I was reading a blog on the internet the other day where the subject more or less was that on the tittle.
The blogger was referring to South American footballers that seem to arrive to European teams younger and younger every year.
It made very interesting reading. The journalist, took us through a lot of examples of players dubbed as “future stars”, who ended up failing or enjoying reasonable success, but yet not developing as much as their early potential showed they could.
In the machine of names were Denilson, Robinho, Aimar, D’alessandro, etc.
I read the whole article and then the comments left by other readers and most of those comments seemed to be made by intelligent individuals but with tunnel vision.
There were the usual debates of “Robinho is rubbish”, “Ronaldinho lost his ambitions with money”, “Aimar never lived up to his next Maradona tag”
Those comments are obviously subjective to what each individual looks for on a player and what he likes and dislikes.
Which were not the point of the blog in the first place.
Then you had those who opined things like:
“South American leagues are weak leagues, and the players get to Europe and find they are not as good as they thought they were”
“Their players find it difficult to adapt to the jump in quality and the expectations big money moves create”
“They don’t develop as fast under the high standards of European training, they don’t like it”
These are closer to the subject matter, however, inaccurate and even patronising I would say.
Some went as far as saying that the standard of management is so much higher in Europe that they should benefit.
Wel, in order to analyse the situation, we need to start from a human side, not sporting side (the original article wanted to say this, but was too vague and lost its way because of it)
There is what it is called the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation"1 and his subsequent book, Motivation and Personality.2 This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other needs.
Before putting it into content and relate it to what we are talking about I ll tell you more bout the Maslow theory.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is most often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid. Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements including the need for food, water, sleep and warmth. Once these lower-level needs have been met, people can move on to the next level of needs, which are for safety and security.
As people progress up the pyramid, needs become increasingly psychological and social. Soon, the need for love, friendship and intimacy become important. Further up the pyramid, the need for personal esteem and feelings of accomplishment take priority
So here you are. Now we can start relating things.
Players arrive to a new country, at a very young age, with a different culture. Money is not an issue as they normally are well paid.
Let’s even go as far as say that maybe during their first two weeks of arriving at their new environment, their basic needs (house, food, warmth, etc) are met.
This shows why so many guys can arrive, feel happy play the first six or seven games to a high level make an impact and an impression straight away.
So they will be moving up to the next ring of the pyramid, were the main needs are social needs (to form friendships, feel wanted, have a family, etc),
This part of the adaptation is crucial. Yes they get lots of money, but without all the things that we have just mentioned the boredom can set in. It is not about material things and getting rich only.
Normally the players that succeed in passing these second and third steps, are the ones we see performing at the highest level and enjoying their football.
We all know Robinho, Ronaldinho, Aimar, etc… can play, if anyone has doubts of that then they don’t know football.
Today the debate is this, because the financial balance of football is tipped towards Europe. But if there was to be a reversal of fortunes, do you think European footballers would play in the South American leagues and be all successful?
The level of training and development in that part of the world is amazing, the techniques, the way they take them from the basics of the game to mould them into confident young players and the never ending number of talent that keep coming up…well you don’t need me to tell you that.
If they had the financial power and the top class facilities available to bigger European clubs, the gap will be even bigger in their favour.
Make no mistake, their leagues are tough (you may like the standard or not, but they are not easy), their coaches are second to none.
It is all a matter of players being humans, the things they go through, are the same things you and I will go through if we face the sudden changes they face.
So the answer is no, they don’t buy them too young. It is up to the human, in this case a football player to find his way up the pyramid of Maslow.
The blogger was referring to South American footballers that seem to arrive to European teams younger and younger every year.
It made very interesting reading. The journalist, took us through a lot of examples of players dubbed as “future stars”, who ended up failing or enjoying reasonable success, but yet not developing as much as their early potential showed they could.
In the machine of names were Denilson, Robinho, Aimar, D’alessandro, etc.
I read the whole article and then the comments left by other readers and most of those comments seemed to be made by intelligent individuals but with tunnel vision.
There were the usual debates of “Robinho is rubbish”, “Ronaldinho lost his ambitions with money”, “Aimar never lived up to his next Maradona tag”
Those comments are obviously subjective to what each individual looks for on a player and what he likes and dislikes.
Which were not the point of the blog in the first place.
Then you had those who opined things like:
“South American leagues are weak leagues, and the players get to Europe and find they are not as good as they thought they were”
“Their players find it difficult to adapt to the jump in quality and the expectations big money moves create”
“They don’t develop as fast under the high standards of European training, they don’t like it”
These are closer to the subject matter, however, inaccurate and even patronising I would say.
Some went as far as saying that the standard of management is so much higher in Europe that they should benefit.
Wel, in order to analyse the situation, we need to start from a human side, not sporting side (the original article wanted to say this, but was too vague and lost its way because of it)
There is what it is called the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation"1 and his subsequent book, Motivation and Personality.2 This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other needs.
Before putting it into content and relate it to what we are talking about I ll tell you more bout the Maslow theory.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is most often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid. Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements including the need for food, water, sleep and warmth. Once these lower-level needs have been met, people can move on to the next level of needs, which are for safety and security.
As people progress up the pyramid, needs become increasingly psychological and social. Soon, the need for love, friendship and intimacy become important. Further up the pyramid, the need for personal esteem and feelings of accomplishment take priority
So here you are. Now we can start relating things.
Players arrive to a new country, at a very young age, with a different culture. Money is not an issue as they normally are well paid.
Let’s even go as far as say that maybe during their first two weeks of arriving at their new environment, their basic needs (house, food, warmth, etc) are met.
This shows why so many guys can arrive, feel happy play the first six or seven games to a high level make an impact and an impression straight away.
So they will be moving up to the next ring of the pyramid, were the main needs are social needs (to form friendships, feel wanted, have a family, etc),
This part of the adaptation is crucial. Yes they get lots of money, but without all the things that we have just mentioned the boredom can set in. It is not about material things and getting rich only.
Normally the players that succeed in passing these second and third steps, are the ones we see performing at the highest level and enjoying their football.
We all know Robinho, Ronaldinho, Aimar, etc… can play, if anyone has doubts of that then they don’t know football.
Today the debate is this, because the financial balance of football is tipped towards Europe. But if there was to be a reversal of fortunes, do you think European footballers would play in the South American leagues and be all successful?
The level of training and development in that part of the world is amazing, the techniques, the way they take them from the basics of the game to mould them into confident young players and the never ending number of talent that keep coming up…well you don’t need me to tell you that.
If they had the financial power and the top class facilities available to bigger European clubs, the gap will be even bigger in their favour.
Make no mistake, their leagues are tough (you may like the standard or not, but they are not easy), their coaches are second to none.
It is all a matter of players being humans, the things they go through, are the same things you and I will go through if we face the sudden changes they face.
So the answer is no, they don’t buy them too young. It is up to the human, in this case a football player to find his way up the pyramid of Maslow.