National Ironic

“It’s like rain on your wedding day.

It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid.

It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take.Who would have thought … it figures.”

England is credited with inventing football. Curiously, when you think of the beautiful game, chances are the first thing that will come to mind are the Brazilians who have dominated the sport.

England has won the FIFA World Cup only once. In 1966 to be exact. That was when the late and sainted (as well as knighted) Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, and Martin Peters led them to a 3-2 win against a German side in the finals played at the old Wembley Stadium. Since then, the Three Lions (as the national side is nicknamed) have only placed third during the 1968 European Championships and fourth in 1996.

The English Premier League is one of the top football leagues in the world and is certainly the most watched and most lucrative netting $2.5 billion (behind only the NFL’s $6.2 billion and the NBA’s $3.4 billion per annum) this past 2006-07 season.

Yet despite being an English competition, 53% (over 260 footballers) of the some 500 players in the EPL are foreigners. And no English manager has won the Premiership. Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson is Scottish and so is Blackburn’s Kenny Dalglish. Arsenal’s three-time winning coach Arsene Wenger is French while Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho is Portuguese.

Chelsea became the first EPL team to field an entire starting line-up composed for foreign-born players in 1999 while Arsenal was the first to list an entirely foreign 16-man line-up to a derby in 2005.

Such is the state of English football that it took Gianfranco Zola, an Italian and former Chelsea star, to recently point out that for the national side to improve, there must be a reduction of the number of foreign imports.

“When you have a big budget you can buy big players and that makes the level of the game better,” said Zola who retired in 2005 and is currently the coach of Italy’s Under-21 team. “In 1982, after Italy won the World Cup in Spain, people started to invest money and all the big players started to come to Italy. And we began to perform badly in international competitions. Bringing in foreign players isn’t always the right thing to do.”

In the last Italian Serie A, 26% of the players were imports. Zola pointed out that each team was permitted to sign up at most three foreigners. Since the adoption of the rule, Italy, second only to Brazil in the number of World Cup trophies with four, has seen their level of play go up. Aside from being the current World Cup titlists, AC Milan is the UEFA Champions League winner.

“It’s perfect because the core of the teams are Italian and it allows the young players to come through,” sums up Zola.

American has clearly not learned from the Italians. The NBA may be the best basketball league in the world but in international competitions, the Americans, the proponents and inventors (yeah it was a Canadian James Naismith who came up with the sport but you know…) of the game, like the English in football, are getting their asses handed back to them in international competitions. And its been going on for some time now.

Last season, there were some 86 international players in the league. That may tally up to a mere 19% of the league but take a gander at this: the regular season MVP was German (Dirk Nowitski) and the Finals MVP was French (Tony Parker). The foreign invasion doesn’t look to end soon.

Of the Finals protagonists, 2/5 of Cleveland’s starting unit was foreign while the champion San Antonio Spurs starting five was 3/5 international. The Spurs’ three best players weren’t even born in the United States – the US Virgin Islands’ Tim Duncan, Parker, and Argentina’s Emanuel Ginobili. And San Antonio’s recent draft choice? Tau Ceramica’s Brazilian center Tiago Splitter.

In the meantime… if you go to pinoysoccer.com, there’s a notice that asks any foreigners of Filipino descent if they’re interested in trying out for the various football national teams. And what we’ll have a repeat of Panaad where some of these Fil-foreigners caused some internal strife when they arrived a day before the competitions taking away spots from some players who trained much longer through thick and thin with so-so support and then these prima donnas would bitch about the crap local food. Yes, we made it to the Asean Cup Finals where we got bushwhacked. And where were the others off to afterwards? Hey, I’m going back to my country, just send me a plane ticket and book me a place when there’s another competition worth our time. By the way, let some guy warm my spot during training.

As I said in previous columns, I don’t mind the inclusion of Fil-foreigners. I believe that their number should be regulated and that the homegrown program be given much support and prominence. Now many will argue that the Fil-foreigners bring with them much needed knowledge, superior training, and more athletic physique given their mixed heritage. That’s as short term a solution as one can think of. They’re paid the moon and pampered while the living quarters of many of our national athletes is a bleeping disgrace. When you think about the pork barrel that our “elected” politicos have, even 5% of the amount skimmed off from each of them will greatly help our sports scene (I say we get an additional 5% or more and further improve our country’s educational system will greatly help).

But then again, like the English and the Americans, we didn’t learn by still voting for these people (I didn’t).

Random thoughts: Did you see the Reggie Bush-David Beckham commercial? That was one of the coolest… Watched the replay of the West Ham vs. Tottenham March 4 derby in the EPL while on vacation at Singapore. That is one of the best and most enjoyable football matches you will ever see… FC Barcelona is putting up their own version of Los Galacticos in Camp Nou with Thierry Henry’s transfer. How’s that for a Fab Four of Henry, Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi, and Sam Eto’o… Pick up this book that should make a difference in your life: Bill Carter’s Fools Rush In. It’s about finding oneself and changing the course of the war in Sarajevo and Bosnia. Maybe we can effect real change in our country.