International Football - A Step Down?

cson

Reading an interview with Arsene Wenger in FourFourTwo he said this;

Arsene Wenger wrote:

I'm not a big fan of international football because they destroyed it. Take Russia: once it was one country and now its 21. Yugoslavia was one and now its six. As a result the level has dropped. Then you add countries like Andorra, Faroe Islands and San Marino and suddenly three games out of four are of no interest. When you think of international football you think that its a level up but 99 percent of the time it's a level down. Thats why I prefer club football. The world cup winners are all from countries with a minimum of 50 million people. Ryan Giggs never played at a world cup finals. If Maradona had been born in Luxembourg he'd have never played ina world cup - but he'd still have been the best player in the world In club football you get to put the best players in the world together. That is real justice

I might be a touch biased but I have to say I agree with him. Most of the group games teams are just going throught the motions and even at the finals you can still see some dire matches - Ukraine v Switzerland being one that comes to mind.

PHB

Yeh I can't really stand international football, but I like the idea of the World Cup, a month of straight football. Would prefer it was just the top clubs though, that'd be much better

county

PHB wrote: »

Yeh I can't really stand international football, but I like the idea of the World Cup, a month of straight football. Would prefer it was just the top clubs though, that'd be much better

yeah perfect world and all that.there seems to be a good few here that as you say cant stand international football,i`d be the opposite,i`d get 10 times the buzz watching my country play than my club team.

anyway what Wenger really means is he doesn`t like internationals as some of his players might get injured

Mitch Connor

I agre with him. Inernational footie used to be a step up. Well, for the english based players as the english game was fairly muck. Also, european football was a good deal easier too - as there were far fewer teams allowed in, and alot of them were crap, with no decent opposition til you got to the quarters/semi's a lot of the time.

However, now the english game has a load of talented foreign players the standard of football has risen considerably overall (imo), I also think Europe is a lot tougher now to, with the top 3/4 sides from the big countries all competing for the CL.

It used to be the national side would be better then the domestic sides, or at least that is how it seemed, but now I would expect United, Arsenal and Chelsea at the least to be more then a match for most international sides.

DerekD Goldfish

I love international football the feeling of a wold cup or european championships is something you dont get in club competitions.

Pepe LeFrits

I still love the romance of the World Cup and to a lesser extent the European Championship, but all the games inbetween are a complete non-event for me.

FIFA would do well to do a cull on all the meaningless games between tournaments, but instead they are trying to go after the club game and reduce its quality and power so that Internationals can become top dog again.

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Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

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I find this bizarre in the extreme.

If FIFA had the notion to they could really push the World Club Cup and have it take off as a bigger competition than the World Cup, and, imo, that is exactly what will happen.

I predict that in 20-30 years the global club game will surpass the International team competitions totally in terms of importance and dollar earnings for sponsors.

Already the European Champions League is the most watched football competition in the world, after the WC, and ahead of the EC and CA.

The Asian CL has been launched in the last five or so years, and the South American and African versions are already well established.

Football will also grow in America as it becomes more and more Spanish speaking (already some states are over 50% Spanish speaking as it is), and I fully feel that the US will become a world soccer power, with it's clubs leading the way in the money stakes.

This is what people want.

At the end of the day, people want entertainment. To see temas full of good players competing against each other. This does not happen in National teams. The good to decent player playing for a piss poor national team will no longer hold the romantacism is does now.

The increasing comsumerism in soccer will ensure that people demand the very best from the teams they support, National Teams cannot guarantee this.

Also, players have begun to realise that club football is much more important than the national teams. Retiring early from the international game, in a bid to further their club careers.

prendy

there are meaningless games in every competition both club and international...
look at the PL....Derby V Liverpool
FA cup is the same as is the CL
there is mis matches in EVERY competition but IMO you cant beat the feeling you get from an International competition (EC and WC finals) when your country is playing. everybody cheering as one.
im thinking of Ireland Germany 02
Ireland Italy 94
and theres been plentl of good qualifiers too.

Galvasean

Maybe Wenger was thinking about Mart Poom when he said this. AT the time he was Arsenal's most capped player, for Estonia. I dont think he even played for Arsenal once.

PHB

The thing is, there's crap games in the club comps aswell. But they come thick and fast. Derby is followed by Arsenal. I international football would be a lot better if they cut out the breaks and just had one month long session at the end of each year. It's the two week gaps so Ireland can play San Marino and Cyprus that pisses me off.

Pepe LeFrits

The WC is Blatter's cash cow... he wants it to stay number 1.

Poom played against Portsmouth last season, by the way.

cson

PHB wrote: »

I international football would be a lot better if they cut out the breaks and just had one month long session at the end of each year.

Qft PHB. We've got a 2 week break in Sept, October, November and February/March afaik. It'd be much better to have it all condensed into a month. Squads would gel much better too imo.

shane86

cson wrote: »

I might be a touch biased but I have to say I agree with him. Most of the group games teams are just going throught the motions and even at the finals you can still see some dire matches - Ukraine v Switzerland being one that comes to mind.

Its about national pride. Ireland didnt even win a match in 1990 until the last 16, but it was the countrys greatest ever sporting achievement. How many fans of the top 4 would happily get a buzz from watching 3 drawn matches in a row? For me the prem is a bit of entertainment, anyone who has more loyalty to a team in England they have zero connection to rather than the national side needs their head examined. As for the excitement factor: 20 teams, only 4 of which have any chance of winning the title. Thrilling unpredictable stuff :rolleyes: Its a monopoly with little room for shock. Compare that to the world cup, there is usually one or two unfancied teams who punch above their weight. Ireland, South Korea, Australia etc etc, and its great to see it happen. Crying that your precious English league is disrupted because players need to go play internationals is shockingly funny.

mike65

The UEFA minnows should be herded in 2 groups and the winner of each gets to play each other, the winner of that plays in the EC or WC.

Mike.

PiE

mike65 wrote: »

The UEFA minnows should be herded in 2 groups and the winner of each gets to play each other, the winner of that plays in the EC or WC.

Yea I agree. At least Ireland might have a chance of qualifying then.

As for the excitement factor: 20 teams, only 4 of which have any chance of winning the title. Thrilling unpredictable stuff Its a monopoly with little room for shock. Compare that to the world cup, there is usually one or two unfancied teams who punch above their weight. Ireland, South Korea, Australia etc etc, and its great to see it happen

Errr... only 7 teams have ever won the world cup. And teams "punching above their weight" happens in every competition, look at Man City & Portsmouth this season or even Liverpool and Porto winning the CL in recent years.

Jazzy

ah now, in fairness it is pretty funny to watch england crash out of a competition every two years with the greatest expectations put right on their shoulders. how can they do that when 50% of their players cant even fit a brain in that space (Gerrard, Cashley, Rio)
and we get to see 2 england crashes in less then 18 months this time! xmas has come early