By Oliver Kay
Stop me when you hear a name with which you are familiar. Sotiris Ninis, Alberto Bueno, Abdoulaye Balde, Juanfran, Alberto Aquilani, Fernando Torres. There should have been a growing sense of familiarity before Torres, but the names of the players who have followed the Liverpool forward as “Golden Player” at the Under19 European Championship over the past five years suggest that it would be dangerous to draw too many conclusions from this year’s tournament, which took place in the Czech Republic over the past fortnight.
If the competition passed you by, you might have guessed that England fell at the first hurdle and that Germany emerged victorious, but you may be more surprised to learn that some of the most beguiling talents on display were those representing the Czech Republic and Hungary. Cue a stampede of agents and scouts towards both countries. And cue a smile of satisfaction on the face of Rafael BenÍtez, who has four of the most promising Hungarian teenagers under contract at Liverpool, having spent the past three years plundering that and other markets in a bid to emulate Arsenal’s success in developing young players.
In the past three years BenÍtez has signed 27 teenagers from overseas: six from Spain, four from Hungary, two from each of Argentina, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden and one apiece from Bulgaria, Ghana, Greece, Morocco and Paraguay. Throw in at least a dozen home-grown youngsters, many of whom helped Liverpool to win the FA Youth Cup in 2006 and 2007, and it is easy to see why BenÍtez feels that he has stolen a march on the club’s main rivals at youth level.
BenÍtez could be sitting on the biggest goldmine in European football, but it could just easily prove to be the biggest scrapheap. Young players need nurturing, but at Liverpool there is a lot of bet-hedging going on. Other clubs import teenagers in large numbers – not least Arsenal, whose success with Cesc Fàbregas, in particular, changed the philosophy in England with regard to developing young players -– but none in anything like the quantities at Liverpool of late. For all the promise of Emiliano Insua, Krisztian Nemeth and Dani Pacheco, who, like Fàbregas, was procured from Barcelona’s academy, there is a recognition within the club that, at best, only a handful of those 27 will make the grade at Anfield.
In one sense that is an extension of what has always been the case, with clubs running their youth set-ups on the basis that perhaps one or two players graduate to the first-team squad each year and that the rest will, with the right guidance and a bit of luck, make careers elsewhere in the game. But these were home-grown youngsters, whose clubs were doing their best to develop into footballers.
This, by contrast, is a scattergun approach that leaves little or no place for local youngsters. And while clubs do not have a duty to produce players for the England team, they do have certain obligations to their communities. What is the point of Liverpool’s youth scouts trawling the parks of Merseyside when, increasingly, the club’s reserve team, let alone the first team, are dominated by overseas imports?
Some say that cream always rises the top, but that is not necessarily the case, not when there is such a bottle-neck. Throughout English football players with bright futures at under19 level are frequently slipping into obscurity by their early 20s, having not been exposed to Premier League football early enough.
Would Jamie Carragher, a late developer, have made the grade at Liverpool if he had been coming through the ranks now? Probably not. Would Gary Ablett, a championship winner as a player at Anfield in 1988 and 1990 and doing an excellent job as the club’s reserve-team coach? Certainly not. If players such as Stephen Darby or Jay Spearing are to follow in their footsteps and become first-team players at Liverpool, they must overcome overwhelming odds. But, unless they are nurtured correctly, no young player is a safe bet, however talented.
Going back to that list of “Golden Player” winners, Torres is a leading star at Liverpool and Aquilani a talented regular for AS Roma, featuring for Italy in the recent European Championship finals, but Juanfran, having failed to fulfil his early promise at Real Madrid, is at Osasuna; Balde, who won the Golden Player award while playing for France in 2005, is a plodding striker at Metz; Bueno, at 20, has yet to make his first-team debut at Real; Ninis, having starred for Greece last summer, made little progress last season at Panathinaikos.
Uefa had still to decide on the latest “Golden Player” last night. Contenders included Tomas Necid, the Sparta Prague and Czech Republic forward, and Lars and Sven Bender, the twins who play together in midfield for Munich 1860 and Germany. All three will be getting offers to move to England in the near future. Really they should stay where they are for now. For everyone’s sake, not least their own.
