Club Football vs International Football

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ancoats

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28 Aug 2005
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I think I have found out what is wrong with the International game and England

10 years ago I didn't think a Club side could beat a top international side, But now Manchester City and the top teams in the Premier League would beat them, The best managers are in Club football the biggest clubs have all world-class players, The best training camps the best physio treatment rooms, Everything possible Manchester City have at the Etihad campus.
 
The top club sides would have always beaten the top international sides through the simple fact that they have more time to work on things. But the gap is definitely increasing. Firstly, the top clubs nowadays have the whole world to choose from and pick the exact players they want to play a particular style. If you go back to even the 90s, and look at the Champions League, the vast majority of teams were made up mostly with players from the same country as the club. So that means almost by definition, they wouldn't have as good a squad on paper as the national team. But nowadays, that's not the case. City would wipe the floor with any international team.

Add to that the fact that the top managers rarely work in international football at their peak. Portugal have got a manager that was at Wigan, Swansea and Everton, while Mourinho has never managed them. Italy do better than most at getting top managers, but even they have never got Ancelotti to manage them. Spain can't get Pep. Do we think if Germany got rid of Nagelsmann after the Euros, they'd be able to get Klopp? I doubt it. There's more money in club football and it gives managers the best conditions to do their job well.
 
what led to that shift is the removal of foreign player limits on club teams, so now you've got cosmopolitan teams with unique styles of play, when at one point an entire league of a country played in the same style
players didn't venture much out of their country. at one point Pele wasn't allowed to leave Brasil (thru legislation mind you if memory serves), and he spent the majority of his career there before a stint in New York for the Cosmos
 
It's club over country all day for me.

For quality purposes I will say, I think this particular tournament has had some of the top players look particularly bad and this has to be down, in some way, to the amount of games being played in a season. They're knackered.

Whilst the world cup in the middle of season in Qatar was daft, it did result in more goals per game than any other world cup for 60+ years and Messi, mbappe etc were firing on mid season form.

Maybe I'm just trying to find excuses for England!
 
madloaf said:
It's club over country all day for me.

For quality purposes I will say, I think this particular tournament has had some of the top players look particularly bad and this has to be down, in some way, to the amount of games being played in a season. They're knackered.

Whilst the world cup in the middle of season in Qatar was daft, it did result in more goals per game than any other world cup for 60+ years and Messi, mbappe etc were firing on mid season form.

Maybe I'm just trying to find excuses for England!
Click to expand...

I've said it before, but I feel the quality of international football has declined. Looking at the squads of teams, they don't seem to have that star quality they used to, a real lack of big name players. Compare Italy's team to the one that won the 2006 World Cup, or even the 90's, when a player like Zola struggled to get game time. Look at France's team, and compare it to the squad of the early to mid 2000's, when they had the likes of Henry, Zidane, Vieira, Makelele, Trezeguet, Thuram, Pires, etc, all in their prime. People say this England team are favourites, but look at the attacking options England had in the 90's, and the midfield options in the 2000's, plus a lot of top defenders. Argentina are still heavily dependent on a 37 year old Messi, and even Brazil are not the force they were.
 
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