Frenke de Jong: Do current deals reflect poverty in talent?

44 matches in the UEFA Champions League, four in the UEFA Champions League, four in the European League, and five in the Netherlands. This is the result of Frankie de Jong from professional football since he started his career, and if we turn it into minutes, In the first level for 3924 minutes. Rakic, for example, played 4266 minutes last season only, with only Barcelona. (1) (2)

There is a good reason to nostalgia whenever a deal such as de Jong was made. In the 1990s and 1980s, no one would spend such a sum (75 million euros) on a 21-year-old midfielder coming from the clinically dead Dutch league years ago. If you look at the most expensive Barcelona deals in its history, the Dutchman will be fifth after Coutinho, Dembela and Souari. At the moment, Dembela himself moved in similar circumstances. A professional career that did not exceed two seasons made him the second most expensive player in Barcelona history and more expensive than Paul Bugba himself. Himself moved in similar circumstances; 4 years in a league played by Juventus almost single-handedly made him the most expensive midfielder in the history of the game. (3) (4)

Return to the future

You know the story of course, comparison with the past has never and will never be fair. The older you go, the more your mind will be able to keep fewer negative memories, which is what psychology proves. (5) But this does not negate the fact that in the 1980s, 1990s and the beginning of the millennium you had to be a truly gifted talent to get such a transition, and most importantly, you had to demonstrate this talent before someone risked paying the money for you; Saki, Van Basten, Raikard and Juliet left for Italy after making a huge reputation in the Netherlands. Luis Figo was the best player in the world and the Balloon had a role when he went to Real Madrid. Zidane was the champion of Europe and the world when he followed him. De Jong did not even win the Dutch school to deserve to be the second most expensive midfielder in the history of football.

Things are rapidly developing into the worst. All respect for de Jong's talent, of course, is not denied as a real breakthrough for his age in terms of diversity, daring, technical abilities and tactical awareness, but what has he done so far deserves to wrestle Manchester City, Paris and Barcelona to include? Does a player of his age deserve a salary of 10 million euros a year tax-free? (6) If the Dutch do not turn into a mix of Pirlo, Xavi and Scholes within two or three years, the answer will probably be negative.

Most importantly, the current list of the top 10 deals involving 8 players were younger than 25 years when they spent the money on their services, of which eight were under three years of age, of which three were under 21. If you look at the previous 10 for example, you will find the situation almost inverse, only four transfers were under the age of 25 years. We are going pattern overturning itself clearly. The numbers prove that. (7)

In 2001, for example, Buffon moved from Parma to Juventus for 47 million pounds. In the following year Real Madrid won Ronaldo de Lima from Inter for 40 million pounds, and the inflation rate of 2018 is 75 and 64 million. Pound on the order, but actually, these amounts in 2018 will bring you Kiba Aresabayaga and Murata respectively. CONCLUSION: Chelsea seem to have a problem, either that or there is a grotesque poverty in the talent continent. (8) (9) (10) (11) (12).

Nostalgia

Of course, there is a terrible poverty in talent at the continent level. If this were not the case, then this report would not have been a source of reason. Or, let us say that this is the most popular theory: first because there is a decline in the number of competencies in general; And third and most importantly, that this theory is consistent with our constant desire to feel that the time we started to follow football was the most wonderful and the most in the stars and talent. This makes us feel privileged and privacy, confirmed by psychology, and about 294832974 generation before us were asserting that their time was the best in everything, even if this time is the Jurassic era.

Of course, if we tell you now that this theory is not entirely true, it will be a very cliché that you have encountered a million times before. Unfortunately, this theory is not really true. Simply because we ignore almost half the equation. The commodity is metaphorically, the purchasing power has completely different in recent years, this is the first factor that makes things more complicated than it seems.

In the eighties and nineties, for example, Italian clubs were the top movers in the transfer market, with 9 out of 13 record deals in this period, followed by Florentino Perez and Ramon Calderon in Real Madrid, dominating all historical figures between 2000 and 2013. All this is beautiful and wonderful, but it was mainly based on borrowing from banks and personal finance from the club owners. This is one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Italian football later, and only the Spanish survived the same fate because Real Madrid and Barcelona have the lion's share of broadcasting rights. (7)

The problem now is not only in Spain, the transfer of Neymar to Paris was not only the most expensive deal in history, but included an increase of 130% on the previous record of Paul Pogpa. This is a problem because it has not happened since the 1930s. (7) (13) The biggest problem is that despite the success of Citi and Paris in corrupting the market from the rules through deals such as Tiago Silva, David Luiz, Mindy, Walker and Leport, 14 England clubs were able to compete and even bidding on them in other deals such as Van Dyke and Alison Kiba and Bogba.

