The decline of Italian football

I can see there may be some merit to your observation here, and the correlation you draw... although it might be considered a tad risky in this age of sensitive social cohesion for you to be drawing anyone's attention to this matter.

Far better to just sweep it under the carpet and let sleeping dogs lie, methinks. After all, the definition of 'English' has had to be broadened such that people who are clearly not English have become English through some bureaucratic intervention or the mere accident of where they were born.

In any case, this boat already sailed long ago, and it ain't coming back. Well, the small boats are coming back... again and again, bringing more non-English to our shores, some of whom may end up playing 'soccer' and even playing for England.

Or is this insidious post part of a campaign orchestrated by Nigel Farage and Reform UK to ensnare our innocent readers whose voting inclinations may be wavering ahead of the May elections? We should be told!

You will start the ones who have nearly fuck all jumping on the ones who have fuck all.

Full marks for your carefully guarded reply, any chance you applying to join up as an mp for reform? ☺️

My dad’s lot invaded Mercia 1100 years or so ago and my mum’s lot stopped over in Liverpool whilst ‘en route’ to America from Ireland in the 1800’s and took root.

The only difference between me and anyone else born here is timescale. Does that matter that much?

This sounds a little too close to the vitriolic complaints in the second and third centuries that the Roman army was no longer Roman and had lost all the virtues and values of what it meant to be Roman and 'manly' in the good old days because it was no longer a thoroughbred wholesome and healthy Roman army of exclusively Roman blood and genes. It had become a mosaic of Romans, mercenaries, slaves, 'barbarians', and other 'foreigners'.

Meanwhile, what the fuck is this doing on ToffeeWeb? What the fuck does it have to do with Everton? What were you thinking of Paul?

I think that this makes you a ski jumper and long-distance skater with an ironic sense of humour and deep family and city loyalty who likes a drink and literature.

Am I close mate?

Irish on our dads side, Welsh on me mams.

a. the number of non-British managers in England and the number of British managers working in mainland Europe

AND

b. the same for the players.

We are quite insular. Language is a major issue, not because we are lazy at learning languages, but because English is the international language. If Matthew Pennington had realised his future was not at Everton and learnt German - well that was going to be pretty useless if he was signed by a Dutch, or Swedish or French or Portugese side. But any youngster from those countries will have English as their second language and so can move to British football with one significant hurdle removed.

How many England players have ever played for a team outside of England? Can almost name them all.

The other major issue is the money in the British game. Youngsters who are not going to make it in the Premier League will simply look for clubs in England rather than go abroad as the money is better.

It is a very simplified summary of my ancestors of course. A Scottish great-grandmother and one of my grandads had Shropshire roots, which further muddies the waters. Can’t have been deep roots because he was a merchant seaman which doesn’t seem like a natural fit for a native of a landlocked county.

Anyway the Italians have qualified which proves… nothing?

How about another hypothesis for their poor performing national football team? They have (like the Irish) in recent history seen a burgeoning of Rugby Union which potentially attracts gifted athletes who may otherwise have played professional football. Italian athletes also seem more prevalent to me these days.

My verdict: there are likely a myriad of causative factors that affect the performance of a national sports team and working out the particular significance of each one will take far more time than any of us are likely to be prepared to dedicate to the ‘problem’.

I think I know what those five are Si!

A big part of the problem with American football is that the most of the youth clubs/training outfits are "pay to play." So kids that can afford to play in good clubs do, while those who can't afford it, don't. You can see the issue here as high quality or potentially high quality young players who can't afford it are overlooked.

We need less "pay to play" and more training through our professional set up in MLS.

The other problem is the number of sports competing for athletes. Football rules in just about every other country but here in America, there are several sports to choose from so young quality athletes get spread out. Sure football gets their share but not nearly enough compared to developed football countries in Europe, Africa, and South America.

I read 'foreign' as 'not eligible to represent the host country at football' not as anything else at all.

Thus it stands to reason that if the top national leagues are comprised of players that are mostly ineligible to represent the nation, they are arguably not developing players that are eligible to represent the nation. Worse still, they are developing players for their rivals.

Its an old argument of course, I'm surprised Paul G didn't object on this ground alone, but then we'd miss out on all the good guys coming forward to expose how open-minded and tolerant they are.