soccer discussion: international versus club

[mosta]

I've been a lifelong follower of the game with very limited exposure--Brazilian father, but lived in US. basically all I saw was world cup on tv, until the nineties or so when I started to catch the occasional premiership game on tv (and a little ronaldo with psv einhoven at one point (wow)). the really revelatory match I saw was chelsea v. arsenal probably in 2000 or thereabouts. after that I thought I've been watching the wrong games all these years--better ball movement and a lot more attacking in those EPL games, I thought. so I asked the question, what really are the better teams, national teams or top league teams? one american friend also with limited exposure said he thought basically any top 20 national team would be strongly favored over most any league team. is that right? (I guess this has probably changed a lot recently as leagues allow a lot more foreign players, right?) how would good and superb national teams rank versus good and superb league teams, hypothetically in god's eyes. not meaning to debate particulars but just to throw some names out, how do you think god would rank brazil, germany, denmark, poland (all 2002), chelsea, liverpool, bolton, and real madrid (suppose los galacticos in their best days). It does seem to me that as you drop into the middle of the table of the epl, it's not nearly so impressive. and also I suppose the int'l game is intentionally a different style of play--a lot more defensive. but playing together week in and week out must count for a lot.

tomorrow, seeinng my first major live match, kaiserslautern v. triere.

[mjm]

It's a hypothetical question but i would strongly disagree with your friend. The top 5-6 international teams could compete with the top club teams...after that i would strongly back the club teams against international teams. If you made a hypothetical world-wide league including club and international teams. I would expect the top division of 20 to contain at least 13/14 club teams and the later divisions to continue with that kind of ratio. There are only a few international teams who would be able to compete in the major european leagues ie. spanish,italian and english.

[jdl22]

The clubs are much stronger than the national teams, especially the top clubs. Think about it this way, national teams have the strongest players from a given country. Club teams have the strongest players in the world. Looking at Chelsea right now for example it's clear that they would crush the English national team for example. This is even more the case in countries where the difference between the haves and the have nots is big. The best Spanish players tend to eventually play for Real Madrid or Barça with few exceptions. Real Madrid and Barça also tend to have top players from other national teams as well.

[mjm]

While I agree with your arguement in principle, I would actually disagree with your specific example that 'Chelsea would crush England'. If we ignore the mutual players that play for both, I believe that Ferdinand, Gerrard, Beckham and Rooney would definetly make it into Chelsea's starting XI, and think there is a reasonable arguement for Owen and Ashley Cole as well.

Of the Chelsea players who would make the England team I can only think of Cech and Robben/Duff (whoever you'd prefer on the left) who would definetly get in...with a few others where it may be a close call.

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]
While I agree with your arguement in principle, I would actually disagree with your specific example that 'Chelsea would crush England'. If we ignore the mutual players that play for both, I believe that Ferdinand, Gerrard, Beckham and Rooney would definetly make it into Chelsea's starting XI, and think there is a reasonable arguement for Owen and Ashley Cole as well.

Of the Chelsea players who would make the England team I can only think of Cech and Robben/Duff (whoever you'd prefer on the left) who would definetly get in...with a few others where it may be a close call.

[/ QUOTE ]

there are some better formulations of my question in these replies: how many national teams would make a true top 20 (allowing players to be cloned as necessary), or where would some national team place in the EPL. I still go back and forth. It seems to be the argument above that the England national team may be a favorite to win the EPL. One might say that the countries with the strongest leagues quite naturally would have a national team superior to the club teams for the most part. When you break the club teams down and say that most of the players aren't actually worthy of the major natoinal teams, it speaks even more for the national teams. But would a Denmark or a Nigeria (think 1998) be a favorite in EPL--I go back and forth. also, this has changed a lot in 10 years hasn't it? I remember when romario, Stoichkov, and Hagi played together in Spain one of them had to be benched. was it the same in all club leagues? that must have made national teams usually superior? I guess I would suppose that the top 2 or maybe 3 teams in the top 3 or 4 leagues would probably contend for the world cup, but if you threw a denmark or nigera [or sweden or norway...] in those leagues while it might not win, it would contend. whereas the less than supreme club teams would not be competitive in a world cup.

[mosta]

ps Jancker on Kaiserslautern is a stud and Seitz can play!