England has an inflated sense of the value and prestige of the Premier League, but the Ballon d’Or gala brought the truth crashing home. There is a big gap between the reputation of the Premier League and the reality – and the reality is that we are far, far away from what you see in Spain.
The Premier League player who received the most votes in Monday’s poll was Angel Di Maria, who polled 1.29%, because of what he did for Real Madrid in winning the Champions League. Next on the list was Diego Costa, with 1.02%, because of what he did for Atletico Madrid in winning La Liga. The player who received the most votes for what he actually achieved in English football was Yaya Toure, and he got just 0.86%.
It doesn’t paint a pretty picture for this country. It is clear, and has been for some time, that the Premier League is not the best league in the world. It has the most money – players can come in and get paid more than they can anywhere else in the world – but the very best players still want to play elsewhere.
The very best players look at the standard of football and the technique in England and they think, ‘hold on, these teams don’t play in a manner which suits me’. They fear they will come across and struggle. Aspects of our game like the hectic Christmas schedule put them off. The Premier League is unsuitable in all number of ways for elite players.
Spain is still the home of the superstar and always has been. Since 1996, only two players have won the Ballon d’Or who have not played for Real Madrid or Barcelona at some point in their careers: Andriy Shevchenko in 2004 and Pavel Nedved in 2003. The assembled cast includes Messi, Ronaldo, Kaka, the other Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Rivaldo and Zinedine Zidane.
People make the argument that it is easier to shine in La Liga, that you can score more goals against weaker opposition, but Costa is disproving that theory by scoring more regularly for Chelsea than he did Atletico Madrid. You can’t just say Spanish defenders are rubbish. And look at someone like Cesc Fabregas, who returns from Spain a better player than when he left.
Everyone knows deep down that the Premier League is not the best in the world, but some are afraid to say it out loud because it has to be packaged in a certain way for the sponsors. It is certainly the easiest league to sell as the excitement levels are the best out there, but genuinely good games, in terms of technique, are few and far between.
That’s what happens when you get managers like Sam Allardyce dropping his best players for a game against Chelsea in order to rest them for Arsenal. Whatever happened to trying to win every game? And they lost both matches.
It is a curious contradiction: England has the richest league in the world but it can’t attract the best players. The world-class stars who do come here, like Alexis Sanchez and Angel Di Maria, only do so when they are no longer required by clubs like Real Madrid or Barcelona. English clubs don’t sign players like Neymar or James Rodriguez, whose stars are in the ascendant.
It has always been the case. Since George Best won the Ballon d’Or in 1968, only two players from English clubs have triumphed: Michael Owen in 2001 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008. And Owen didn’t win it as a footballer, he won it as a goalscorer alone. You look back on that and think, ‘how did Michael Owen win that?’
This year, Wayne Rooney didn’t get a vote because he didn't even make the shortlist. But who in the England team deserved a place? We are really struggling. In 2005, when Ronaldinho won, Frank Lampard came second in the vote and Steven Gerrard was third, with John Terry joint 10th alongside Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o. Where are our world class stars now?
It’s perhaps a cliché but young players coming through the English system just don’t have the desire any more. They don’t have to clean boots and wonder about their next pay cheque; they’ve all got boot deals and long-term, lucrative contracts. All they are concerned about now is living the life of someone from TOWIE. They are going in the same nightclubs as these fictional people, these nobodies. Where is their drive, where is their purpose? They lose it when they earn too much money.
The vast money sloshing around the Premier League isn’t enough to attract the genuine superstars of the game, yet at the same time it crushes aspiration and application in the young players we are producing.
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