Seems that countries with a combination of the culture, infrastructure, money, and opportunity consistently produce the most quality players. Unsurprisingly, these are all mostly colonial powers. Between those select few countries, there is a the question of influence, attitude, investment, a further consideration of culture and, in some cases, how open that country is to immigration. Many of the current great South American players got their training in Europe before coming good, for example.

In terms of individual clubs, it's due to global reach and influence, financial investment, academy infrastructure, coaching, and recruitment. Bigger clubs do this better, clubs that prioritize their academy financially do it better, and clubs with academies that have huge international reputations will be able to draw the talent even if other clubs do invest. A big part of that can be the reputation of the league. Ajax has a famed academy, but they aren't cranking out stars at the same rate since the Eredivisie lost prestige.

I think that pretty much sums it up. It's not exactly a game you can just "get into" right out the gates. It takes a huge amount of financial investment as well as time and, crucially, circumstance. One of the reasons why we had a decent academy crop, I think, was that we were able to draw players by promising and giving them playing time, as well as good salaries for their relative age and experience. When that period ended, the talent dried up with it.

Good footballer bloke good footballer bird. And then they shag.

Give us the deetz though Bandy

I think it all starts with what % of the population plays the game, and how close to each other that group is.

Take Canada as an example, low % of football players who all live far far apart = little competition and early development.

On the contrast, high % of hockey players who all live close to each other = massive competition, consistent development (on small rinks to build skills), and ultimately an ingrained culture.

The money comes second to this in my opinion,

You also have, in Canada, quality hockey coaches, but I doubt the same is true for football.

Can't speak for Turkey but, while very popular in Russia, I don't think that football is actually their most widely accessible sport.

I'd imagine hockey is far more popular in Russia than football.

As for Turkey, in my two weeks spent there I barely saw anyone playing.

Coombs wrote:

Seems that countries with a combination of the culture, infrastructure, money, and opportunity consistently produce the most quality players. Unsurprisingly, these are all mostly colonial powers.

I think that's a bit shallow analysis personally. Brazil and Argentina aren't rich countries with well-oiled infrastructures, and they were colonized rather than colonists. Former colonial nations like Spain and Italy are two of the poorest and most economically stressed nations in Europe. Yet the overwhelming majority of all the footballing talent in the world stem from those four countries, with France and Germany to cap it off.

It's also easy to forget that both Germany and France recently had their own personal crisis where they struggled to produce a single world class player. It was that very fact that led to the German restructuring.

I think you need to factor in the unique national circumstances when you discuss talent development. A lot of factors tend to change depending on population size and which part of the world you belong to. The one common theme is that the more money you put into football through agencies and initiatives that don't expect to generate heavy profits off the investment (unlike football clubs, who are all in it for the hard money), the better the results are. Three examples of countries who have done so recently with similar methods and greatly exceeded expectations are Germany, Belgium and Iceland.

In terms of how to improve English football the opinions among those in charge diverge greatly. Several initiatives have been launched in the last few years but they've been criticised for making it more difficult for small clubs to get by. Consider this paragraph from an article about the German FA which was written by the time Bayern and Dortmund faced off in the Champions League final three years ago:

As for Saturday's Champions League final at Wembley, the DFB proudly points out that 26 of the players Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund named in their Uefa squads this season are homegrown and eligible to play for Germany. More than half of those players came through the DFB's talent development programme, which was introduced in 2003 with the aim of identifying promising youngsters and providing them with technical skills and tactical knowledge at an early age. Covering 366 areas of Germany, this impressive initiative caters for children aged 8 to 14 and is served by 1,000 part-time DFB coaches, all of whom must hold the Uefa B licence and are expected to scout as well as train the players. "We have 80 million people in Germany and I think before 2000 nobody noticed a lot of talent," Dutt says. "Now we notice everyone."

[...]

It is the opposite of what happens in England, where the FA relies on clubs to develop youngsters. Dutt smiles when it is suggested to him that the DFB are doing the clubs' recruitment for them. "But if we help the clubs, we help us, because the players of our national teams – the youth teams and Joachim Löw's team – come from the clubs," he says.

