Whilst watching England beat the Swiss last eve (great win btw), it struck me that we donât have any team or squad players plying their trade outside of our domestic league. How is it, the Swiss, a country with a relatively small population, only 3 domestic professional leagues are ranked 9th & England are 20th & have 14 players in other Premiership European leagues? I did a quick check of the European World Cup teams 23 man squads & it makes quite interesting reading: Switzerland: 14 playing overseas Germany: 7 Holland: 14 Spain: 9 (now 12 after transfer window) Italy: 3 France: 14 England: 0 (I donât count Frazer & 0 now anyway) Belgium: 20 Portugal: 15 And even Greece: 14 Ok, Italy donât have that many but generally every major European team has a high % of their players working in other Premiership European leagues. At present, the only English of serious talent, playing in Europe are Cole & Richards; Cole you could argue is on the road to retirement & Richards only there because MCFC are paying % of his wages. So why is it, English players canât / wonât play in Europe? Weâve never been very successful at exporting English talent & it must be detrimental to our national team. English players with really good European domestic league experience would naturally be better leaders on the field, team mates would look up to them & maybe weâd have more team confidence, better big game mentality & may be even able to win penalty shoot outs. So why is it, we canât export English players? Iâd say a significant factor now is silly Premiership wages but even before that, our track record was pretty dismal. Is it something as simple as because we donât speak other European languages? We donât integrate well with our European colleagues? May be European managers donât like us? But that makes no sense or there wouldnât be so many here!? Thoughts?
Historically bar Keegan I cant think of many players who have improved after going abroad. Beckham Waddle Hoddle Platt, Ince etc none of them significantly improved by moving to Europe.
Waddle did, without a doubt and I think Platt did too to be fair. Luther Blisset maybe too and Ray Wilkins was good abroad, but not sure if he improved as he was pretty good anyway. I would also say that Trevor Francis did a bit, although it was later in his career. Mark Hateley was **** when he went to Milan and came back just a bit better than ****, so he improved
In answer to the OP, one reason will be that we already have the richest league, so apart from a handful of clubs, they are more likely to stay here for the bucks. I strongly believe as well that as a %, English players are not as technically gifted as our European colleagues due to our up-bringing in grass roots football.
Partly because they can make a good living here and partly because the English are notoriously poor at travelling (apart from when conquering the world). Why move your family when your next job could be in the next city? I doubt the average WAG is a sophisticate...they'd rather be near their friends and relatives, than abroad trying to learn a foreign language. Therefore, I'm not surprised that only players required by truly top clubs think it is worth the upheaval.
There are 4 main reasons: 1) Wages. Unless you play for Real Madrid, Barcelona or PSG you won't earn the same level of wages as you do in the Premier League. So money is not a motivation to move. 2) Technical ability. To play in Europe you need a high level of technical ability which English players do not have. English players are improving but there is a lot more improvement to be made. This leads to...... 3) Poor reputation of English players in Europe. European clubs do not think English players are very good. Recent performances by England and the lack of English players in the top English clubs suggest this might be true. 4) Culture. There isn't really a culture of English players playing abroad and I don't think English players like being out of their comfort zone which you are if you go and work abroad. Also see 1). Personally I think young English players should play abroad on loan at least. It will improve them as a player and a person but sadly staying and playing in the U21s is too lucrative and easy.
Mostly because they lack the most basic technique. So they're not exactly in demand. I can't think of a player in white last night who could trap a bag of cement, apart from the scouse bloke who only got on at the end.
The other thing to consider is that English clubs attach a premium to English players that clubs in other countries simply wouldn't be prepared to pay - look at the prices for Lallana and Shaw as an example - no way would a foreign club have paid that kind of money for those two, even if they were prepared to move abroad.
Of course I'm right I think culture is a factor to. Didn't Ian Rush once say that living in Italy was like "living in a foreign country". Living and working abroad is hard, too hard for most English footballers.
Poor Des Walker moved to Italy, couldn't even get any lasagne! There's an Englishman playing in the Bundesliga, but I've forgotten his name.
Think a lot of it is down to money. You can earn more even playing for teams like Aston Villa and Hull than you could for any but the biggest European teams.
