No Gray Areas - World Cup is still 'the one'
A recent trend amongst football pundits and indeed fans is to argue that the standard of football in the Champions League is higher than that played at a World Cup. That's not necessarily wrong. With the exception of a handful of highly-talented South American players based in Brazil or Argentina, we see the world's best footballers turn out in the Champions League every other week.
And if the top players aren't currently playing in European football's blue-riband competition it's only a matter of time before they move to a club that is. How often do you hear a player saying he wants to be playing in the Champions League as a reason to explain why he's left his current club and chosen team x over team y.....
That of course is different to playing international football. Of course, we can all think of examples of players who for whatever reason were eligible to play for different countries and chose the ones where they a) knew they were going to get a game and b) were pretty confident the country they chose was going to qualify for a World Cup sooner or later.
This is a recent trend though and these are the exceptions to the rule. For the most part you don't have a choice who you play international football for and that of course means that we're deprived of seeing some of the greatest players ever playing on the greatest stage of all. George Best, Ryan Giggs and George Weah to name but three. And that's a shame.
That said, any football competition in the world produces great games and poor games. I watched four or five Premier League games this weekend and I doubt any of them had the drama and excitement factor present in League One's Carlisle 3 Charlton 4! I wasn't at that one but I was at the Emirates for Arsenal's demolition job on Shakhtar Donetsk.
We all know Arsenal are good enough on their day to destroy any team, especially at home, but only the most loyal Gunners fans out there can claim they really enjoyed such a one-sided contest. And Shakhtar aren't exactly the Faroe Islands of Champions League football. This is the team that won the UEFA Cup a couple of years ago and can boast Darijo Srna and Eduardo da Silva in their ranks.
My point is that when you pay your money to sit in the stands or your satellite subscription to watch all the football you want on television you never know what you're going to get. Is the general standard of the Champions League higher than that of international football or the World Cup more specifically? Yes, it probably is. But the World Cup is still the ultimate prize in football and always will be and if there's a fan or a player who tells me he's more concerned with the quality of the football played to win a World Cup than just winning it, I'd sure as hell like to meet them...
Andy Gray is now on Twitter so follow him for his exclusive tips and his take on the biggest stories in football each week.
Published: 26 Oct 2010
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