why don't good irish players play in la liga/serie a/bundesliga?

markopantelic

anyone hate the way all the (apparently) best Irish players play in England and very rarely do you even hear of irish players being linked with other teams across Europe.

Liam Kearney when he was with Cork City was linked with a few teams in the Eredivisie, Roy O'Donovan was being scouted by Auxerre and I'm sure Kevin Doyle had some suitors as well. Hertha Berlin supposedly had Keith Fahey in their sights but he ended up going to England.

A few like Zayed and Ciaran Martyn have played briefly in Norway.

The only one(unbelievable one player) currently i can think of is Dominic Foley who is in Belgium, who i despise but he had a pretty good scoring rate last season.

Then we have a few players of Irish ancestry like Barry Maguire(Uterecht) and Selcuk Tidim(St.Pauli) in Netherlands and Germany respectively.

Maby its to do with connections? Football is all about who you know and English clubs are far more in tune with the youth football in Ireland than Spain would be perhaps? Also many English clubs have people who are Irish or of Irish descent involved with clubs.

Even a country like Norway which has the same fascination with English football as we have here has more club diversity among its players than we have. I wonder are we the only national team in the world where all of our players play outside the country but at the same time all in the same league!!!*

*League referring to the English League system*

O'TOOLE79

The answer to your question is cultural dependance. Ever notice the way English people can't wait to leave the country yet Irish people seem to think that the UK is some sort of refuge? I recently heard Irish people are flocking to London to find work. Why?

beya2009

Yeah very good question! I know Liam Brady played abroad obviously and Ian Harte played for some Spanish side..but yea its a very limited number.

mcowhey

the simple answer to this is that we dont have the flair to play in those countries.

also our names dont sound as fun

e.g.

Messi
Xavi
Del Piero
Pirlo
Schweinsteiger
McShane
Raúl
Puyol
Ramos

see what i mean

A Primal Nut

Well, firstly teams tend to scout regions nearby or with similiar cultures, or places with a history of providing good players. Hence why English clubs and Celtic would scout here. Barcelona/Bayern have enough areas to scout. Ok, there is a good chance they will notice someone playing in an u-17 tournament or something but...

If you are a 16-year old Irish kid leaving home to go to play abroad for the first time by joining a top academy of course you are going to want to go somewhere where you speak the same language. So its logical most Irish players play in England. Just as most South Americans go to Spain (most Brazilians have Spanish as a second language).

As for later in their careers, generally only the top players are sought out by clubs abroad. So really you've got John O'Shea, Shay Given, Robbie Keane, Richard Dunne, Stephen Ireland, Aiden McGeady and Damien Duff. The rest of the players there are enough Spanish/Italian/German equivalents.

Its really just circumstance that only one of these players has played outside of Britain. Robbie Keane arrived at Inter when they had way too many strikers and would probably be the most likely to make it abroad. Damien Duff could have joined a foreign club but at his peak he got an offer from Chelsea. Shay Given never really had the ambition to leave Newcastle until recently and definitely could have played abroad if he wanted too...but if it took him so long to leave Newcastle for another English club because he didn't want to uproot his family then he sure as well isn't going to bring them to Spain or Italy!! John O'Shea arrived at Man United as a youngster and why would he leave? Aiden McGeady is still at his youth academy club. Richard Dunne has been great for City but probably wouldn't have the same success abroad. That leaves Stephen Ireland, who is still young but is a prime candidate to play abroad.



David Connolly scored a rediculous amount of goals for Excelsior. He was Ireland's best out-and-out goalscorer of his generation (looking at his goalscoring records at Excelsior/Wimbledon, etc.) but never really got his chance at International level as he wasn't playing in the Premiership.

John Aldridge was the first non-Basque player to play for Real Socieded. And of course Liam Brady was the most successful Irish player at a non-English club.

But it has been extremely rare for top Irish players to play outside England, both because of individual circumstance and basically because for all intents and purposes they aren't really foreigners in the English league in the typical sense...really they haven't left for the same reason as English players haven't left. I can't explain it but there is a clear difference between a Portuguese and an Irish player playing in the English league. Irish players probably don't consider themselves foreigners in the same sense.

MrStuffins

Steve Finnan plays for Espanol, you guys forgot him!

Anyway, it's not just an irish thing, it's an English (British) thing too.

There aren't many English players right now playing in other countries.

When you look at the English National Squad, there's only 1 player playing abroad, and that's Beckham.

In fact, if you count ALL of the players who have been called up within the last year, he's still the only one.

Compare that to the current squads of:

Italy: 5 (Rossi, Toni, Dossena, Grosso, De Sanctis)

Spain: 7 (Guiza, Torres, Cesc, Riera, Alonso, Arbeloa, Reina)

Germany: 5 (Ballack, Metzelder, Odonker, Huth, Hinkel)...............

and so on.

Irish and English players just arent good enough if you ask me. The best English players get paid well in England and average ones get transfered from team to team for huge fees (David Bentley anyone?) whereas a Spanish team would just bring in a player of a different nationality for 10% of the fee with 1000% the ability!

