With the international break coming up it feels like an imposition on my enjoyment of football. The Euro qualifiers are in a word - dull. They make me more nervous that Arsenal players might get injured, rather than worrying whether England qualify. I like the competition finals, but the qualifiying rounds are not working according to Wenger: The Arsenal manager is concerned that the quality of international football is causing the public to switch off.
Simple thing we should do IMO: The world leagues. International friendlies are scrapped. The top 40 teams in the world play a massive league that takes around 4 years to complete instead, because this would replace friendlies. You'd still have the World Cup and the Euros with the same teams they've always had. FIFA rankings scrapped. The top 40 teams in the world play this league, then 2 more divisions of 40 teams each. From each league, 8 promoted, 8 relegated at the end of the 4 year period. 1 year break between the 4 year leagues. Also, the teams below the 120 top teams in the world can be elected into the bottom division if they are deemed to be good enough.
International football has played second fiddle to domestic football (in England) for a few years now - with most clubs bringing players from all corners of the planet a number of domestic teams are way better than international teams. With the exception of Spain (and are Spain better than Barca ?) and possibly Germany, I can't think of a (serious) country where the national team is better than the top domestic teams from within. I've read on other boards where 95% of their fans would prefer to win the league than England win a World Cup, which sums up the disregard for International football for me, though maybe player attitudes have contributed to this ? Retiring in your 20s, missing games because of big club games etc, it all creates a who gives a **** environment...
Teams put together from vast pool of international players who play 40+ games every season and train every week together VS team put together from small pool of national talent who train and play together a few times a year. Not really seeing the comparison there.
Go back some years and you can see the comparison. I can only talk about from the 70s. National teams used to be better than club teams.
