A Saturday Morning Thought

[Canuck Oranje]

With a topic on this Board being Canada's greatest player and also having done some recent online research on Pele, I wondered what the world of soccer would be like if players played professionally in their home country rather than travelling to play elsewhere.

Up until 1974, almost all national teams had players selected from their own domestic league. Cruyff was probably the first superstar to play outside (Barcelona) of his home country (Holland).

I know it is hypothetical but consider how much stronger leagues like the Brazilian, Argentinian, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish leagues would be if all their nationals played at home.

Let's ponder Brazil and Argentina alone.

First Argentina. Argentina has about 300-400 players playing in Europe. That means that 20 domestic league teams could be strengthened by adding 15-20 players currently playing in Europe.

Brazil on the other hand has about 700-800 players playing in Europe. In their case, the two top tiers of the Brazilian league could be strengthened in the same way.

Just something to ponder when trying to compare league quality in different eras.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

Just to comment, in Spain there were famous internationals as early as the 1950s, starting with the great Hungarian side that should have won a World Cup or two and ended up defecting: Kubala, Puskas, Kocsis, great players, the first two were close to being superstars in their time.

Then there was Alfredo di Stefano, who was already a mature player when he arrived at Real Madrid in the late 50s.

I am pretty sure the Hungarians Kubala and perhaps Puskas, and the Argentine for sure, all ended up playing for Spain, when it was possible to change countries.

[Cheeta]

Kinda late in the day but I did mean to reply earlier but life gets busy, eh?

Long Answer

I think you're absolutely right in saying that should these players be sent back to Argentina and Brazil they'd strengthen those leagues beyond measure, but that probably says a lot about the exodus of players from Brazil/Argentina as it does about anything else. It's kind of hard for me to take their development out of context as well.

I'd say a great majority of the SA players who come to Europe end up becoming far better players for the experience than they would otherwise have been had they stayed south of the equator. This is true of all players of course, not just the SAs. I'm just saying what the EURO leagues bring to Europe, and what they become because they're there doesn't necessarily translate into what they would have become had they stayed at home.

Post-Bosman Europe, Hell pre-Bosman Europe has been the training grounds for the worlds elite players and the Brazilians, Argentines, Canadians, Dutch, Italians and everybody else has benefited greatly from it. So I don't think you can realy look at the two independently.

Short answer

I think that for the most part, they're better players because they DIDN'T play in their domestic leagues.

[Cheeta]

Kinda late in the day but I did mean to reply earlier but life gets busy, eh?

Long Answer

I think you're absolutely right in saying that should these players be sent back to Argentina and Brazil they'd strengthen those leagues beyond measure, but that probably says a lot about the exodus of players from Brazil/Argentina as it does about anything else. It's kind of hard for me to take their development out of context as well.

I'd say a great majority of the SA players who come to Europe end up becoming far better players for the experience than they would otherwise have been had they stayed south of the equator. This is true of all players of course, not just the SAs. I'm just saying what the EURO leagues bring to Europe, and what they become because they're there doesn't necessarily translate into what they would have become had they stayed at home.

Post-Bosman Europe, Hell pre-Bosman Europe has been the training grounds for the worlds elite players and the Brazilians, Argentines, Canadians, Dutch, Italians and everybody else has benefited greatly from it. So I don't think you can realy look at the two independently.

Short answer

I think that for the most part, they're better players because they DIDN'T play in their domestic leagues.

[Canuck Oranje]

I sense that you may have misunderstood my post.

I wasn't suggesting that all players should play in their home country. I was simply drawing attention to the fact that the strengths of domestic leagues today are not the same as they were 40 years ago. In other words, the Brazilian League of 1970 was probably as strong as or stronger than the English first division of 1970. I don't think I would say that for the same two leagues today.

The main point was that it is important to think of how things change when comparing how good a player was who played in 1970 (as an example) to one playing today.

quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

Kinda late in the day but I did mean to reply earlier but life gets busy, eh?

Long Answer

I think you're absolutely right in saying that should these players be sent back to Argentina and Brazil they'd strengthen those leagues beyond measure, but that probably says a lot about the exodus of players from Brazil/Argentina as it does about anything else. It's kind of hard for me to take their development out of context as well.

I'd say a great majority of the SA players who come to Europe end up becoming far better players for the experience than they would otherwise have been had they stayed south of the equator. This is true of all players of course, not just the SAs. I'm just saying what the EURO leagues bring to Europe, and what they become because they're there doesn't necessarily translate into what they would have become had they stayed at home.

Post-Bosman Europe, Hell pre-Bosman Europe has been the training grounds for the worlds elite players and the Brazilians, Argentines, Canadians, Dutch, Italians and everybody else has benefited greatly from it. So I don't think you can realy look at the two independently.

Short answer

I think that for the most part, they're better players because they DIDN'T play in their domestic leagues.