IS PREMIER LEAGUE BEHIND ENGLAND’S INTERNATIONAL WOES?

Published 08/22/2015, 12:18 PM EDT

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The fact that England invented football is no secret. But it’s been a very long time since they lifted the game’s biggest trophies – the World Cup and the Euro Cup. They won the world cup last in 1966, and it has been 59 years and counting since then. They have even failed to reach semi’s since 1990 and Brazil in 2014 was a disaster. But not having a competitive set of players has never been England’s problem. So what went wrong and why? Here we will look at the recent years and why a country with one of the best in the league in the world is failing at the grand stage.

Let’s look at the two most successful international teams in recent times – Germany and Spain. While Spain dominated the world football from 2008 Euro Cup to 2012 Euro Cup, the way they dominated was an absolute treat to watch. The opponents often struggled to even get a touch of the ball. During the similar timeline, Germany were also knocking on the door to make their presence felt. They often dismantled oppositions no matter how big, but fell short of going all the way in many tournaments. But finally, as we all know, the DFB-Elf, under Joachim Löw, lifted the world cup in Brazil as they beat Argentina in finals.

Taking a look at both the champion teams, there is a striking similarity. Both team’s most of the core players played in two teams in their home league, and often dominated the league. Real Madrid and Barcelona constituted most of the players that were pivotal in the Spanish domination. Similarly, Bayern and Brossia Dortmund were the major clubs in which the German players of the 2014 winning squad played.

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Now coming back to England. We all know that Premier League is more competitive than La Liga as well as Bundesliga. The unpredictability is not only when top teams fight but a mid-table club can always pull off an upset. But this should have been a good thing right? More competitive league and better players? But as the case study of Spain and Germany shows, it is not!

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Not many people can question the ability of Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Jamie Carragher as defenders. Ashley Cole was one of the best left-backs and a young Glen Johnson was not bad either. Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard are probably the most celebrated midfielders in the world, and Wayne Rooney has been a world class footballer without a doubt. Another classic example are Garry Cahill and Phil Jones. Both have been pretty good for their respective clubs, but when it comes as a defensive partnership for their country, both have not been as effective. Not only England, teams like Argentina and Brazil also struggled with the same crisis recently. Though Argentina did reach the finals of World Cup and Copa America, their attacking flair was not even close to what someone will expect looking at them on paper. Then why has a team having all these great players always struggled to even pose a threatening challenge to dominate the world?  After all the English team is supposed to be that good that a player like Michael Carrick has struggled to break into. The Manchester United man has only managed 33 appearances in the past 14 years for England.

The answer is simple. All the great talents that we just talked about hardly play together in the premier league. And there is absolutely no doubt that you cannot create that co-ordination in a team by any means of training that you can if the players play actual matches together through-out their careers. The combination of Xavi, Iniesta, and Sergio Busquets and Cesc Fabregeas was critical in Spain’s success. The defensive partnership of Carles Puyol and Gerrard Pique was immaculate, and naturally so, after all they played together for such a long time at Barcelona.

Similarly we can relate the success of Germany with Bayern Munich. The major impact players like Thomas Muller, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Phillip Lahm, Mario Gotze, Toni Kroos and Manuel Neuer were all from the same club at that time.

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Another factor with the premier league apart from players not playing in the same team is there is a chunk of English players who actually play for bottom half of the clubs rather than the top half. Any manager will not only be reluctant to play these players, but when they do, they often tend to underperform. Statistically, having good players in bottom half of the league is a bad thing. The last 3 world cup winners Italy, Spain and Germany contained high amount of players from top clubs. But there has been a generation of players who are playing at smaller clubs, and without proper exposure are a huge loss for England. Here is a look at a English squad from the bottom half of the last season’s table:

Another interesting statistic is that only 35% of the all premier league players are eligible to play for England. The figure is lowest than any of the top European League. Though FA has tried to increase the number of home grown players in Premier League, they have often faced he dilemma of sacrificing the league’s reputation.

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As FA chairman Richard Scudamore once stated: “I’d love to see a decent sprinkling of English talent in our top clubs, but that is a desire and an aspiration.

My objective is to put on the best possible show and for our clubs to attract the best players.

If that means they buy some foreign players, well, they’ve been doing that since the league began and nothing is going to stop that now.”

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The competiveness of the Premier League also often takes a toll on a players’ fitness. The likes of Danny Welbeck, Daniel Sturridge, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshire and many more have not been able to contribute to the National team as they were expected to do. The highly intense Premier League may have been too much to take for the young and talented lads.

With all said and done, there is no doubt in how much we love to see the Premier League. But if England has to perform on an international level, there needs to be a change, and a huge one. Because having a competitive league with lots of English players spread all over on different teams seems as a good thing, but on the contrary it is acting against them.

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Written by:

Aviral Srivastava

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Pursuing Computer Science Engineering from Bangalore Institute of Technology. Avid sports fan, specially football. A lifelong United supporter.
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