Football

He'll need to buy a trophy cabinet at the very least.

been saying for a while that british players should head over to the continent and experience playing in a different league. Was Ramsey influenced by Bale's stay in Madrid, despite him not learning the language that well.. Did a new lifestyle appeal?

Think it's really exciting that young and not so young british/english footballers are chancing their arms abroad, from loan deals to signing long term contracts.
Would like to do more of them doing it.
Pity its happening just as the UK is on the cusp of isolating itself from the rest of europe.

Loads of young English players from Chelsea are on the continent. Vitesse has played a large part.

thinking of loans outside of the feeder club system, which I'm assuming for chelsea only exist to get round the issues of getting UK work permits for young players from the EU/Rest of the world.

https://uk.soccerway.com/players/players_abroad/england/

Apparently 819 players abroad.

Quick listing of players abroad, avoiding the many many players in English speaking lands, Scotland, Wales, US, Ireland, New Zealand,
And the other smaller leagues in the rest of the world.

Breakdown is illuminating

Spain 10
Italy 2
Germany 11
France 4
Holland 16
Austria 3
Belgium 13
Denmark 3
Iceland 12
Norway 11
Poland 4
Portugal 1
Slovenia 4
Sweden 42
Switzerland 2
Albania 1
Bulgaria 2
Czech Republic 2
Estonia 2
Finland 8

No ages on there though
Also Brazil has biggest diaspora.

that's from the english player list. Was interested to see how many of those 819 were playing at a high level, and where? If you took english speaking lands out of it, that list would halve at least

I know.
I did 2 seconds on Google.

We've discussed why UK players don't move abroad.
Our academy structure is good, visibility and promotion and wages and home structure and life etc etc etc

Flip the question, how many German academy players are in the UK?

I always wanted to leave and play abroad. Never made it past youths though ‘I’d have made it if it was for my bum knee’ . But I’ve said Italy would’ve been a place I wanted to go. Growing up watching on channel 4 made me love the leagues over there. I honestly don’t know why more of our top players don’t go.

Why don't more people leave the UK in general?

I have. I'm back now.

Quick poll: who has moved abroad for work for a substantial amount of time? 18 months or more?

And when did you move?
At 16-18?

Older?

US, 18 months in total, 24 yo when I moved out there. Would have probably been much longer if not for the country changing massively after 9/11.

We'd seriously consider moving to France or Spain if something came up, but B****t. Would also need myself and 9yo daughter to learn more than just beer French/Spanish but that wouldn't stop us, we'd pick it up quickly living there. I could do my current job from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

moved to usa and now in hong kong. later in life much much later than 18yo

I tried to move to the US in the late 90s, couldn't get a green card... Moved out to Oz nearly four years ago, I think I might finish up in Spain... The old country calls me...

Switzerland and Belgium for two years in my late twenties/early thirties.

I'm not suggesting our quick sample is representative of professional footballers but it seems that people move later in life rather than earlier and family life may restrict their later life choices.

Who knew?

So expecting a youngster to get up and away from their support structures is not really fair.

I know there's talk, a single article in the guardian today, about how young people need to experience stress to build resilience, but picking them up and throwing them into a situation like this could be detrimental to their life and career.

Tl;Dr : that Spartan mythology body sending kids out to kill at 11 has a lot to answer for

had i been given the opportunity to switch to a different country with work i would have grabbed it with both hands esp at the age of 19/20

So expecting a youngster to get up and away from their support structures is not really fair.

Bit apples and oranges though? Comparing a small number of talented footballers who would be living their dream and possibly en route to a 7 figure salary to a pool of hundreds of thousands of dull green graduates chasing the equivalent of £50k/year.

But with footballers game time is the key, it’s only with the playing time do they improve. See Sancho. Jaden for a recent example.
And they won’t improve if they are down the pecking order at parent club...

Always wanted to work abroad, never did. Think it took me so long to get a job in my chosen industry that by the time I got it, was just happy to be working.
Interviewed for a job in Germany, but didn’t get that.

Always thought I’d live and work outside the uk, probably in Spain/France I’m happy in any big city, learning a new language would be equal parts terrifying and exciting, but now with kid and Brexit, feels like the window for that is closing at a rate of knots..

Probably my biggest regret after spending a year seeing what else was out in the world after redundancy..

I'm not suggesting our quick sample is representative of professional
footballers but it seems that people move later in life rather than
earlier and family life may restrict their later life choices.

Also: I wish I earned 50k a year.

And they won’t improve if they are down the pecking order at parent
club...

But they will get game time in the UK where their visibility and promotability is higher than being in a different league.
They aren't of the talent required by yer Bayerns etc, they are of the talent required by yer Leeds and yer Gironas.
However, being visible at Girona and hopefully getting back up the ladder and support structure is yada yada yada.

Surely you can see that?

Not everyone being turned out by academies are superstars, they're very talented individuals capable of earning a salary in football.
What you'd probably want to look at to confirm anything is : how many players with a couple of loan spells from their parent clubs decide "no mas!" and head off to france/spain/etc? And at what age do they go?

Or how many players do a Giles Barnes?