Stop me when you hear a name with which you are familiar. Sotiris Ninis, Alberto Bueno, Abdoulaye Balde, Juanfran, Alberto Aquilani, Fernando Torres. There should have been a growing sense of familiarity before Torres, but the names of the players who have followed the Liverpool forward as “Golden Player” at the Under19 European Championship over the past five years suggest that it would be dangerous to draw too many conclusions from this year’s tournament, which took place in the Czech Republic over the past fortnight.
If the competition passed you by, you might have guessed that England fell at the first hurdle and that Germany emerged victorious, but you may be more surprised to learn that some of the most beguiling talents on display were those representing the Czech Republic and Hungary. Cue a stampede of agents and scouts towards both countries. And cue a smile of satisfaction on the face of Rafael BenÍtez, who has four of the most promising Hungarian teenagers under contract at Liverpool, having spent the past three years plundering that and other markets in a bid to emulate Arsenal’s success in developing young players.
In the past three years BenÍtez has signed 27 teenagers from overseas: six from Spain, four from Hungary, two from each of Argentina, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden and one apiece from Bulgaria, Ghana, Greece, Morocco and Paraguay. Throw in at least a dozen home-grown youngsters, many of whom helped Liverpool to win the FA Youth Cup in 2006 and 2007, and it is easy to see why BenÍtez feels that he has stolen a march on the club’s main rivals at youth level.
BenÍtez could be sitting on the biggest goldmine in European football, but it could just easily prove to be the biggest scrapheap. Young players need nurturing, but at Liverpool there is a lot of bet-hedging going on. Other clubs import teenagers in large numbers – not least Arsenal, whose success with Cesc Fàbregas, in particular, changed the philosophy in England with regard to developing young players -– but none in anything like the quantities at Liverpool of late. For all the promise of Emiliano Insua, Krisztian Nemeth and Dani Pacheco, who, like Fàbregas, was procured from Barcelona’s academy, there is a recognition within the club that, at best, only a handful of those 27 will make the grade at Anfield.
In one sense that is an extension of what has always been the case, with clubs running their youth set-ups on the basis that perhaps one or two players graduate to the first-team squad each year and that the rest will, with the right guidance and a bit of luck, make careers elsewhere in the game. But these were home-grown youngsters, whose clubs were doing their best to develop into footballers.
This, by contrast, is a scattergun approach that leaves little or no place for local youngsters. And while clubs do not have a duty to produce players for the England team, they do have certain obligations to their communities. What is the point of Liverpool’s youth scouts trawling the parks of Merseyside when, increasingly, the club’s reserve team, let alone the first team, are dominated by overseas imports?
Some say that cream always rises the top, but that is not necessarily the case, not when there is such a bottle-neck. Throughout English football players with bright futures at under19 level are frequently slipping into obscurity by their early 20s, having not been exposed to Premier League football early enough.
Would Jamie Carragher, a late developer, have made the grade at Liverpool if he had been coming through the ranks now? Probably not. Would Gary Ablett, a championship winner as a player at Anfield in 1988 and 1990 and doing an excellent job as the club’s reserve-team coach? Certainly not. If players such as Stephen Darby or Jay Spearing are to follow in their footsteps and become first-team players at Liverpool, they must overcome overwhelming odds. But, unless they are nurtured correctly, no young player is a safe bet, however talented.
Going back to that list of “Golden Player” winners, Torres is a leading star at Liverpool and Aquilani a talented regular for AS Roma, featuring for Italy in the recent European Championship finals, but Juanfran, having failed to fulfil his early promise at Real Madrid, is at Osasuna; Balde, who won the Golden Player award while playing for France in 2005, is a plodding striker at Metz; Bueno, at 20, has yet to make his first-team debut at Real; Ninis, having starred for Greece last summer, made little progress last season at Panathinaikos.
Uefa had still to decide on the latest “Golden Player” last night. Contenders included Tomas Necid, the Sparta Prague and Czech Republic forward, and Lars and Sven Bender, the twins who play together in midfield for Munich 1860 and Germany. All three will be getting offers to move to England in the near future. Really they should stay where they are for now. For everyone’s sake, not least their own.
Comment