a bit of a generalisation. Hopefully with the backing and support of the FA, more Asian players can be nurtured into the game. There must be so much untapped talent out there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24532778
Asian footballers have always been good, you've got people like Keisuke Honda, Shinji Kagawa, and the awesomeness of JY Park.
3rd time lucky, here goes. Asian football has always been pretty strong, Japan and Korea have always been able to be pretty competitive, and there's good asian players in the league now, we have Ryo, ManUre have Kagawa.
3rd time lucky, here goes. Asian football has always been pretty strong, Japan and Korea have always been able to be pretty competitive, and there's good asian players in the league now, we have Ryo, ManUre have Kagawa.
I remember David Pleat and Dave Bassett citing diet as the reason. Nonsense of course. More likely cultural, and insular outlook. I also remeber Bassett saying foreign footballers would never make it in the English league because they are bone idle, and to be an English league player requires "bloody hard work". That was back in the early 90s. Asian (Brit Bengali/Indian/Pak, "BritBIP") footballers will come through, and hopefully that will kill off cricket too.
Should have been more specific, I meant south Asian players with Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Sri Lankan background
Basically these countries have no established footballing tradition and so we need a few coming through to act as role models for others. I agree that this is a sea of potentially untapped talent for England, and that we lose out here in relation to countries like France and Germany, whose migrant populations come mostly from other footballing nations - Turkey, Morocco etc. Why is there hardly any football played in Pakistan and only a very small local league in India - religion, culture or climatic factors ? India has no great tradition in any competitive sports apart from cricket and hockey.
The main issues coming from parental encouragement. Kids from the Indian subcontinent are primarily encouraged to study and mostly everything else is secondary. Attitudes are shifting amongst Asians, especially those who are British born. They see that a career can be gained outside the more traditional educational sphere and they want to actively support their childrens interests. It is inevitable, we WILL see british born asians represent their respective British nations and play for the best English domestic teams. It's time we follow the rest of Europe and fully embrace the talent coming from our minorities. We see some of the best players in Europe coming from their minority groups. Germany's best player Ozil is of Turkish decent, one of France's all-time great players Zidane, was Algerian by decent. It's time England moved forward and embrace those of the Indian subcontinent, not just for their curry but of their footballing skills.
If the comments being attributed to Dave Bassett & David Pleat are true, they should both be invited to revise their opinions. I have come across stereotyping of this nature in & away from Football. I am of the opinion that until a way of thinking is challenged outright, it will remain, however subtly. There's no telling in how many cases this kind of thinking has influenced the decision of whether a player makes the grade or not.
I don't think you can have this thread without crediting Bend it Like Beckham for inspiring players of that background to play. What a film To be honest, there's still a long way to go but it is good to see that they're starting to be represented at higher levels of the game.
Is that still the case though ? There are now British born Asians who are Grandparents, so we're talking third generation of Asians who have been born and bred into British culture. I don't know .... being born into white working class parents in a non affluent part of London, I'm probably not really qualified to comment, football was just all around me and my friends and we took it for granted. We used to have a three Sikh kids playing in our team at school and I always remember kicking around with lads from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, so it wasn't like the Asian kids at school shunned football.
Tbh I always find this sort of thing is just trying to force our most popular sport onto another part of the world. If they are interested in playing and are good enough they will play. Why do we need to try to force it on Asia?
David Pleat comment from a radio program early 90s, at whic time it may well have been a general prevailing opinion. Bassett, similar, but his diatribe at foreign players in general was even more baffling.
I was referring to the earlier generations of Indian sub cont immigrants and the first or second gen children born here. It does take some time to adjust, especially when you have a culture so rich and strong as the Indian sub continent one. But we are seeing the changes now, with more and more players breaking through to the top. We've seen the England cricket team field so many Indian sub continent players over the years, with a wide range of players of Pakistani and Indian origin being selected for the first team. We've had Nasser Hussein who was mixed race Indian and White successfully captain the National side. We have Amir Khan who is a former World Champion in two weight divisions in the world and is now touted to fight the legend that is Floyd Mayweather. I'm sure there are many others that i've missed. It's only inevitable that we'll see players of Indian Sub Continent origins represent their country and the best domestic teams in football, as we are already seeing them play at the top level of other sports in the world.
Actually the diet was to blame mostly, less food = less growth, unless they had the talent of Messi (who also nearly never made it due to his size) 'back in the day' they were just too small. A few generations since WW2 ended and the population started receiving better food with more protein, nature took it's course and now they're of a roughly similar stature to us. For example the average height of an Englishman from 150 years ago was 5ft 5. The difference in height between the rich and poor was roughly 6 inches, due mainly to diet. There is also of course the cultural side to it, football has become far more popular in the far east since satellite broadcasting became cheaper and more available and now those who we're children during the expansion of the european leagues worldwide are starting to come through.
I think the diet thing is a load of rubbish. Plenty of Africans and South Americans from poor backgrounds come through to disprove that theory. I think the key thing is exposure to the game, and knowledgeable encouragement from a parent or someone else close to the young player. Football is an incredibly complex game, particularly in the key positions and requires a depth of understanding not required by many other sports. Education is important, in terms of learning how to learn, as is fostering the right attitude. Unfortunately the focus nowadays is all on ball-control and foot-skills and IMO we are drifting even further away from that understanding and reading of the game that is really required. Too many young players are learning the game with their heads down on the ball, instead of up, looking around.
What diet only affects football? Or are you saying that Asians bad at all sport? China seemed to do OK in the Olympics, Japan does OK too. Africans do pretty well, or is it just rice that is bad for you? Scientifically proven my ass!
