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Thursday, September 16, 2010
Club or Country?
Yesterday I watched the first matches of Europe's Champions League, widely regarded to be the best club soccer competition in the world. My adopted European team, Arsenal, breezed to a 6-0 win, but it was a quote from Real Madrid's coach that was my most intriguing takeaway from the day's action.
Jose Mourinho, who's led two separate clubs to the title, stated that it was harder to win the Champions League than the World Cup: "You can not compare [Champions League] with a World Cup because the teams are stronger than national sides." Mourinho's argument is that because the best club teams in Europe can amass a level of talent that can't compare to what exists on any one national team, the Champions League has tougher competition.
But it's easy to argue the other side of the same coin. Because any club can buy any player from anywhere in the world, wealthy teams can (at least for one year), buy a Champions League title. A World Cup squad, no matter the stature or pedigree, is limited to the pool of players from a given nation. After all, it's easy to forget that only eight nations have won the World Cup in 19 competitions. Meanwhile, the last 19 Champions League competitions have seen 12 different champs, including such non-superpowers as Porto in 2004. Who was the coach of that team? Ah yes, the aforementioned Jose Mourinho. Perhaps someone was trying to tout his own coaching ability with that quote?
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