Reminds me of this infamous quote (in Australian football circles) from Pim Verbeek in 2008, that caused a bit of an uproar at the time.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/verbeek-unimpressed-by-a-league-talent-20080123-gdry0a.html
The Socceroos boss, who has been open about his concerns about A-League players' ability to handle international football since coming into the job two months ago, today compared the standard of the local competition as less than that of a training run for a struggling German club.
But Verbeek said three weeks training with Karlsruhe (Kennedy's club) and third-bottom Nuremberg (Beauchamp) would have the duo better prepared for Qatar than if they were in the A-League.
"If you train for there weeks with Nuremberg or with Karlsruhe, I have to be very honest, I still think that's better than playing A-League games," Verbeek said at the announcement of his squad today.