Today I was checking into rumours of Tottenham preparing a 40m pounds joint bid for Falcao and Hulk. It's from talkaloadofbull.com and though I know it's not a reliable site, it got me thinking... They actually could do it. Top clubs like United, Chelsea, Real or Barça don't need these players, and among the clubs that could really use them I think only Premier League ones have the financial power to sign them.
It's one thing when we lose our players to clubs like United or Real Madrid, but to know that a club like Tottenham can truly obliterate us in terms of financial power is depressing. With all the respect to Tottenham, which is a club I appreciate a lot, they're nowhere near us in terms of history, pedigree, even stadium capacity and much probably fan base size. Yet they benefit immensely of playing in the most wealthy league in the world. It's a more attractive league to play in, and they can pay A LOT better than us. Back in 2003 they took us Postiga, our most promising player (which eventually developed into nothing, but it hurt at the time).
Football has changed immensely in Europe in the past two decades, and with it's growth as a business, clubs from smaller countries like Holland or Portugal (which beyond small is poor) are left without a chance to compete, not because of the size of the clubs, but because of the size of the leagues they're in. Never again will Benfica or Ajax dominate Europe transiently like they've done so well in the past. These are historical giants, until recently not significantly smaller than United (take your overseas growth out of the equation and I guess Benfica has about the same number of fans as United). Yet they'll never be at the top again. A blink of magic like 2004 can always (well...) happen, but it will soon be followed by a cleansing of our squad.
Nowadays you get kids who support Chelsea or Real Madrid in Portugal. In Portugal, ffs, like if our football isn't good enough for them to support. "I support Benfica and Chelsea" said my little brother once. This is ridiculous to me.
In 1987 Porto won the Champions League with a squad almost exclusively composed of Portuguese players. Same did Benfica in the 60's, and in their 88 and 90 lost finals. Nowadays, to have competitive squads we have to travel to Argentina and poach players from clubs like River Plate or Boca Juniors. And their fans probably felt the same way when they lost Falcao to us, as I will when I lose him to Tottenham or Manchester City. This because our top home product are long gone.
I'll never see a player spend his whole career in Porto, and I still caught a few examples of this when I first started following football. No one will ever be good enough to spend the whole career here but not good enough to not give a further step up.
It's just not doable. Not when a giant club like Benfica wins 20 million Euros per year in TV revenue, or when Ajax can't hold their best players more than a couple of seasons. We have to live in a constant leverage of buying young talent and selling them more expensive 3 years later, it's the only way of simultaneously having a team capable of reaching the final 16 of the CL and not going bankrupt in the process. But it's risky as hell, if for 3 years we're unlucky enough that none of our new talents adapts, for example, we're doomed. It never happened, and Porto is probably the best managed club in the world under these harsh conditions. Hence I'm immensely proud of them. We achieved a lot so far, it was an immense task to fight our country bias towards Benfica and becoming the dominating force internally, let alone our European success. Next year we're in pot 1 of the Champions League draw, a prize for our consistency on the past 5 seasons, and a remarkable feat.
But that's as high as we'll ever reach. And though on the average day I despise them, I actually feel sorry for Benfica now, who's definitely one of the biggest clubs of the world but will never again be able to show it on the pitch. No more Eusebios, he'd be gone at 22 years old if he arrived here today.
Pretty much a pointless rant here, just echoing my depression with the end of the season nearing and the probable departure of our best jewels on the pitch. I started thinking about it when someone created a thread about the hypothetical Super League. How much I'd love that, how much it would increase our revenues - if clubs like Porto, Benfica or Ajax got their place in it, I have no doubt they would grow again, with the huge fan support they have allied to the football-loving nature of their countries. Football would again become about the clubs, and not about the leagues they're in.
Ah well. The end. I'm feeling better already.
I took this from a Porto fan on RedCafe but it is a fantastic post and opened my eyes a lot!
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