Walk into a bar or restaurant in any major city in England and the chances are the waiter or barman who serves you will be from foreign shores. Should you fall and break your leg, chances are the same will apply to the doctor who treats you in hospital.
So why as a nation, multi cultural in practically all professions, are we so obsessed with the volume of foreign players plying their trade in the top flight of our football?
It’s argued, the presence of all these foreigners is ruining the national side, stifling young English talent out of the Premier league and into the Championship and beyond. All well and good except that isn’t the case. The pinnacle of English football, where the game is supposedly at it’s most polluted with the off shore invaders; Englishmen contribute to the spine of three out of four of the nation’s top sides and at the other, would anyone seriously argue that the likes of Theo Walcott’s development is being hampered by the total football played by Arsenal?
Just as an outlandish thought, maybe the national game isn’t suffering from the foreign invasion at all; perhaps the opposite would be closer to the truth. Admittedly the money generated by the Stamford Bridge money machine has had a negative effect on player values throughout Europe, but the Premier league has been an unprecedented success since its inception and far from showing signs of flagging, it’s attracting stronger, more competitive sponsorship and ownership with each new season. A position unique to English football, one glance at the derelict terraces of Italy is proof of that.
While the likes of Alan Shearer and Matt le Tissier contributed enormously to that success, a look back at the top flight of English football in the mid nineties, and memories flood back of an aloof Cantona skilfully wrong footing defences at the theatre of dreams, or the arrival of Gullit and Vialli to Chelsea, or even Tino Asprilla appearing at St James Park in the snow.
Fast forward a decade and while the likes of Rooney and Gerrard wet the appetite, the main course is of Henry, Ronaldo and Drogba. An article last week made reference to a lack of creative midfielders, and the absence of a Zidane in the Premier league. Our game has moved on from that. Robbie Savage and his like have made sure the playgrounds of the pedestrian playmaker have no place at Ewood Park or the Reebok; in their place are players so slight of foot and so devastatingly effective, the length of the pitch can be consumed in seconds.
Perhaps the game is over run by foreigners, but the positives they have bought to the game have far outweighed the negatives. Probably in the same way the bronzed Australian waitress has done for your local pub. Or would you prefer your lager served by the classic English centre forward, plenty about her up front, but missing a few teeth?
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