TeeWee Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Why have some nations overachieve in national football, while others seem to underachieve, and on a consistent basis? For example, a country like Holland has a relatively small population and only a decent league (bottom of the top 10 best top level leagues in Europe?), but has managed to strong finals with several semi-finals in the beginning of the 2000s and of course the final in the last WC. Portugal is also considered a strong dark horse bet for any finals, while again, they have a smallish population and their league is just outside the top 5 leagues in Europe. Contrast this to England, which seems to swing between very low expectations ("they were on a par to get to the QF, but they suck otherwise") and very high expectations ("EPL is best league in the world, football was born in England, England are always a bet to go far into a tournament"). What elements make e.g. Holland and Portugal seem to overachieve consistently, given that they have a much lower population and their leagues are much lower rated (and the implied: the quality of the clubs in the domestic competitions is lower, therefore, the players playing for these clubs are of lower quality too) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Stuart Wilson Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 They don't overachieve, those teams are merely better than England at this point in time and have bee over a regular period, the whole EPL best league in the World lends to a lot of England fans over-rating their own players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBKalle Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Over/underachieving are subjective ideas... Portugal have been perceived for ages as perennial underachivers, and so did Spain before the current Golden Age. Netherlands have become some sort of choking artists... it may be a World Cup final or the group stage, but you just know they're going to fall short. Of course if you go by the national population and the relatively poor standard of their league, the Netherlands do overachieve every single time, but the quality of their NT can't be ignored when judging them. England's case isn't helped by all the hype surrounding the EPL, by the generalized smugness of the media and the tabloids. A more balanced analysis of the English players would never see outrageous claims at either end of the spectrum... They're not a world class NT and they're not a third-tier nation. They're at best semifinal material in Euros and quarterfinal material in WC. Anything more would require extreme circumstances (or performing at 120% every single time), anything less would be disappointing. But in fairness it would be so much weirder having England to WIN a major competition than going home in the early rounds. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Svenc Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Forget about the leagues - in particular in the wake of the Bosman ruling. The leagues have only so much influence on the player pool available to any given country in the world. Players are moving all over the places. The Netherlands have quite high a standard of youth development, have had it for decades. In fact it could be argued many a club's philosophy now is to develop future international stars that are then to be sold for good money to the big dogs in Europe - where they equally are of high enough a standard once they move to get good deals of playing time, usually. England should do better with their resources available of course in theory, and they could have done so on the odd occasion, as, bar this EUROs, they are usually still amongst the five or six or seven teams that have a "realistic" chance of nicking a title, just not the favourtes, imo. Not to rub it in, but look at the many exits on shoot outs - in 1990 they would have likely beaten a rather weakened Argentina too. But then their governing body, the FA, has also little power on the national game and had been teaching coaches for decades by theories and coaching manuals that were in parts fundamentally rotten - namely Hughes "Winning Formula" which was equally being influenced by statistics interpreted in all the wrong ways possible. I know this has come a bit of a cliche, but one of the results is that I've rarely, if ever seen an England team being able to hold onto the ball even when holding just that little more onto the ball was something that actually mattered - they often struggle to do so even against comparably "smaller" sides at any stage of play regardless of circumstance and the opponent's approach to the game. This alone doesn't explain anything, of course, but is a factor that stifles opportunity. Things will move up from here in the long run, though once things change for the good, if you ask me, as of course on average they have all the resources available to do better. It's not a question of "if", but one of "when". Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Sure, Oranje always seem to punch well over their weight if you look at teams like England and France, who almost have more footballers than our country has inhabitants (poetic license), but we've always been about quality, very pinpointed training methods and tactical innovation. Often I've thought that the Dutch position - home-grown mega-talents being poached by the moneybags-clubs, would be a blessing in disguise. Not for the clubs, but for the NT. These players get to play in the best European teams and leagues, they can only get better, right? Slowly I'm getting the feeling that something has changed in that respect. Our current squad has a bunch of players, like Stekelenburg, Heitinga, Robben and van Persie, who may be very good in their club teams, but were arguably better for the NT in years gone by. And players like Emanuelson, Elia or Babel, who didn't even get a (proper) look in yet and who may even miss out completely. Players are moving at an ever decreasing young age and I don't think it's a good thing. They may well excel at their clubs, but they lose touch with the Dutch way of playing or something like that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 As said before, better leagues don't directly translate into better national team talent. The English Premier League probably is indeed the best league in the world (and if not, only slightly lagging behind the Spanish). That does not mean the English are the better players in the world because most of the stars are Spanish, Argentinian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Dutch, Ivorian, Croatian, you name it... Indeed look at our team... Patrício - Pereira, Alves, Pepe, Coentrão - Veloso, Moutinho, Meireles - Ronaldo, Nani, Postiga. With João Pereira just having been signed by Valencia, that's 5 Spanish league players, 2 Premier League players, 1 Serie A player, 1 Russian league player and 2 remaining Portuguese league players who have been constantly linked to moves to more prestigious places. Our league may be rubbish but it doesn't matter as long we can produce them, develop them properly then let them go for the big leagues where they fulfill their potential at the highest level. (that is a very big if btw - I am slightly worried about the state of our youth setups, even if recent developments the past 1 or 2 years have looked encouraging, finally some mildly promising players showing up). On the other hand there is indeed some mental blockage in some nations, as well as persistent attitude problems which make them underperform. Those barriers however can be beaten and historical stereotypes may become obsolete, look at Spain. Obviously they have a crazy amount of talent in this generation, but have always had good players, never made it. The difference was that this group has the right attitude - humility, remarkable team spirit, insatiable winning desire. Once they broke the long-standing hurdle of a semi-final whilst also getting lucky on penalties vs Italy, 4 years ago, they started to believe it could be done. All it stood in their way was a Russia they had already beaten, and then in the final anything could happen. And it did. They already knew they were good but had "fate" in their way, once the mental blockage was over, they were indeed very good. Then there's why talent shows up here and there. Proper competent youth coaches, facilities, and scouting networks, all with a common goal and a very clear plan of how football should be played, made the difference for this generation of Spain and Germany players. I think England needs to take lessons from these countries and modernize things, whilst also not ostracizing their own football identity. That's a lot easier said than done, but it's certainly possible. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpain16 Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 I think what we found working well for us for decades, and that is mostly the same for other ex-Yu nations, is producing technical (and often tall as we're in average among tallest people in the world) players and being good at gamesmanship. Plus we're notoriously overconfident, often beyond normal reasoning. It sometimes works well in sports, that. At least playing against so called better opposition. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustardpower Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 The thing with international football is that it is a cup competition held every 2 years which tends to make only reaching the last 8 not very good and the only teams to come out with any credit are usually finalists or possibly only the winner and awful teams that massively overachieve. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PMLF Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 I think in many cases it's just that some national teams are overrated or underrated. England for example is often overrated, so when they naturally flop, it's not that they underperformed, it's just that they are not as good as people think they are. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeWee Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 I understand that a better league doesn't translate automatically to better players, but having a stronger league structure should, naively, translate into stronger players throughout. Here in Holland there's a notion that after reaching a certain level players have to move abroad to fulfill their potential. If you can use your domestic league progression, the transition should, in theory, be easier and opportunities should be more plentiful. While stereotypical, can a different nationwide youth development culture be so beneficial as to overcome the size of the population and the size of a league? Is it really true that the English culture has such a bias towards workrate, directness and physicality as to prevent the technical players to break into the game? I find it hard to believe that a large country so in touch with football cannot produce someone even remotely like a VDVaart, a Modric or a CRonaldo. Footballers, while excellent and perhaps unique in their talent, fit very well into the culture of their (small!) countries. Or is it some sort of cultural bias that eliminates English players from consideration if a team looks for technical players? Similar to the (woeful) bias where African players are often described as athletic, pacy and physical, rather than creative or visionary. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeWee Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 I think in many cases it's just that some national teams are overrated or underrated.England for example is often overrated, so when they naturally flop, it's not that they underperformed, it's just that they are not as good as people think they are. Taking this as a hook to respond to, but this is more general: It's not that England over/underperforms regarding the hyped expectations, but rather that, given objective numbers, England should consistently be a top 4 finisher (the top 6 countries simply going by the numbers should be, in no particular order, England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Russia) in a European tournament, and at least top 8 in a WC (add in Argentina and Brazil to the mix). While the Dutch side has, purely by the numbers, no business turning in consistently strong finishes (apart from Italy 90 and a spell of "on-par" form from the 2002-campaign to about 2006) Is it only bad luck, generational transition, or something more structural which gives e.g. the Dutch sides the edge in the NT compared to potentially stronger sides as England or Russia? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeWee Posted June 25, 2012 Author Share Posted June 25, 2012 The thing with international football is that it is a cup competition held every 2 years which tends to make only reaching the last 8 not very good and the only teams to come out with any credit are usually finalists or possibly only the winner and awful teams that massively overachieve. This might actually also be a cause of misperception of actual achievements. