Manchester Or Madrid? A Question Of Culture

The English Premier League touts itself as the greatest in the world. It’s certainly up there. It’s the most watched domestic championship globally and few teams anywhere can better the big four of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.


The Premiership is a major success story, a true money spinner and has attracted some classy individuals. There’s just one problem with it: it’s in England.

I love watching the Premier League. I enjoy the coverage of the games, I think the stadia are terrific (far better than you’ll see in either Italy or Spain) and for me there’s no finer city in the world than London. But I’m an Englishman, not a South American superstar.


A comment from Bayern Munich defender Lucio got me thinking: The Brazil captain has played in the Bundesliga for many years and enjoyed enormous success there, but Germany will never be his true aim.


“I dream of playing in Spain or Italy,” he admitted. “It’s almost impossible to convince Brazilian stars playing in Serie A or La Liga to move to the Bundesliga. It’s not to do with Bayern, but the country. In Italy and Spain, the culture, the habits and the language are much more similar to Brazil. Bayern can’t compare to that.”


Swap ‘Munich’ for ‘Manchester’ and you get my point. In a climate where so many of the game’s greatest players are of Latin origin, English football will find it hard to compete for the top players. For the Portuguese or the South Americans, top Spanish and Italian sides are the pinnacle. Once there, not even whopping great bundles of English cash are likely to force their hands unless, like former Barcelona man Juliano Belletti, they are told it’s time to go.


This doesn’t mean Latin talents won’t ever come to England and succeed (Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the best player in the world at the moment, proves they do and can), but it does mean that Premiership sides must act swiftly to beat their Spanish and Italian cousins to emerging talents. England is a step up for a player at a club in South America, Portugal, France or Eastern Europe. But if he’s a Spanish, Italian or Portuguese speaker, it’s likely he considers the Premier League a poor relation to Serie A or La Liga for cultural rather than footballing reasons. United beats Parma, Liverpool beats Atlético (as we saw with Fernando Torres) but neither beats Real Madrid.


A look at the most successful Latin players in the Premiership illustrates this: Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano reached the north west via West Ham and the Brazilian league; Anderson left Porto; Elano came to City via Shakhtar Donetsk; Xabi Alonso to Liverpool from a smaller Spanish side. Even Cesc Fabregas was tempted by London because he feared for his chances at Camp Nou. Those who do move from Real, Barcelona or Milan to England were usually outcasts or, like Andriy Shevchenko, from an entirely different culture altogether.


Just like we never got to see Diego Maradona, French legend Zinedine Zidane or Brazilian duo Ronaldo and Rivaldo in England, the likelihood is that we have now also missed the boat on Lionel Messi, Kaká and Alexander Pato, who already play at top Spanish or Italian sides. Even Ronaldinho appears to favour Serie A over the Premier League should he leave Barcelona in the summer.


Yet, like Lucio at Bayern, the threat always exists that one day stars such as Tevez, Torres or Cristiano Ronaldo will head south to seek new challenges in a country that tugs more forcefully on their emotional heartstrings. And while it might be frustrating for fans to see these players leave, there’s little we English can do about it short of turning Manchester into a continental metropolis (and who among us would want that anyway?). In terms of bringing Latin talents to our league, English football’s task remains to discover promising individuals before rival clubs in Spain or Italy do.


Of course, the cultural divide has its advantages, too: Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs or Steven Gerrard are unlikely to ever trade their respective red shirts for the white of Madrid or the black and blue of Inter. And northern European stars like Petr Cech, Michael Ballack and Alexander Hleb could probably remain happily in England for the rest of their careers.


But for as long as southern Europe and South America continue to produce many of the best players, the world’s top stars will continue to consider the Premier League second best, even if the football is first class.

Source Goal.com