Why the focus on English contracts ?

[jai john]

We still colonial yes !! all we could think about for our potential football stars is ah contract in England or scotland. Play a good game against England and yuh could get something with ah british club !
Where all de agents who does find people for ajax, Porto ( Where Latas and young Josimar Belgrave were ) Andelecht, Barcelona, Villareal, Monaco, America, Medillin, Santos  etc Former FIFA President Joao havelange rated up the young Clint marcelle ..then nothing ! he went England after portugal and dat was dat !
the point that I am making here is that a lot of other countries may offer better training options before the step into the big leagues or may have good youth programmes which can allow for further development of our young stars, we are falling behind if we fail to realise that more and nmore clubs are buying stars before they pitch !! Look at messi ...barcelona bought him at 13 and kept him in the juniors for 4 years !! there are many other examples ...in fact our own kenwyn jones is another although he has to make the team right away rather than be allowed to develop.
anyone wonders why so many our players are now representing their clubs on the bench  ?? ...force ripe mentality gets us nowhere ...we dont want just to get there we want to demand a place there !

[Trini _2026]

messi  moved with his family from Argentina to Spain to live .while  living in Spain he  tried out for Barcelona  and they signed him the did not buy him from an club i think.  I do agree with yourpoint we should look at other leagues in Europe but remember there is  also  language barrier  may be thats why england is probably  the preferred league for our players   plus they get more money

[real madness]

I don't think it has anything to do with a colonial attitude.  I believe the language barrier might be intimidating to our players.  Besides Latapy, Leonson Lewis and Clint Marcelle having success in Portugal, very few of our players are successful in non English speaking countries.  As a result our players may be more inclined to play in English speaking countries such as England, Scotland, USA, etc.

[dcs]

I don't think we have the football network to explore other leagues.

Alot of youths head to the US for College too....can't blame them.  Do the youth academies of these big clubs cover education anything close to an undergrad degree?  If they did it would be a good option for our best youth players.

[AB.Trini]

ent ah say so already?


http://www.socawarriorssc.com/swonline/smf/index.php?topic=2039.msg13630#msg13630


http://www.socawarriorssc.com/swonline/smf/index.php?topic=178.msg727#msg727


http://www.socawarriorssc.com/swonline/smf/index.php?topic=2545.msg17824#msg17824

[Peong]

Alot of youths head to the US for College too....can't blame them.  Do the youth academies of these big clubs cover education anything close to an undergrad degree?  If they did it would be a good option for our best youth players.

Football and education don't mix.

How many players in the big leagues have degrees?

[TrinInfinite]

i prefer spain, italy and germany in all honesty, i see more action there than the epl alot of the time

[jai john]

messi  moved with his family from Argentina to Spain to live .while  living in Spain he  tried out for Barcelona  and they signed him the did not buy him from an club i think.  I do agree with yourpoint we should look at other leagues in Europe but remember there is  also  language barrier  may be thats why england is probably  the preferred league for our players   plus they get more money

just for the records friend.... Messi suffered with a growth disorder as a young boy and neither his club in argentina nor his parents could afford the treatments needed for him to grow. barcelona took a look at him and decided to take a chance and agreed to provide the treatment necessary ...the rest is history. qutie a few clubs buy young players and farm them out to the lesser leages wher they can get regular football and are not under pressure to produce the goods right away. in fact certain clubs are known as training grounds for Real madrid, chelsea, Arsenal etc.
Our approach is to send our unproven talent in an environment where yoiu are expected to perform right away. look at what happened to Forlan ...he wasn´t given much of a chance in manchester united but became the leading scorer in Spain with Villareal where he played regular football.
stern john will tell you if he goes just a few games withoutb delivering goals he is on the bench and that´s that !
Many promising young players are now looking at this situation and are opting for development and time to adapt to the many changes that European offers. we see Ronaldinho now but how many saw him developing with Paris St germain in France before his big move to barcelona ??
Look at Eto ..Real bought him and loaned him to mallorca where he could acclamatise with regular spanish football. AC Milan bought Colochini and loaned him out to Villreal for the same reason... wake up people we are not seeing the big picture .
Getting a contract is not the end product ...jusrt look at Dwarika, Nixon, Rahim. jack, sancho etc....
languuage  problems ??
What is the native tongue of Nigeria You could name any big league that Nigerians not playing In ??

