[LINK] "Argentina’s Feeder System Drains Talent From Nation’s Top Division"

[rfmcdonald]

The New York Times' Jonathan Gilbert wrote an interesting article describing how institutional problems with Argentine soccer have driven a diaspora of Argentine players worldwide.

[Eduardo Sacheri, 46, a prominent author of soccer fiction and an Independiente fan] pines for the era when a player like midfielder Ricardo Bochini could play his entire career at Independiente, which he led to a host of domestic and regional titles in the 1970s and 1980s. When Argentina won the World Cup at home in 1978, only one of the players on its roster plied his trade outside the country. When it added a second crown in 1986, in Mexico, more than half the team — including Bochini — still played domestically, though by then stars like Osvaldo Ardiles and Diego Maradona had begun to open the path to Europe ever wider.

The trickle soon became a flood. A surge in television revenue gave European clubs millions to spend on scouting networks and player acquisitions, and the proliferation of agents eager to facilitate deals only fed the market.

By last summer, when Argentina reached the World Cup final in Brazil, its roster included only three domestically based players. Two had spent most of their careers in Europe before returning home.

Now, European clubs scour the Primera División for talent. One representative of a Russian agency called Argentine players the “raw material” of world soccer. “That’s why we have to be here,” she said, adding that European teams are often viewed as finishing schools.