There’s been a lot of complaints about how poorly the major soccer-playing nations have been doing. France, Italy, and Greece were knocked out of the group stages, England looked weak and barely made it through to the 2nd round, and as we enter the quarter-finals, only Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands remain to represent Europe. Of the teams that are still in the running, only Brazil, Germany, Uruguay, and Argentina have won the World Cup previously, and only one represents Europe.
So what’s happening to Europe? One thing people keep pointing out is that the club teams in Italy, England, and elsewhere keep importing talent. Argentina’s Lionel Messi plays in Barcelona, Spain, for instance. Many of the top teams, such as Inter Milan of Italy, are made up primarily of foreign players, which means the local boys aren’t generally in those top teams.
There is a great way to visualize how the world’s soccer talent is outsourced at Estadão.com. While I don’t know Portuguese, you can move your mouse over the top flags to see where the players on a national team play for their regular jobs. If you move your mouse over the bottom flags, you’ll see which nations provide the talent for local clubs.
For instance, if you mouse over the United States at the top, you’ll see that only four of the players actually play in the United States regularly. There are a couple of members who play in Mexico, but everyone else plays in Europe. Click the image below to see a larger version:
Meanwhile, of the 7 World Cup players who are in American soccer leagues, primarily Major League Soccer, one plays for Honduras and two play for New Zealand. Again, click the image below to see a larger version:
If you want more detailed information, check out the site yourself.
What’s more, you can even check the same kind of data from past World Cups all the way to 1994. By and large, you can see that countries picked their players from local clubs in the past. Italy by and large continued that tradition throughout the past World Cups, which might be why American-born Giuseppe Rossi, who plays for Spanish club Villarreal, wasn’t picked for the final Italian squad this year. However, between 1994 and 2010, more Italian club players are coming from other nations than before, a trend the rest of the world is also demonstrating.
Does that mean that foreign-born talent is ruining soccer for everyone? No, I think it simply means that we’ll see new World Cup winners soon. No one outside of South America or Europe has won the World Cup, but the way things look, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see a team from Asia, Africa, or even North America bring home the trophy in the near future. After all, technology and the ease of modern travel makes living abroad easier, and so talented individuals can go wherever they want so long as someone is willing to pay. If leagues in Spain, Italy, and Germany are some of the top leagues in the world, and more players in those leagues represent nations outside of Spain, Italy, and Germany, it only stands to reason that those foreign players will eventually use their talents in the World Cup for the benefit of their own countries.
For example, in 1994, only 7 US players plied their trade abroad, whereas today most of the US team was earning a living in Europe. When Landon Donovan was on loan to Everton, many US national team fans rejoiced. It meant that LA Galaxy’s Donovan was excelling in one of the toughest leagues in the world, and that meant the United States would compete that much better against the world.
