Some hard lessons relearnt

By Jason Moore WHY is it that Spanish club teams are the Kings of Europe but their national squad can't even reach the last eight of the World Cup? The answer, I'm afraid, is simple; there are far too many foreigners in the Spanish league. When clubs like Liverpool and Arsenal contribute more first team players to the national squad than Real Madrid and Barcelona then the alarm bells should start ringing. It is also rather unfortunate that a Frenchman should take some of the credit for one of Spain's finest players, Xesc Fabregas. The young Catalan has developed into an almost world class player at Highbury and I believe that if he stayed at Barcelona he would have been sitting on the bench watching the many foreign stars there. The club versus country issue, is evident at this World Cup because many of the star players at Spanish clubs are still in Germany; from Ronaldo to Beckham from Ronaldinho to Zidane. As England has discovered over the years finding home-grown talent is not easy but the influx of foreign players and managers into the Premier League has made many English players. Classic examples are Joe Cole and Frank Lampard and to a lesser extent Steven Gerrard and Ashley Cole. Spain were beaten by a better side and the time has come for Spain to start taking a serious look at its underachievement in national squad competitions.