Barcelona and Real Madrid are widely recognised as the pinnacle of football. Despite this, the Premier League has grown to such incredible heights financially that it is now the envy of the rest of the world. This begs the questions; Why do we not embrace our football royalties with more arrogance? Furthermore, why are we so desperate to help foreign teams stay at the top of football? Finally, why do we over sympathise with players who want to leave?
Let us take World Cup winner Paul Pogba (26) and England International Jessie Lingard (27) as examples. Both play for the same team and are the same age. The narrative that the English media has of Paul Pogba is that he is flamboyant and flashy player who should always be doing better than he is, and because he does not match the insanely high expectations of pundits, he is “troublesome”, “lazy” and has a “bad attitude”. Lingard on the other hand is considered the young and inexperienced best friend of Marcus Rashford (22) who always works for the team. Pogba was voted in the PFA team of the year while Lingard has struggled to hold down a place in the United team. So why do they boast such contrasting opinions from the media?
Perhaps this is the reason we are so open to selling our foreign superstars to the El Clasico teams, because it gives our own English players more opportunities to start regular games at the highest level. This makes us turn a blind eye to their lack of consistent good performances. The reality is though, that sometimes we have to accept that if our players are good enough, then they will always be given a chance. Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling are perfect examples of English players taking their chance and becoming the most important players at their clubs. The cream always rises to the top, so instead of being so willing to let top foreign stars leave to accommodate English players, we should let English players deserving of a chance prove that they deserve starting places over foreign stars. Compare this to Spanish media outlets such as Marca, and we see the difference in support. Marca continually pushes rumours and speculation about the best foreign talent going to Barcelona or Real Madrid, because they appreciate the value of these players.
The English media also has a tendency to over sympathise with foreign stars who are linked with moves abroad. For example, the narrative that was being pushed in Philippe Coutinho’s final days at Liverpool was that had outgrown the Merseyside club and it was time for him to realise his dream of playing for Barcelona. A player realising his dream is all good and well, but Liverpool were being criticised for not accepting what the British media saw as a good enough offer from Barcelona. This impatience was another subtle sign of the English media trying to force out another one of the league’s best foreign players. The English FA also made no attempt to protect Liverpool’s prized asset from being sold by the media both in Spain and England. Compare this to La Liga who attempted to block Neymar Jr’s move to Paris Saint Germain by reporting PSG to UEFA, and it is a stark difference to how we act to protect our best players from leaving. When discussing the Coutinho Saga on Sky Sports, pundit and former Liverpool player Craig Bellamy said “from a human point of view he would not stand in the way of someone trying to better their career”. This is a fair take on the situation, but why do we not use that same sympathy with the fans who have invested their money, time and support into watching Coutinho develop only to watch him leave as soon as he reached the top of his game. A matter of months after Coutinho got his dream move to Barcelona, the Spanish giants were embarrassed by AS Roma in the Champions League while Liverpool got to the Champions League final. After having pundits advocate for Liverpool not to stand in the way of Coutinho’s move to Barcelona, Sky Sports then titled one of their videos “Are Liverpool making a big mistake by not replacing Coutinho”. These types of headlines do not consider how hard it is to complete deals in the winter, and how much less planning any deal would involve, which would most likely result in a flopped signing that could disrupt the dressing room.
So, what are we getting at with these almost provocative headlines? By forcing players out, we are strengthening the negotiations of foreign clubs that value our talent more than we do. This shown by Real Madrid’s eagerness to use the Premier League to rebuild their dynasty rather than looking closer to home for reinforcements La Liga.
PastorFred.com 