Get João Moutinho and Quaresma Outta Here, For Big Phil’s Sake!
By: Greg | July 20th, 2007
I was sitting here at my desk, avoiding work as usual and thinking to myself “Is there any possible benefit to having all of these good Portuguese players be sold out of the Portuguese League and to places such as England and Spain?” I remained quizzical for a while (mostly so others would think I was pondering some deep work related problem) until I read an article about David Beckham and the Galaxy’s exhibition game against Chelsea tomorrow. This triggered a quote I heard a while ago from some pundit (I don’t remember who) where he basically remarked that “In order for the United States National Team to make strides forward, players will have to play in leagues that are better than the MLS.”
Bingo! Since a number of young stars are leaving Portugal (Portuguese or not) and are not being replaced even remotely in-kind, the level of play will inherently take a hit overall. Therefore, selling off the likes of Nani and Simão (who reportedly has a 19 million Euro deal inked with Atletico Madrid) should only help to increase their overall skill.
Cristiano Ronaldo did not arrive at Manchester United and take the world by storm in his first few games. He developed his talent while cutting his teeth against some of the best players in the world. He was capable of familiarizing himself with players he’d be seeing on an international level and took his game up a few pegs as a result of this higher competition.
Therefore, while it’s unfortunate that the league is losing so many excellent players, the long term benefit should ultimately be that those players will improve their overall game and be able to help their national teams on an exponentially greater level. In some cases, their play abroad may cause a coach like Dunga or Big Phil to consider them as a regular starter if they aren’t one already.
Category: Super Liga
Comments
-
Joao Moutinho, who likes like a shoe in at Valencia in the future, but who i see as more of a Inter/Juve player, would definately improve if he left. Simao is playing at his highest level, and he wont develop much more.
-
Greg, I tend to disagree with you on several issues. In theory I agree that playing against better opposition should help to elevate one’s performance, but this is not always the case, there are many examples of players being brought in to improve clubs and those players fall flat on their faces (regardless of the league) Was Quresma not talented enough to make it at Barcelona, or was he not mature enough to make the move when he did? I suggest it was maturity. Keeping with Quaresma, to suggest one must go to another league in order to improve would imply that by staying in one’s own league thay you would stagnate and never improve, I would say this is entirely true, Quaresma has improved to the point of challenging Simao for the left wing spot on the national team. If players never improved their game in our league then why would any other league want to pay millions of Euros for them?
As for Cristiano Ronaldo, what he learned was a different way to play, a different strategy, he received good coaching at both the club and national levels. To me that is the main difference. Is there sufficient good coaching in Portugal which allows players to take the next level. i believe in general we still need some better coaching and the willingness to give our talented youngsters the chance to play regularly ( the way Sporting does it and how the Dutch league does it).
Are the other leagues markedly bether than Portugal? All the major leagues have 3 or 4 excellent teams, then a couple of others which will challenge, the rest are mediocre or shit. The big difference between the leagues is how the game is played (the strategy?tactics). How much of a difference is there really between top team in different leagues. Porto should probably have beaten Chelsea if not for a Helton slip up. benfica knocked out Manu 2 years ago, then Manu knocks them out last year, Sporting splits games with Inter. Not to bad. We have seen an improvement in our league’s status based on the Uefa coefficient, and have therefore gone from 2 champions league spots to three. Better coaching will make better players in my opinion.
Home 
