The prospect of a new life in Europe can be daunting, especially when you were raised in a nation where speaking a foreign language can be considered as unnecessarily flamboyant as wearing a golden crown on the bus. But there, of course, the language is the same and the only cultural difference is in the size of the puddings. The only foreign league that the English have been brave enough to frequent in any quantity is MLS, where the likes of Jermain Defoe, Nigel Reo-Coker and Bradley Wright-Phillips are currently flourishing. Even Italy have three players with PSG now. A whopping 15 of France's 23 man squad live beyond their borders. Spain have 13 of 30 who work away from home. Germany, whose entirely home-based squad of 2010 contained 12 players aged 24 or under, now have seven players in their provisional squad signed to foreign clubs. Nevertheless, it's hard to argue that a squad wouldn't be complemented by players with a wider knowledge of tactics and techniques.įew other nations share England's clinginess. Italy, after all, won the 2006 World Cup with an entirely home-based squad, though it was also an entirely home-based squad that crashed out in the group stages four years later. ![]() It must be said that there is no direct correlation between international success and a diaspora of players. In 2006, Beckham was at Real Madrid and Owen Hargreaves didn't really count as he had never played in England anyway. And yet so few English players have discovered the far simpler solution: If the foreigners are coming over here and taking our jobs, why not go over there and take theirs?Įngland's 2014 World Cup squad has just one 'foreign' based player, reserve goalkeeper Fraser Forster plucked from the exotic heartlands of Glasgow. Football Association chairman Greg Dyke believes the situation to be so serious that he has proposed flooding the lower leagues with competitive B teams just to provide young English players with some first team football. The reticence of English players to opt for a life abroad is all the more baffling when you consider the situation at home where a rapid, unhindered influx of foreign players to the Premier League has left them a minority in their own teams. Pennant put the money to good use, buying a Porsche with the registration plate "P33NNT" and then, according to Spanish paper Marca at least, forgetting that he owned it and leaving it parked outside a train station for six months. The famous 'Beckham Law', a tax break designed to lure the cream of foreign executives to Spain, enabled Pennant to effectively earn 80,000 pounds a week, a wage far in advance of what anyone with any sense might have paid him in England. The last high-profile English player to give La Liga a crack was the wayward ex-Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant. And yet despite these rewards, the only Englishman to play in Serie A since was David Beckham with his two loan spells at AC Milan. In his brief stay in Italy, Bothroyd enjoyed new experiences, scored five times and became such close friends with his teammate, Al-Saadi Gadaffi, that the then-Libyan dictator's son paid for his honeymoon in LA and Hawaii. Ince will be the first English player to make a full transfer to Serie A in eleven years, the last being Jay Bothroyd at Perugia. If Ince completes his move, he will become the latest member of a very small, select group, a league of extraordinary English footballers who actually had the courage to try their luck overseas. That, you have to say, is a bit of a result. Instead, Ince finds himself in Milan, negotiating terms with Italian giants Internazionale. Cardiff City, whose interest nearly led to a move last summer, was another. Crystal Palace, where he spent five months on loan this year, was certainly an option. Having excelled at second-tier Blackpool for two and a half years, 22-year-old Thomas Ince might have expected a certain gradient of career progression. Why aren't there more Englishmen playing abroad? You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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