The things keeping the SE from joining the elite

[Scipio Africanus]

Which of our players could be bothered to work on their craft to develop technique like this?

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[oscar52]

Let's put a bit of statistical objectivity into this debate.
These are the 32 participants at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, listed in order of their current FIFA world rankings. The figures beside them show the number of players from their domestic leagues present in their 23-man World Cup squads.

Unfortunately, other 'powers' like Italy, Holland and regional African powers like Algeria, South Africa and uhm.... Ghana did not make the 2018 World Cup and so analyzing their squads would take much more time.
Regardless of current FIFA rankings, I have put the world's 'traditional' and current superpowers as well as the African regional powers in bold red.

Not that there is any doubt that a strong domestic league is desirable, but how much, from the evidence below, does it contribute to national team success?
Is it overrated?
What do we make of these figures?
Is this player export/dual national 'recruitment' not a global trend in the modern game which is here to stay and something we simply have to live with?

Just asking...

BEL 1/23
FRA 9/23
BRA 3/23
ENG 23/23
CRO 2/23
URU 2/23
POR 6/23
SWITZ 1/23
SPAIN 17/23
DEN 3/23
ARG 4/23
COL 3/23
GER 15/23
SWE 0/23
MEX 9/23
POL 4/23
PERU 5/23
IRAN 9/23
SEN 0/23
JAP 8/23
TUN 6/23
SERB 3/23
SK 12/23
COSTA 7/23
ICE 1/23
AUSTRAL 3/23
NGR 1/23
MOR 2/23
RUS 21/23
EGY 7/23
SAUDI 21/23
PAN 3/23

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA ... Cup_squads

Damunk,

Thank you for putting this up! I have always suspected that the focus on developing the local league and linking that to high performance at that global level was a correlation impacted by more variables than is often examined. By putting the data up, it exposes a lot of holes in that single variable argument that having a strong local league is the solution. That argument is more likely simplistic and with little context. Clearly, only England, Spain, Germany, Russia, South Korea (just a tad lower) and Saudi Arabia had atlas 50% of players drawn from their local leagues. That list is a mixed bag, isn't it? How did they perform at the WC2018? We all know the answer. Beyond England, the rest bombed at the event.

Now, if you argue that it isn't about whether they draw from that local league but about whether their local league is strong then we can add France but the outcome changes very little. What then explains the performance by Belgium and Croatia with leagues that are not considered very good?

I am surprised that not all of the much vaunted BIG 5 did not have atleast 50% of their NT drawn from their leagues. Ofcourse, you did not have Italy listed but France won without even reaching that threshold. Nevertheless, I suspect that Italy has over 50% and with 4 of 5 of the NTs from BIG 5 it shows what anyone should ordinarily expect i.e that use of local grown talent is more likely based on the finances available in those leagues. Importantly, as you concluded -- this is about global football finances and talent migration that is more likely to grown than it is going to lessen in the future. It is reality. Good teams will achieve whether the local league is good or not, that is the bottomline. Harkening to the past is just a simplistic and inadequate analysis.

I think this is a dangerous and highly misleading conclusion!

Take Belgium. The conclusion would suggest that Belgium is achieving good international performances without a good league. That is erroneous; highly erroneous. The Belgian league is not on the same level as La Liga or the EPL. It is a 2nd tier European league.

But it is a good league nonetheless, just not as good as the Big 5. Crucially, it is producing high level talent, who are then moving to top teams/leagues to further develop their talent. Ditto for the Netherlands, Croatia, increasingly Ukraine, Portugal, etc

Nigeria needs a strong domestic league. The impact of that cannot be overrated. And their is clear evidence to back this up.

A few years ago when someone asked Arsene Wenger about Arsenal no longer signing Nigerian players, he mentioned that the quality of players coming thru to Europe had dropped. That is a direct statement about the quality of the domestic game.

The higher the quality of the domestic game, the better the foundational development of local players and therefore the higher the quality of players transitioning to Europe.

[Damunk]

How we choose to interpret this data depends on what questions we are asking.

- Are we simply asking whether domestic leagues around the world are producing raw talent? If so, what is the quality of that talent?

- Are we asking whether domestic leagues are retaining their talent in sufficient numbers to strengthen their leagues?

- Are we asking whether these domestic leagues are simply feeding the elite leagues by having their best talent creamed off by the lure of the dollar?

- Are we aking whether those leagues as they stand are contributing to their national teams, or is the strength of national teams attributable to other leagues developing their players?

People seem to be responding to different questions, the answers to which are pretty obvious.
But my sole reason for digging up these figures was for people to examine how relevant the strength of the domestic leagues are to the success of their national teams.

[txj]

How we choose to interpret this data depends on what questions we are asking.

- Are we simply asking whether domestic leagues around the world are producing raw talent? If so, what is the quality of that talent? That quality is often what in turn determines the quality of the league.

- Are we asking whether domestic leagues are retaining their talent in sufficient numbers to strengthen their leagues? It is important, but not decisive. The key issue is the ability to develop the players and have them of high quality, whether they remain or depart.

- Are we asking whether these domestic leagues are simply feeding the elite leagues by having their best talent creamed off by the lure of the dollar? As long as you have the ability to develop players in the first place. See comment above.

- Are we aking whether those leagues as they stand are contributing to their national teams, or is the strength of national teams attributable to other leagues developing their players? Both if you have the capacity to develop players and have them of high quality such that they are attractive at the top end of the foreign leagues.

People seem to be responding to different questions, the answers to which are pretty obvious.
But my sole reason for digging up these figures was for people to examine how relevant the strength of the domestic leagues are to the success of their national teams.

The strength of the domestic leagues is crucial, whether players move abroad or not. Apart from providing players whose quality is high enough to attract the best clubs, they also become ready platforms for such foreign-based players to reset their careers if/when things go wrong, as we often see with Brazilian players, Gabigoal being the most recent example.

[Damunk]

So what we can conclude at least in part is that the outcry about the invitation of foreign-born and foreign-based Nigerian players is in line with a global trend but does not and should not preclude the development of the NPFL which we all agree is crucial.

Unfortunately for us, our best local talents seem to be snapped up and shipped out at a very early age though I am not sure they leave any earlier than the Brazilians or Argentinians leave their own home leagues.

Is this a new trend? No.
Our 'golden SE generation' of the mid-'90s was full of players that had left the shores of Naija very early in their careers. So in that regard are we any different from the countries we admire?

I think I'm right in concluding that the development of the local league and players and the invitation of all worthy Nigeria-eligible players abroad are not mutually exclusive and is in order.

Again, I reiterate that I think it should be very possible for CE to host Pinnick to a high-powered CE panel either in London or Lagos and put these questions to him once the contact can be made.