Foreign footballers in Europe

johnnydawg68 · January 31, 2011

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/01/european_football

Interesting chart here. France and Spain have the highest % of domestic players in their top flight leagues, and France is the highest exporter of players within Europe. Brazil is the highest overall.

Considering the success at the international level these 3 nations have had recently (albeit not at the same time in the case of France and Spain), it could be argued that the key to a successful international team is 1) have a high % of your domestic league be populated by domestic players, and then 2) Export a certain amount of them to other European leagues.

Alio · January 31, 2011

That is pretty interesting J Dawg

I bet I could count all the English players, playing outside of the UK on one hand?

johnnydawg68 · January 31, 2011

Alio said:
That is pretty interesting J Dawg

I bet I could count all the English players, playing outside of the UK on one hand?

No question in my mind it hurts the England team to have a country full of "Little Englanders" in terms of footballers. Only a few have even really tried it.

Bruce Wayne · January 31, 2011

Alio said:
That is pretty interesting J Dawg

I bet I could count all the English players, playing outside of the UK on one hand?

Exactly. It's criminal how so few English players have tried their hand abroad. They would rather sit in the reserves here picking up big pay cheques and moaning about the lack of 'opportunity'. The same goes for managers and coaches. I'm no fan of McClaren but respect him for packing his bags and trying his luck in Holland and Germany.