Yeh, different model.
I remember our primary school struggling to get 11 soccer players for a team in NZ versus what a friend told me about in Liverpool where 300 6 year olds showed up!
It’s madness in the UK that so many players give their whole young lives to football academies and only a small small percentage get professional careers. And even very successful youth players like those who won the underage World Cup with England have no guarantee of a career at EPL level. Pretty crazy.
Just to put Ben Waine’s struggles to get settled in perspective.
https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/u17worldcup/indonesia-2023/articles/englands-2017-u17-world-cup-champions-where-are-they-now
I remember our primary school struggling to get 11 soccer players for a team in NZ versus what a friend told me about in Liverpool where 300 6 year olds showed up!
It’s madness in the UK that so many players give their whole young lives to football academies and only a small small percentage get professional careers. And even very successful youth players like those who won the underage World Cup with England have no guarantee of a career at EPL level. Pretty crazy.
Just to put Ben Waine’s struggles to get settled in perspective.
https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/u17worldcup/indonesia-2023/articles/englands-2017-u17-world-cup-champions-where-are-they-now