At World Cup, it's all about desire

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When you know something about football then please write another article. Football is a game where one team can get hammered and still get a result. Playing like its a final is very real phenomonen - why do you think lower league teams beat higher league teams because they manage to run the extra mile due to the adrenalin, obvious to anyone who knows anything about football. When did germany struggle? (embarass themselves) I saw them deserve to win on three occasions. Spain Struggle - same as above. Too many players from foreign leagues is a very real problem, of course it prevents young domestically produced players getting a chance, how you fail to see that shows you know nothing about football. To say Portugal are in the same situation as South Korea, Paraguay and Japan is ludicrous, Portugal - due to great coaching and a healthy base of domestic players produce world class players and have done since year dot. Landon Donovan - standout player! Now now, me thinks someone has been gettig their newly acquired 'soccer knowledge' from NHK!

NambanOnigiri: I take issue with your domestic player argument. Just how does a great domestic player not "get a chance" ? There might be an issue of star power for the foreign players, but someone talented should eventually rise to the top.

nationalism and xenophobia find their way into mass entertainment and/or sports. what's new? it's the same old "they took our jobs" argument applied to football in this case.

this comment even says "domestically produced players"... probably fed on local food only, as well.

If something is factual how can it be xenophobic, its merely a fact. People are always looking to make something racist this, xenophobic that. Simply, foreign players came to the premier league and made it better, no doubt about it, technique improved and British players learned a lot from overseas players, no argument its a fact. The issue is when players are bought from overseas merely because they are cheaper than buying domestically, im fully aware that it is the fault of the British clubs. Thus domestic players cant play as the club has bought players from overseas and of course is going to play them if theyve payed for them. You only improve if you play games, as such it prevents players getting a chance. Bholder - id imagine they do eat local food as it will be the freshest available, nutrition being a very important element of a footballers life. Id be a bit foolish being xenophobic as i work in Japan at a Japanese company doing a job that a Japanese person could.

I certainly agree with you namban that premier clubs buying cheaper overseas players instead of an expensive potential star from the championship is annoying, but whether it is a problem is extremely debatable. We'll never know how good a potential star could have been. We can only look at players who did come from the championship and see how they fared, and i can't say they fared too well, David Nugent for one. Not a bad player but simply didn't have the talent to be a top class player and that was pretty obvious from first sight. I'm not really too worried for England's sake that his career was stalled by having some Nigerians in front of him at Portsmouth.

I would contend that clubs can see the potential of players very early on, if you look at most internationals nowadays they were playing for top class clubs at a very young age, and as such they are always going to get a game at club level because clubs can see they are good enough and one of them will at the very least give them a game in the end, i.e Carlton Cole. Carlton Palmer might not have been a Premiership regular nowadays, but Gerrard, Rooney Cole etc are as good as you can get and would get games irrespective of how many foreigners are plying their trade in England.

And Gerrard's comment about "Algeria playing like it's a WC Final" is shocking. I hadn't seen it before but this should have got more publicity. Every game in the World Cup IS like a WC Final, especially when you've drawn your first game and need a win rather badly. It shouldn't be too hard to match aggression and desire, it should be the easiest. Then the skill differential will determine the winner. It's precisely comments like this that show the idiocy and complacency that are the reason why Gerrard, Lampard etc won't have won the WC by the time they're done. This isn't the 3rd round of the FA Cup at home to Doncaster, this is the World Cup finals!

You have picked a very good example in David Nugent as someone who just wasnt good enough, ditto Michael Chopra etc. I entirely agree with the Carlton Palmer example. However Kieran Dyer (he was brilliant, obviously not for the last 5 years), Tim Cahill are equally compelling cases for trying players from lower leagues. Cahill was overlooked for years then Everton took a chance and he blossomed into his potential, Dyer was a young 18 year old lad when he got his chance. At 6 million he was a lot of money for an 18 year old lad from the championship and Newcastle bought silvio maric for 4 million (flop) dimitris for 2 million (flop) Diego Gavilan for 2 million (flop), i support Newcastle btw for my sins. My point being, there are players in the championship who could play in the premiership and can only fulfil their potential if they are given the chance to play and learn from better players. Shearer was released by Newcastle as a youth (idiots), now we have Nile Ranger who looks likes good little player but we bought Xisco for 6 million which bumped him down the pecking order. Xisco is not the best player ive ever seen but limits the chances Ranger will get as a kid which will stuntkill his development. As for Englands national team, no passion, technique or application. We were made to look terrible by an average German team which tells it own story.

Shearer rejected Newcastle (not released by us) because at his trial he was put in goal ("because he was a big lad") and went to Southampton because Merrington convinced him and his parents he'd be looked after (I think). I'll be very interested to see how Caroll will do in the Premier League, providing he keeps his head he could well turn out to be a far better partner for Rooney than Heskey or Crouch have ever been.

Anyway... The thing with bringing in so many imports is that it clearly prevents the young players from having a chance. When was the last time Chelsea brought through a youth player? John Terry? Same for Liverpool, Man U etc. Arsenal bring young foreigners into the country because they are cheaper and they have had better training at a young level than the English children have. It's interesting that Inter won the Champions League without a single Italian player in the team and that all of Germany's players play in their domestic leagues. In England's case there needs to be a top down overhaul of football as a whole. Won't happen though.

And from the article, desire will only take you so far. He finishes his piece with 'Being lackadaisical now will be fatal. '

As will a lack of talent. You can win a game or two based on the desire to win but you can't go all the way.

Nanban, I'll give you Cahill, but he's not English anyway! If he was I bet he'd have got much more publicity and simply been easier to scout at a much younger age. As for Dyer, like you said he was 18, he had hardly played in the championship, and I'm sure probably all the premiership clubs had heard of him and were keeping tabs on him. Hell, even you and I had heard of him at 18, so think how long before that he would have come on Man U etc's radar.

As for Heda Madness, it does seem like a good point about the various domestic leagues but it asks the old question, the chicken or the egg? Are the Italian and English leagues populated by foreign players because the domestic ones are not at high enough standard for the top clubs, or are, like you and nanban contend, the domestic players not good enough because of the foreign players? I would go for the former. I'm sure players like Muller and Schweinsteiger etc from Germany would have got a chance in Italy or England, maybe not at a top 4 club but somewhere. You say Chelsea have not brought through any English players for a long time, but, and I'm no Chelsea fan, they have tried, and look at how they've gone. C Cole went to West Ham because, simply, he is not good enough to be called a very top level striker. J and A Cole they keep because they are good enough, S Parker also offloaded because he wasn't quite at the standard required, and even though I like him he's never going to be a WC winning midfielder. Lampard and Terry, CL quality therefore they keep them.

If anything I think you two should be directing your ire at the short-termism of clubs that want to get in the Champions League year after year. They buy purely for next season as you can't build for the future when you need to qualify for the CL year after year after year. They do have a lack of domestic players but it's hardly surprising as a top level CL team is basically one of the best teams in the world, getting the cream of the crop from all over the world. If you look at the teams below them though there are still a lot of domestic players, i.e Villa, Everton, Spurs, actually even Man U still have quite a few. Most of the German team have hardly played or not played at all in Europe this season so it's debatable how much of a difference it makes "playing at the highest level" if you are good enough anyway. As Heda said, there needs to be a top down overhaul of English football as a whole. The players are, overall, not quite good enough to begin with, not held back by foreigners. If they were good enough they would get snapped up by someone, maybe not in England but, especially in these days of easy communications and travel, by a team in Spain, Germany or France... but they don't.