England Vs Germany The Verdict

After an horrific result for England and their fans the post match analysis looks set to continue into the coming weeks and months. Losing 4-1 to arch rivals Germany is about as harsh as it gets for the English and it still remains to be seen as to who will become the inevitable scape-goat.

Firstly, let’s clear something up. That ‘goal’ Lampard was not given changed the game. People who think that regardless of the decision we still would have lost 4-2 are looking at this from a very narrow minded and illogical position. If England went into half-time at 2-2 the whole game would have changed. Capello would have demanded a more defensive approach and would have not thrown everybody forward looking for an equalizer. The Germans in turn would perhaps have felt the pressure and disappointment of giving away a two-goal lead and could have crumbled. Technology must be introduced, it is used in most other top sports including rugby, tennis and cricket and this does not take anything away from the greatness of these sports. This clanger cannot be ignored, now is the time to act FIFA.

This is not to say England fans should not be angry about their teams performance. Whilst many will point to ‘overpayed’ players who don’t care enough about the game anymore, the biggest disappiontment was probably the team’s head coach. Fabio Capello has to all extents and purposes has had an extremely poor World Cup. Capello never looked in control of his team and the in camp unrest should have signaled the obvious failings of the

England manager. Questions that will be asked such as; why Heskey, why no Joe Cole, and perhaps the most intriguing one of all, why keep playing players out of position, will probably never be answered.

For a man with the record of Capello England fans expected much more and rightly so.  An Italian coach with a tragically poor back-line was before today unthinkable to many football fans in the world. Capello has to go now, it is time for an English manager who can fire up the troops, this time hopefully one who has plenty of experience at the top level unlike the unwise appointment of Steve MaClaren.

Roy Hodgson is the obvious choice having managed at Inter Milan and having worked wonders at lowly Fulham. A man who gets the best out of a relatively poor squad week in week out could give the England team the lift they need in order to perform at the highest level.

As for now England fans can look forward to a summer of inquests and many nervous times wondering what the inadequate FA will do to change things. Given recent history, however, I don’t think many fans will be getting their hopes up too soon.

The foreign players versus home grown players debate

Anyone who has followed football over the last few years will have heard many different views on how foreign players have effected club and international football. There has been a huge increase in foreigners across most of Europe’s leagues in the past decade. This has caused suggestion that the amount of foreign players playing for a club should be capped. FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michele Platini have both backed proposals thata their must be a minimum of 6 home grown players and a maximum of 5 foreign players per team.

Whilst such a proposal would expect to result in an increase in standard of certain national teams whose youngsters will get the chance to play top flight football, it is of little doubt that the standard of football in these leagues would decrease.

Maybe the argument is purely a club versus country debate. Which is more important and which do the fans prefer.  Well, it is tough to judge whether international football is preffered to club football. Fans tend to like both types of football and without polling Europe to find out, it is very difficult to draw any significant conclusions because of the undeniable popularity of both.

So rather than try to determine which is favoured it is probably easier to analyse whether foreign players have improved the top European leagues and whether less foreign players will help national teams to prosper.

Using the English Premier League as an example, most people will agree that the quality of football has dramatically increased over the past few seasons. With English teams dominating the champions league’s latter stages not many would deny that the English Premier League now has the highest standard of football anywhere in Europe and probably the world. The bigger nations in Europe such as Spain, Italy and Germany also seem to have gained something with the increase in foreign players. This has seen the revenue of these leagues increase by millions and millions in recent years.

Perhaps this increase in revenue and popularity still would have occurred without foreigners and of course there is no definite way to judge it but it is hard to dismiss the impact of foreigners in the bigger European nations.

The countries that have suffered most from the increase in foreign players in the top leagues in Europe are the smaller European countries and the rest of the world. Countries such as Holland, Brazil and Argentina are finding it increasingly difficult to hold onto their home grown players. As soon as players within these countries start attracting interest from the big European footballing nations they have an impossible task to hold onto their players.

So on the upside in England, Spain, Italy and Germany the standard of football has improved over the last few years. On the negative side pretty much every other country’s club football is suffering because of it.

The next question is whether or not the state of the national teams in England, Spain, Italy and Germany are deteriorating because of the influx of foreigners into their leagues.

A lot of Englishmen will point to England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 as a prime example of how foreigners have ruined the state of their national team. However, even before the decrease in English players in the Premier League England failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, a tournament in which they made the semi-finals four years earlier. Of the other main European footballing nations who have a similar amount of foreigners in their league, Spain won Euro 2008, Germany were the beaten finalist’s and Italy are the current World Cup holders. So on the whole it can be argued that in fact the impact of foreign players has not had a negative effect on the leading European nations national sides and may have even had a good effect. Even England, who can have the most complaints in this respect, are having a great qualifying campaign this time around.

It is unclear if countries should limit the number of foreigners playing in their club teams. It would be a great shame to see the worlds best clubs being limited in talent and the top European leagues would probably lose a lot of global appeal. Maybe this is the reason FIFA and UEFA have failed to sanction such a proposal despite their head henchozs both being in favour of it.