[Trini _2026]

Lionel Andrés Messi (born June 24, 1987 in Rosario) is an Argentine football (soccer) player.

Lionel Messi started playing football at a very early age for his hometown club, Newell's Old Boys. From the age of 11, he suffered from a hormone deficiency and as his parents were unable to pay for treatment in Argentina, they decided to move to Barcelona, Spain. Shortly after arriving, Lionel tried his luck with a trial at FC Barcelona, despite being only 13 years of age. He excelled at the trial and rapidly found himself starting for the Barcelona B team, averaging more than a goal per game.

In October 2004 Messi made his official debut for the first team against Espanyol, becoming the third-youngest player to ever play for FC Barcelona. He scored his first senior goal for the club against Albacete on May 1, 2005. He was offered the chance to play for the Spanish national football team, but declined, prefering to wait for the opportunity to play for the country of his birth. In June 2004 he got his chance, playing in an under-20 friendly match against Paraguay.

[jai john]

Where are our footballers expected to develop ?? In the Pro league at home where they are better than the opposition already ?
In de US college league then on to The premiership ??
We should creep before we walk. yes there is money in the english league and they can understand us when we speak ....I think ... but the league is very unforgiving and our players are going backwards ......start off at a big team and fall back to a lower league because we were not ready !!!
There are leagues which can make the transition to the big money leagues much easier and more long lasting shouldn´t we focus on them  .
Let me get back to the language issue by saying david beckham spoke not a single word of spanish when he went to madrid but he was ready.
no sir language is not a problem in the world today. If you have ability clubs buy you and make you bi and tri lingual ..they make you thnaturally good !!!!
Couldn´t resist that... sorry dwight !

[Mose]

I have to disagree with you on de language issue. Language is a problem and a concern. Just the recently Harry Redknapp was talking about having exactly that problem in a match where he wanted to send on a sub but the guy couldn't understand the directions he was giving him and he and to change and send on someone else instead.

Yes, Beckham was ready but Beckham was already a star, had played in the World Cup and was considered one of the best players in the world, one of Real Madrid's Galacticos. Not very many other Englishmen ply their trade in the Spanish/Dutch/French/Italian/Portuguese leagues.

Yes Nigerians play everywhere, but Nigeria has a population of 130 million, that's about 100 times that of T&T. On top of that there are large African immigrant populations in places like Italy, France and England, hence there is more community support available for these players to help them make the transition. There was a post recently from a former player at Falkirk ( I believe) saying that they messed up when they first brought in Jason Scotland. They put him in a house and leave him to himself. What happen, he eh know nobody, have nothing to do, start to eat bad, get fat and lose form.

Now I'm not saying that we should stick to only going to English speaking countries, I'm just acknowledging that it is only natural that being English speaking that's where we will try to go to ply our respective trades, whether it be football or something else.

That being said I agree that we should look into building connections with other leagues whose style might mesh better with that of our players. I believe the direct style of English football tends to take away some of the "natural flair" that our players tend to play with.

However, I also think that more has to be done at home in terms of our player development. How many players it have could beat a man 6 ways till Sunday but cyah bring in a decent cross with any kind of regularity? How many only have one foot? We are lacking in the technical development of our players at home and tend to rely on the natural ability of select individuals. If you have a large talent pool from which to choose (like Nigeria's 130 mil) you can probably get by on the international stage. We have less than 1.3 mil to choose from so we have to try harder and it will always be a struggle and it is not going to happen overnight so we have to be prepared to be struggling for a long time. If we keep at it though we will achieve some success.