Now, the most expensive goalkeeper, defender and central player do not belong to oil clubs, Barcelona or Real Madrid. Reason? Unfortunately, it is not a lack of talent. It is a terrifying statistic that since the launch of the Premiership in 1992, the price of the world's most expensive player has doubled almost 15 times. (15) Now consider that the most expensive player in the world today (Neymar) like an increase of almost 130% on his predecessor (Pogpa), keep in mind that this has not happened since the thirties of the last century, then give yourself a minute to imagine it You will realize that the clubs of England have much more money than they need so much that there are many economic analyzes considered that confirm that the current broadcast contract is impossible to repeat. (16) This is the purchasing power we are talking about, purchasing power that can match small countries the size of Qatar and the UAE. In short, the imaginative prices of young players such as De Young do not reflect the scarcity of talent as much as the abundance of money. All this has not yet touched on what is happening in China.

Soft invasion

This is another reason for his honesty; the numbers of players themselves are steadily increasing for almost the whole time. In 2006, for example, FIFA released a record increase in the number of registered players around the world by 22% (from 31 million to 38). (17) The evolution of academies in an unprecedented way is another factor as well, but nothing compares to the impact immigrants have on European football.

from where we start? The Maghreb teams that are dependent on immigrants in Europe? Or the European teams that have become dependent on immigrants from the Maghreb? Or the African immigrants who have taken over France? After the last World Cup, Vox released a report that revealed why the duke had acquired such a huge number of talent in almost all centers and attributed it mainly to its ability to invest in migratory talent living in the slums around Paris Banlieues through a wide network of interconnected academies And insert them in professional football as soon as they shine. (18)

The result is that the World Cup saw the participation of 50 players born in France playing for different teams. The following nationality was directly Brazil, but by just over half, only 28 players. In the match for Portugal and Morocco, for example, there were 7 players from the two teams who were born on the outskirts of Paris and were enrolled in the youth schools there!

France, recent years have witnessed a marked change in the demographics of teams such as Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and England, even the least welcoming countries such as Germany and Italy, and Europe - and in heart France - became the main destination for football talent around the world. This abundance was not available in the eighties and nineties, and even teams that have long relied on immigrants such as the Netherlands have seen a huge leap in the number and diversity in the last two decades, and the reasons for all this is no longer limited to the cultural ties and the colonial history of these countries, The impact has emerged recently, and has prompted many young people around the world to turn to football as a source of income before they are passionate and willing to prove themselves.

There are several obvious fallacies that football fans make when comparing the ages. The first of course is the nostalgia itself, which is only a big fallacy. The second is to call up completed models of talent and stardom from previous times and compare them with others that are still making their way at the moment , The goal is to make comparisons similar to de Young-Pirlo or Arthur-Xavi or Buffon-Kiba. This is a trick that never fails to feel sorry for what has been lost and the sorrow of what has reached the conditions of football.

De Jong's transaction number reflects the current competition for talent due to the large number of buyers, the stability of their financial position, and the abundance of resources to the extent that they have rendered them virtually worthless

Reuters

In addition, the criterion of individual preference is collective tournaments, for example, or insistence on measuring the present by past standards, such as saying that the scarcity of classic attackers or defenders is evidence of talent poverty at present, ignoring tactical developments that have influenced the game and turned the scoring path from the heart of the attack to The wings have required a different kind of defender to keep pace with football in recent years, simply because the same questions can be directed in the opposite direction if we ask about the number of shadow attackers and winged wings that existed in the 1980s and 1990s, Latecomers and players axis creators in this period compared to Balan.

Of course, all this does not negate the fact that in the 1980s, 1990s and the beginning of the millennium you had to be a truly gifted talent to get such a transition, and most importantly, you had to demonstrate this talent before someone risked paying the money for you. Because Gianluca Viali, who made Juventus the most expensive player in the world in the summer of 1992, and Gianluca Lentini, who signed Milan in the same summer in response to the deal, and the duo stayed with their teams for four Seasons during which they scored 51 goals together, or Denilson Betis moved to a number more expensive than paid Barcelona in Ronaldo de Lima, and of course everyone knows what he did Denilson, or rather did not do. (7)

All this does not justify the figure spent in the De Jong or other deal. In this madness it is difficult to justify anything really, especially with a management such as Bartomeo's administration, because logically there is no football player worth 100 million euros even if Messi, only a figure that reflects the current competition for talent due to the large number of buyers and their financial stability, And the abundance of resources to the extent that they made them virtually worthless. That explains why the fans are so enthusiastic when their team wins a race like de Jong, and it may be a sign of the moment of salvation in which all of this will collapse, with players' prices - compulsively - being more or less reasonable.