Football Food For Thought / Feizal Rahman / 29 March 2009 /

Feizal Rahman likes to watch the world's best players as much as anyone but argues that these days they don't need to be representing their country for us to enjoy them in action.

Rather than embrace the international break as a welcome departure from the intensity of the domestic game, many now treat it with the same sort of impending irritation as a Christmas visit from the in-laws. You know there's no way of avoiding it, so you grit you teeth and bear it, reassuring yourself that everything will be back to normal next week.

So perhaps the time has come to question: do we really need international football any more and does it still have a place in the modern game? In this increasingly cosmopolitan world, we are becoming decreasingly divided by mere issues of nationality. For the same reason that the workman who builds your extension is now more likely to hail from Warsaw than Watford, so too a Liverpool fan from Kuala Lumpur will cheer a Fernando Torres goal as loudly as a Liverpool fan from Kirkby.

The Premier League and Champions League have now firmly established themselves as the pinnacle of the sport, reaching the very highest standards possible. The world's best footballers are fused together into once unthinkable dream teams, their respective talents combined in wonderful synergy. International football, meanwhile, merely forces together eleven of the chosen best from a defined geographical region. It seems an archaic practice now that we have English clubs owned by Americans and Russians, managed by Frenchmen and Dutchmen, whose best players come from Portugal and Spain.

The world's finest are right in front of our eyes every week, beamed to billions across the world, so why do we need the distraction of a World Cup? It may allow for a sense of national pride and unity every four years but if it requires a football team to enable us to experience this, that probably indicates how contrived any perceived patriotism and kinship actually is. How many of us would really rather see our club win silverware or even gain promotion/avoid relegation than our country win the World Cup? Can it ever make sense for a Manchester United fan to be cheering on Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard whilst booing Cristiano Ronaldo or Carlos Tevez because we decide to base our loyalties on place of birth for a couple of weeks every four years?

Only 11 countries have ever made it to a World Cup final, with only 7 different winners. In last season's Champions League final, 18 nations were represented in both named squads, with 11 alone in the Manchester United's winning ensemble. Only 75 countries in history have ever made it to the World Cup finals yet 70 different nationalities have already been accounted for in this season's Champions League. Where we were once reliant on international fixtures to see the premium players from abroad, now we have them playing on our very own doorstep.

Think of all the great World Cup moments and they will probably be consigned to pre-Italia '90; Maradona's mesmeric run against England in '86, Marco Tardelli's demented celebration in '82, Archie Gemmill dancing his way around the Dutch in '78, the Cruyff turn in '74, the quintessential team goal from Brazil in '70 and, of course, Geoff Hurst's hat-trick in '66.

Maradona is of course in charge of Argentina these days, who are second-favorites to win the World Cup at [6.6]; it's [14.0] that a Daniele De Rossi or a Gennaro Gattuso will be emulating Tardelli en route to defending their World Cup and they're [14.0] to do just that. Meanwhile, come Wednesday night that man Archie Gemmill will be cheering on Scotland in a must-win match against Iceland and you can back George Burley' side to bounce back from their 3-0 loss to Holland on Saturday by picking up three points at odds of [1.65].

Yet, after Gazza's tears in Turin, '94 was most memorable for Diana Ross missing a sitter, '98 for Beckham kicking out at Diego Simeone, '02 for the breakfast time kick-offs prompting countless references to bacon and eggs from John Motson and '06 for the greatest player of the last 20 years, Zinidine Zidane, bowing out with dishonour after his crazy headbutt cost his country the final.

International football now simply gets in the way of the important business at hand. The calendar is already crammed full of fixtures with major clubs competing in the league, cups and Europe. Top players know which side their bread is buttered so it's no surprise to see many pull out of meaningless friendlies with phantom injuries. With the margins between success and failure so fine, it cannot be fair that the clubs and fans that pay a footballer's salary may be denied their services because of an injury picked up during a needless 90 minute runabout. But is the dream of winning a World Cup final as special to footballers today as it was twenty years ago? Now motivated more by financial gain, players would probably not miss it in the slightest, with only the prospect of enhanced sponsorship deals gained from an appearance on the world stage prominent in the mind.

Indeed, the only beneficiaries from a World Cup nowadays seem to be the multinational corporations who suddenly develop a love of the beautiful game a few months before the tournament and try to convince us that their products go hand in glove with it. Other than that, flag manufacturers are sure to report a roaring trade while some has-been rock band will have one last moment in the limelight after thrashing out a turgid, uninspiring anthem about 1966 and all that.

It's time for us to admit that the international game has now become redundant. Sadly, there comes a moment where we all have to let go of something we once loved but we understand that it's for the best. At the very least, it will spare us all the inevitable conclusion to the roller coaster of emotions when England - [9.4] to win the 2010 World Cup - get knocked out on penalties.

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