O'TOOLE79

But the whole Irish team does play abroad :rolleyes:

ecoli

One reason i would see for not playing in the likes of La liga is the fact the football played is not suitable with what they are brought up with. Players in the spanish league are given more time on the ball allowing for creative flair. we are more suited to the physical game lke that of the English. Language barrier is also big thing not having to learn a new language and still play in the most exciting leagues in the world. i feel it should happen however if the game is to improve in this country we must adapt from the Jack Charlton days

Tchaikovsky

I'd love to see more Irish players playing in mainland Europe, perhaps with Trap they'll be given a bit of guidance in that respect.
I mean, Kevin Doyle's a smashing player, yet Fulham and Wolves are linked with him; tell me there wouldn't be a La Liga team that wouldn't want someone like him in their team?
Duff has said that if he were to leave Newcastle, he'd go to Spain or Italy, so here's hoping. Oh, and McGeady has been linked with Bayern Munich.

Tchaikovsky

ecoli wrote: »

Language barrier is also big thing not having to learn a new language and still play in the most exciting leagues in the world. i feel it should happen however if the game is to improve in this country we must adapt from the Jack Charlton days

In saying that, John Aldridge and Kevin Moran played in Spain during the Charlton era.

JimmyFloyd

O'TOOLE79 wrote: »

But the whole Irish team does play abroad :rolleyes:

Where does it say Irish players don't play abroad?

O'TOOLE79

ecoli wrote: »

One reason i would see for not playing in the likes of La liga is the fact the football played is not suitable with what they are brought up with. Players in the spanish league are given more time on the ball allowing for creative flair. we are more suited to the physical game lke that of the English. Language barrier is also big thing not having to learn a new language and still play in the most exciting leagues in the world. i feel it should happen however if the game is to improve in this country we must adapt from the Jack Charlton days

Its an interesting point BUT I think this a bit of a myth. I played for high enough level youth teams playing against /Spanish/German/ English/French/Italian/Belgian teams and our players were every bit as good as the players we were playing against, but in general then I do sort of agree with you, the managers who take youth football far too seriously are the sort who advocate 'dont do anything fancy' or just 'kick it out' or use the big man, youth football in ireland is nothing to do with development, for football in ireland to thrive it must get over the 'off to england' mentality that is so prevailent. thank god for the EU ruling that under-18's can't move different country alone, if a club wants players badly enough then they can bring the whole family over, but lower level english clubs won't do this as its simply not feasible so hopefully this will slowly bring to an end the mass of irish players going over to play for english third division clubs.

O'TOOLE79

OP

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2009/0630/dalyi.html

Michael Collins plays in Serie B, and a guy called Shane Murray plays in the Croatian second division. Roddy Collins is taking over Florina in Malta and a LOI player will probably join him there.

JimmyFloyd

markopantelic wrote: »

why don't good irish players play in la liga/serie a/bundesliga?

O'TOOLE79 wrote: »

Michael Collins plays in Serie B, and a guy called Shane Murray plays in the Croatian second division. Roddy Collins is taking over Florina in Malta and a LOI player will probably join him there.

Serie B, Croatian second division and and Irish manager managing in Malta are hardly what the OP had in mind i'm guessing :rolleyes:

O'TOOLE79

Well I think that is what he's thinking. Its a positive seeing top Irish players play in a great league like the English League but it would be better if our middle of the road players opted for the Dutch League over the English 1st division.

Really it would be best if our middle of the road players played at home, and then the better players branched out all around European elite leagues.

K-Ren

How many top class Dutch players play in the Eredivisie? Very few, most of them have gone to other countries. I think that most Irish players have grown up watching the Premiership, and so have their respective coaches, therefore they identify with that style of play. Most up-and-coming Irish players don't want to leave for another country, experience to a new culuture and struggle learn a new language. For getting into the Irish national team, you need to be playing at the highest level you can- that means, if you can play in the Premier League, you've got a great chance.

Also, men like Liam Brady had quite accomplished spells at clubs such as Arsenal- most modern Irish players, with the exception of Stephen Ireland and Robbie Keane (who went to Inter Milan, and has hopped from club to club alot), are pretty insignificant at their clubs, to be honest.

Epicurus

O'TOOLE79 wrote: »

OP

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2009/0630/dalyi.html

Michael Collins plays in Serie B, and a guy called Shane Murray plays in the Croatian second division. Roddy Collins is taking over Florina in Malta and a LOI player will probably join him there.

If you're going to focus on that level, you might as well mention guys who have got international caps like Joe Lapira in Norways second division. I think as well its Stephen Murray you're thinking of.

Tchaikovsky wrote: »

In saying that, John Aldridge and Kevin Moran played in Spain during the Charlton era.

Quite a few other than these guys have dabbled, some with more success than others. Cascarino, McCarthy, John Byrne and Frank Stapleton all had spells in France. Stapleton played in Holland as well. I guess the more recent playes havent enjoyed as much success, the exception being Phil Babb at Sporting.

I just think its a pity that some players drop down the english or scottish divisions rather than play abroad. Im sure some of the one time hopefuls like McPhail, Barrett and Partridge could have done a decent job in La Liga/Serie A.