Quotas on Foreigners: Some Numbers to go with 6+5
By: Jan | November 21st, 2007Percentage of foreign players playing for Bundesliga and Premier League clubs in the starting XI:
From Season 2003/2004 to 2007/2008
Bundesliga: 61% - 53% - 51% - 49% - 54%
Premier League: 47% - 45% - ??% - ??% - 66%
Now, those numbers could be used for all sorts of analysis and interpretation. It’s true that when the Bundesliga had Europe’s highest percentage of foreigners in 2003/2004, that the German national team played abysmal. It’s also true that the Premier League now has the highest percentage of foreigners, and that their national team plays abysmal as well, if you believe frustrated English fans. But that’s all the love I could squeeze out of the numbers in favour of Sepp Blatter’s and Steven Gerrard’s quota dreams, that are supposed to help the national teams.
In the past five years the Bundesliga clubs either had the highest or second highest percentage of foreigners in their starting XIs. Neither did this amount relate in any way to the success of Bundesliga clubs on the European stage (poor), nor to the quality of play and depth of talent of the German national team (from poor to Euro favourites). In fact, looking at the amount of fresh talent, that has made its debut in the German national team this year, there’s little doubt, that this team will only grow stronger in the coming years - no matter whether there’ll be another five percent of extra foreigners in the Bundesliga or not. And that has probably more to do with the youth academies and programs of the clubs and the German FA, who started to do their homework.
I guess.
Sources: ard.de, stern.de, afp
Category: Facts and Figures
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Comments
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But, but, foreigners. Dirty filthy foreigners…
Yeah, it would seem obvious to me that the solution to bad national teams is to improve youth infrastructure and turn out better young players.
Another great idea would be to play those same great on-form youngsters if you’re regulars aren’t providing the same vim and vigor. But then, I’m crazy like that.
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United States
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Another interesting comparison is the number of nationals who play outside their country. A cry going up among (a minority of) the England supporters is that England youth should play outside the English leagues to gain experience. Now, I happen to agree that this is probably a good thing for England, but Germany at least shows that it is not necessary. How many Germany nationals play outside the Bundesliga? Three, last time I checked: Ballack, Metzelder, and Hildebrand. None of the young ones. The same approximate numbers are true for Italy as well (Toni and Grosso only, I think, although I’m not so up on the Azzuri squad so I might be missing someone).
Essentially, it comes down to your youth system. If you don’t have a decent one, every “fix” you propose is just going to be a plaster over a gushing wound. England’s problems start there.
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United States -
There are a couple more former German players in Spain and England like Huth, Hamann, Lehmann, Odonkor and Hinkel. To name those who are or were close to the German national team. But I think that this number still reflects the dark ages of German football between 1996 to 2006. A lot of young German players are attracting interest from big European clubs again. E.g. Podolski and Gomez to Italy, Lahm to Barca etc. But then again, they won’t go there because they can’t play in the Bundesliga but because they are ‘too good’ for the league, which is entirely different to English players seeking to hone their skills abroad.
In general I’m convinced that promising young English talents will find their way into Premier League sides or good European clubs. The problem seems rather, that there aren’t any/too many.
Stuttgart isn’t such an economically poor club, that they couldn’t buy a bunch of average foreigners to fill their squad. But they had a lot of quality coming from their youth system, and those players eventually helped Stuttgart win the title last year.
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Germany
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