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PMLF Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Taking this as a hook to respond to, but this is more general:It's not that England over/underperforms regarding the hyped expectations, but rather that, given objective numbers, England should consistently be a top 4 finisher (the top 6 countries simply going by the numbers should be, in no particular order, England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Russia) in a European tournament, and at least top 8 in a WC (add in Argentina and Brazil to the mix). While the Dutch side has, purely by the numbers, no business turning in consistently strong finishes (apart from Italy 90 and a spell of "on-par" form from the 2002-campaign to about 2006) Is it only bad luck, generational transition, or something more structural which gives e.g. the Dutch sides the edge in the NT compared to potentially stronger sides as England or Russia? Yes, obviously England's youth development is not good enough, which hinders their chances of success. All the other big countries (bar Russia) have decent or good youth development. Portugal, Holland and Uruguay are strange cases, I think it's a matter of very good scouting + good coaching. Scouting in bigger countries like Brazil is less good, so many potentially talented players never get a chance to even start a career. And competition for spots is bigger too, so many give up, etc... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nørbæk Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Holland and Portugal don't really overachieve. The English team just isn't very good on the grand scale. This Euro team has been one of the worst I remember (on paper, not performance wise). Too many players are getting cheap rides in their clubs and we think they're good. Just look how many are screaming that we underrate Young in FM, yet he really isn't any good. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaceCrusher Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 It's the quality of the coaching + youth setup (I mean how the youth competitions are structured, etc.). For example, a 19 year old who had been at Porto since 11, will have played against Benfica and Sporting dozens of times already. In some countries, even the big clubs play mostly in regional youth leagues and just keep beating weak sides 10-0 week in week out. Of course they won't improve much with this. Also in the case of Portugal, the league is very strong tactically, so some players end up being able to punch above their level of talent when they go abroad. Like Meireles, who does not have the technical or physical ability a player that starts for Chelsea should have but is there anyway and plays regularly. That's also why so many foreign players arrive here as nobodies and leave as world stars. But the greatest nation at coaching players is probably Uruguay, one of the best NT in the world with just 3M people. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deerokus Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 More than Holland and Portugal, Croatia spectacularly 'overachieves' in terms of the quality of player they produce for such a small country - almost a million fewer people than Scotland. Like Scotland, they don't have a particularly strong league (Dinamo are on 7 in a row, and are the only team who everseem to do much in Europe) , but clearly their youth development is strong. They don't usually turn that into much at the tournaments, but even there they've reached a World Cup Semi Final and two Euro Quarter Finals.* Holland and Portugal have much bigger populations, and they both have fairly strong, competitive leagues with several big clubs, so it's not as much of an overachievement, though it is still very impressive. I suppose Sweden would be another country like that over the last 20 or so years. Produce plenty of solid players, and usually one or two very good players, which is all you need for a fairly strong international side. *Related to the discussion in another thread, I really think a big problem for Scottish football is our proximity to English football, and the fact that in media coverage terms we're essentially a regional lower league. The few good Scottish players always want to play in England, rather than go abroad to actually improve their game. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lermon Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 that is amazing how much quality football players Netherlands produce. What someone needs to do one day is take the top twenty teams in the world and count how many of each nationality. Then do a talented footballer/population of people: 1 in every 500,000 Netherlanders is a World class footballer. 1 in every 5,000,000 Englishmen is a world class footballer. etc* *might be slightly flawed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodmansee Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 England: Bottle. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deerokus Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 England has ten world class players? Why didn't they use them in this tournament? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Man11 Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 that is amazing how much quality football players Netherlands produce. What someone needs to do one day is take the top twenty teams in the world and count how many of each nationality. Then do a talented footballer/population of people:1 in every 500,000 Netherlanders is a World class footballer. 1 in every 5,000,000 Englishmen is a world class footballer. etc* *might be slightly flawed Uruguay >>> Netherlands Uruguay 2nd in the world rankings with a population of 3.2 million Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
georginho_juventusygr Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 England has ten world class players? Why didn't they use them in this tournament? John Terry Steven Gerrard Wayne Rooney Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anti Spiral Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 1 out of 3. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
georginho_juventusygr Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 Joe Hart on the way to world-class. Joleon Lescott too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCIAG Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 England has been isolated from Europe (and most of the best footballing minds in the world) for a long time by the channel. Spain was isolated by Franco, and has only just felt the benefits of being connected and stopped being "underachievers". England began major reforms in 2006 that are beginning to change youth football now. Hopefully we'll reap the full benefits in 20 years. John TerrySteven Gerrard Wayne Rooney Joe Hart on the way to world-class.Joleon Lescott too. Missing the most obvious one. (Cole) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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