Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A

Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A

seems no NZ players in leagues above

can I know reasons?

Mabye I can got you some reasons,

what i am not sure ..but those Australians in Italy sound like they might have some italian blood in them.

The quick answer is that they're not good enough for the clubs in those countries to sign them up as non-EU players. For those clubs, there's more talent and choice among South American, African and non-EU European players. For a NZ player to be signed, he'd have to be very, very good, and virtually assured of a first 11 place in the team all the time. Not many of those going around unfortunately, but hopefully that will improve over the next few years.

Im surprised your asking about the top leagues and not leagues like Serie B etc. New Zealand doesn't have the talent and as said before there is plenty of better players and if there was a spot for a New Zealander he would have to be very good.

can they try eastern European leagues, like Russian, Romanian, Polish, Ukrainian... leagues
without many restrictions

Both Romania and Poland are EU countries, so the same restrictions would still apply. Russia and Ukraine aren't, but they seem more interested in acquiring South American players. New Zealand players aren't really fashionable, and while some could probably play for lesser teams in those countries, cultural/language differences also probably act as a deterrent.

there are a couple of young kiwis in the bundesliga 1 youth ranks - brindeveldt and white i think.  andrew aris also played in bundesliga 2 until recently and brent fisher was at energie cottbus for a season (now at bodens in sweden).  previously lines and burton also played in the bundesliga 2.

Kiwis such as Che Bunce (Iceland) and Noah Hickey (Norway) have played in Scandanavian leagues. Of course they are of a much lower standard than Italy etc.

Kris Bouckenooghe plays in Belgium for Red Star Waasland but I guess this is also a second rate league.


Malky2007-09-26 19:51:04

Pretty sure they got bounced back to Div 2 didn;t they Malky ?

Yeah, think so. For at least a couple of seasons now I think.

Not good enough.

That's not really true, the Premiership has a bunch of players from all over Europe and Africa, and there's a few Asians now as well.
La Liga also has a lot of players from other European countries, as well as South America and Africa.
The French league is full of Africans, and Bundesliga also has a lot of players from all over.
The reality is we're basically minnows in the global footballing terms, and that's reflected in the calibre of clubs and leagues that many (although there are a few exceptions to this) of our players play in.

same kiwi played for werder bremen years ago winten rufur i think

I think i've heard of that guy.

Kicked a ball around a bit for the All whites back in the day didn't he?

probably?

Wasn't Glenn Moss in one of the top Romanian teams, Dynamo Bucarest, last season? It's not quite the Serie A or La Liga but it's a start.

did he end up making the field for them?

I don't know. He got scouted for them after the match against Brazil.

I doubt he would have returned to NZ if he was a starter for Dynamo Bucurest. I mean, they were playing in the Champions League qualifiers, narrowly missing out on the group stages, and then went to the UEFA Cup.
If you were a starter on a team like that, you'd surely view the return to the A-league as a backward step?
Then again, maybe living in Romania ain't all it's cracked up to be...

mossy was struggling at dinamo. they had two romanian international keepers and another import in the first team squad.  he also had to put up with what he described as a certain amount of behind the scenes chaos.  in the end he terminated his contract and came back to new zealand to await the knights/phoenix situation. reg222007-10-22 18:55:27

The Romanian league is pretty good, and Dynamo has some pretty good players. Saw them play against Nazio a couple of months back and they looked a pretty useful side.