Mesut Özil was one of the youngsters the Germans found as a consequence of this development program.

There's a big contrast to England, where the FA introduced a new academy system in 2011 that shifted all of the responsibility for identifying and developing talents onto the clubs themselves. It's called the Elite Player Performance Plan, EPPP for short, and it introduces a big set of standards of facilities and personnel that clubs need to adhere to in order to run an academy. It also regulates minimum spendings on youth. Category One clubs, which are exempt from the 90-minute rule and other constraints, must in return spend at least £1.5 million on youth development each year while clubs in Category Four, which is the smallest, need to spend £100K.

I think it's still too early to evaluate the model fairly, but it has met heavy criticism from many lower-league clubs. Brentford were forced to shut down their academy last season for instance, citing EPPP as the big reason. Yeovil Town and a number of other clubs have also closed up shop in the last few years, and that's the exact opposite of what you want happening obviously. The German model is based on finding talent they previously missed. The English model seems to make it harder by offering the smaller clubs no help and very few incentives.

The 18 teams in Bundesliga willingly spend around £100 million per year on their academies by contrast. It's just easier to motivate that kind of investment when they know that it pays off, something he DFB have all but made sure thanks to their extensive work in identifying talent and providing well-educated coaches.

It may be shallow, but it's accurate. Circumstance and money is the major factor. Whether Germany restructured or not is kind of irrelevant, as they were fundamentally able to do so due to the nature of their position as a footballing nation.

If Panama restructured to match the German model, they wouldn't suddenly crank out world class players now would they? Brazil and Argentina have a combination of population density and unique footballing cultures.

There will always be outliers and exceptions, but they generally prove the rule. Sometimes a club goes through a brief era of having brilliant players without the usual trappings of the big clubs. Saying Spain is poor has nothing to do with it, their clubs have global reach, insane amounts of money, and a massive international reputation.

Spain and

"Basically, when it comes to football, ordoliberalism > neoliberalism"

While an excellent point, Klaus, I do think that population, culture, global access, and wealth (make no mistake, Spanish football is wealthy) are still the major factors. What you're talking about is the situation between and within those powers. No amount of reform, like the one you mention in Germany, is going to make a country like Nicaragua start churning out top talent. Basically, I think we agree but are talking about slightly different things.

Of countries with a predominantly footballing culture, colonial powers are going to win out more often than not. Nationality doesn't' really matter, it's where the players become "top" that really counts.

There are a few good books that touch on this. Raphael Honigstein's "Das Reboot" is well worth a read. It looks at how German football restructured itself following some comparatively poor results in the late 90's.

Having a national football culture and intelligent debates and analysis would seem to help. Here in Australia for example our media has only become more sophisticated and "football intelligent" in the last 10 years or so, or at least in the main stream.

I don't think infrastructure matters too much, and in fact may stifle some natural genius. Some of the great attacking players developed their early skills in alleys and on gravel - demanding excellent technique.

Coombs wrote:

While an excellent point, Klaus, I do think that population, culture, global access, and wealth (make no mistake, Spanish football is wealthy) are still the major factors.

They are factors for sure, but I believe that they are generally less important ones. There is a certain population size needed to sustain development in the long run, just like there's a cap you need to get above if you want to establish a club as a European presence, but it's lower than people think. Belgium would be a good example I feel. Their population is about twice the size of Nicaragua but it's still only 11 million people we're talking about. They've produced a number of top class players recently with the help of German-like reforms.

I think Asterix raises a good point above too; a lot of attacking players need the added challenge that the streets provide. I have never believed that poverty is some sort of means to an end to develop good footballers—in my opinion that's an argument used by the rich, for the rich, to keep suppressing those who have nothing—but there's no denying that it creates a situation where players are tested early on and get to develop unique skills. I reckon that's the big difference between being Mesut Özil and being Gedion Zelalem, for instance.

This is where infra structure and wealth could actually be used to make a difference. They aren't used that way today, but it should be possible to recreate the conditions of street football anywhere. It's something I wish European countries would explore more thoroughly. European football needs more magicians. Even in the German national team Özil stands out. The rest of them are a clear level beneath him from a technical point of view.