Brazil 2014 marked the worst ever result for England. The Three Lions finished bottom of their group, having lost to Italy & Uruguay & failed to beat the already group topping Costa Rica, in the of death.
Whilst the likes of Sterling, Barkley, Shaw & Lalana may be considered as a glimmer of hope & Roy Hodgson's side were more entertaining than the overpaid Fabio Capello & his excuses after South Africa 2010, England can take little comfort from Brazil 2014.
England finished the group stage last in their group with a solitary point against the already qualified Costa Rica & without a win & only 2 goals in three games. This result surpassed their worst ever group stage performance in 1958 when they finished 3rd with 3 draws & scored 4 goals.
The chronic plight of England at World Cup & in particular their poor results in Brazil 2014 is mainly due to excessive amount of TV & marketing money the EPL is immersed in!
Promotion to, or survival in Premier League is worth around £100m a season to clubs. These unbelievable sums are mainly generated from TV revenues.
EPL player wages are in excess of £2b a year.
The need & almost desperation for revenue makes it absolutely essential that the media hype about EPL as the greatest league in the world is relentless & ongoing. This artificial hype results in two distinct problems:
1) Giving young homegrown talent a chance to learn, develop, adapt & shine is risky & almost out of question in case the strategy backfires & results in relegation & massive loss of TV revenue (reduced to 50% in the first year of relegation & then more & more after that), and
2) The media hype deceives the fans & players alike, who seem to fall for the artificial accolades & forget that it is the foreign imports & not English talent that gives the EPL its so called excitability.
The statistics are astonishing: According to a BBC report:
In Spain's La Liga: 57% of playing time in 2012-13 season was played by Spanish players.
In Germany's Bundesliga in the corresponding season the figure was 51%
In the EPL, the figure for English born players was a mere 33% in that season.
Yes, Spain was also eliminated but after having won Euro 2008, World Cup 2012 & Euro 2012, and with 2 Clubs in the final of 2014 Champions League!
Yes, Germany's last major win was Euro 1996. But German have been in the semi finals of WC 2006, Euro 2008, WC 2010 & Euro 2012 and can boast the all concurring Bayern Munich of 2013.
Both countries have meanwhile developed the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Casillas, Villa, Lahm, Muller, Schweinsteiger, Ozil, Gotze by simply taking a chance on them from a young age!
England on the other hand, are ruined by the lure of the EPL money & remain head in the sand thanks to the EPL self grandiose!
No comments:
Post a Comment