To be honest I think that having family members who were professional footballers could work both ways (due to the burden of expectations placed on the players and the greater difficulty of proving themselves)…for example, I have watched a number of FC Barcelona games and Victor Valdes has generally struck me as a rather capable goalkeeper. However, he is third choice (behind Pepe Reina) in the Spanish national team and my impression is that fans generally underrate him in comparison to Spanish goalies who ply their trade abroad (their assumption is that he doesn’t concede much only because of Barcelona’s possession-oriented game, but there have been a number of matches in which he has been quite decisive – like the 2009 semi-final against Chelsea when Valdes made a number of good saves and he also held his nerves in the final against Manchester United, denying Cristiano Ronaldo on two occasions). Valdes may never receive much credit unless he proves himself with another club or with the Spanish national side.
each spanish goalkeeper has its weak points: valdes has trouble when he has to get out of his goal (when he has to pick a ball that's far from him before the striker gets it)
casillas is bad on the corner kicks and crosses (we could see it tonight)
and reina lacks consistency
that's why i think that the best goal-keepers in the world are lloris and neuer (lloris is rumored to sign for arsenal by the way)
casillas stands out because he has amazing reflexes and does great spectacular saves, valdes too
but valdes probably is not the second goalkeeper because there are already a lot of players from barcelona in the spanish national team
suporters of other clubs in spain would complain
Gerard Pique initially felt that he won’t get that many opportunities with Barcelona and played for Manchester United before returning to Spain and signing his first professional contract with Barcelona.
you make it sound like turning pro in manchester united is a bad thing :icon_wink:
In essence, I partly agree with you and the lack of meritocracy could be an issue, but unfortunately what I have noticed (at least in Eastern Europe) is a dangerous trend - fans tend to be way too suspicious of allegedly “well-connected” local footballers and this causes them to pressure club owners and coaches to buy foreign players. So, the worst case scenario becomes a reality (neither those locals with unknown family names nor those with important parents get to play for their team due to competition with foreign players or if they do, they are booed or criticized by supporters). I am generalizing of course, but I have some friends from Balkan countries who have told me of such cases (e.g. Berbatov was initially not well-received by some of the CSKA Sofia supporters for reasons connected to what I mentioned above and it took him a while to win them over).
ofcourse i don't wish them to be replaced by foreigners
actually out of the players i listed, many are foreigners, like zidane's sons, the dos santos brothers, ect
i am just worried that they might miss some local talent
like i said in other countries there are not as many players with relatives that play football
so i am worried about this
in france you can see the difference between the white players who have family in the business and the others (because french clubs were racist and didn't pick the young white talents, as laurent blanc said)
take gourcuff and nolan roux for example: as talented as they are (especially gourcuff) they had it easier than other whites like koscielny, ribery or giroud who had to play in 3rd division until very late sometimes
As for the refereeing, I am not sure it is biased (I remember instances in which Russia and England have borne the brunt of poor refereeing decisions against small countries like Slovenia and Romania), but I concur that it’s rather inconsistent and certain South American sides like Peru (that play with a blend of finesse and physicality) may be unfairly punished on occasions…Btw, if I recall correctly that Antonio Rattin’s sending off for “violence of the tongue” during the 1966 World Cup and Rudi Voeller’s red card (despite not retaliating after being spat upon in a 1990 match vs. the Netherlands) made the list of “top 10 unfair dismissals in the history of the game” a number of years ago.
when i mention the "big countries", russia is not one of them right now, they are not the kind of team that has a lot of fans like spain or germany
when you say that the final will be spain-italy you get a lot of viewers
if you say that the final will be russia-england, you have less viewers
if you say that the final will be greece-ukraine, it's a catastrophy for UEFA
at the world cup, the perfect semifinalists for the fans or FIFA would be an african country, an european country, an asian country and brazil or argentina
that's why the south american countries got awfull refereeing, because there was too many of them in the 8th finals (not saying that the referees are corrupted or recieve orders from FIFA, but it could also be because of sympathy for the last team of a continent still in the tournament)
