First like i said ,last years world cup had many players playing in the italian league than any other one .2nd would be the spanish league.
Heres a few that you might know.
Veron,mihailovic,Batistuta,Balbo,Salas,Zamorano,Za netti,Sensini,Nakata,Thuram,Djorkaeff,Deschamps,Ro naldo,Buffon,Nesta,Cannavaro,Inzaghi,Mbo ma,West,Aldair,Cafu,Baggio,Masinga,Davids,Winter,A lmeyda,Crespo,Bierhoff,Konsel,Ortega,Doriva,Laigle and many more like most the italian team.

Ummm....pretty impressive, and although you missed a few I have Ortega up as being from Valencia and Nakata from Bellmore Hiratsuka.
Here's what I've got from english - Calderwood,Hendry,Dailly,Hopkin,Gallacher, Haaland,Johnsen,Berg,Bjornebye,Grodas,Solbaken,Rud i,Leonhardsen,Flo,Solsjkaer, Di matteo, Leboeuf,Petit, Vieira,Tinkler,Fish,Schmeichel,Thomsen, Laursen,Frandsen,Nielsen,Dahl tomasson, Overmars, Bergkamp, Hasselbaink,Degoey, Klinsmann, milosevic, Keller, Friedel, Moldovan,Petrescu, Vivas, Bilic, Sinclair, Burton,Earle, Gayle, and all 22 from England. Sure, just like you did I forgot quite a few, probably screwed up with current clubs or so, but fact is Italy didn't quite have such a majority. And do remember that it was not me that made the statement, I merely asked you to proof your claims, which you haven't as yet. And if England did have more internationals than the italian league, does it prove that the english league is better ? NO, but you seem to think it does if Italy has the most, heaven knows why.

Hi guys, i'm Belgian and thus neutral in this:
All i have to say =

**** THE ITALIAN LEAGUE
PRAISE ENGLAND

Why? look at the scores; the goals are the most important of a game (the play 2 of course http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/smile.gif ). most of the time, I like a game with a 4-2 score better then a game with a 1-0 score. In Italy , each team gets 5 good opportunities to score a game, MAXIMUM. In England, 10 each happens all the time...

ps: I watch MOTD (match of the day) each saturdaynight, and the italian league is being highlighted widely on Dutch TV

You are not trying to say that the quality
of the english international's is equal to
the italian international's?
Try to equal name's such as VERON,BATISTUTA,
SALAS, THURAM,NEDVED ETC,ETC...........You
won't find to many!!!!!!

It's not the names that play football,
it's the legs!!!

Romi - Please stay out of this as you don't know what it's about. But in case you do care, Italy82 in trying to prove that Italian league is better than English league asked who had the most players at WC 98, and then said Italy. I merely wanted proof, and as yet I'm not convinced. At no point did I say the internationals were better or worse.
In any case, Salas was rather poor in the WC, Thuram wasn't too hot either.

Canoe I already proved that Italian league has better players than English elsewhere on this board!
France Football ballot of 50 top footballers in European clubs for 1998 contains 22who play for Italian teams, and 11 each who play in Spain and England.

And Red Devil before you make your pronouncement watch some games and read some stats. Italian League had higher scoring average in 98/99 season than the English league!

And by the way I watch up to 4 games of Italian and English league each weekend, plus the highlights of all the matches.

[This message has been edited by PolishPower (edited 12-01-1999).]

Polishpower, I respect your views, you make some valid points sometimes ( unfortunately the one where you said that long ball was not a tactic really disappointed me though ), but you don't seem to be following what happened here.
Italy82, in somehow trying to prove the Italian league superior to the English league claimed that italian league had more players at the world cup. NOT BETTER, but more. All I want is proof, cause stating one's opinion is one thing but when you start making statements you had better back them up with good old proof.
As for this France football ballot, I remember seeing your post, but I'm not a huge fan of such things. Why ? It's usually either a few people that vote on such a big thing, or the rules for this is so obscure and ridiculous that it's just not worth mentioning. Much like the Fifa rankings. One thing I really like is the award they've got for footballer of the year in England, which is voted for by players and coaches. Who else knows better than players who play against them ? We can only see that much on tv.
And please stop with the stats rubbish. Yeah, so what if Italian league had a higher scoring average, does this make the league better than the english ? Why ? But seeing as you like stats, here's some for this season. Up till monday,
English league games played - 296 , drawn matches - 68 , 23% of matches drawn
Italian league games played - 196 , drawn matches - 64 , 32,6 % of matches drawn
Okay, What does this mean ? To me, nothing, just like your higher scoring average. But if you like the italian league you can make something up so that these figures make the italian league look good, and vice versa for the english league.
And I'm very sorry, but I kinda agree with the Red one, better players doesn't necessarily mean better team or football.

Im sorry but watching teams like West Ham vs Bradford or Man Utd. vs Everton arent what i call exciting to watch ,even if theres a lot goals.Its too predictable ,every one knows Man Utd ,wins almost every time ,in Italy you have many teams competing,just last week there was Parma vs Milan ,Juventus vs Lazio,and they r fun to watch too .I dont care if it end 0-0 like Lazio vs Juventus did on sunday ,I taught it was an exciting game .The reason you english people dont like the way italian league play is cause we kicked your ass in the CL this year by using the defensive tactics.U say its boring ,I say not especially when u see teams like Arsenal,Man Utd and Newcastle being frustraded.By the way Fiorentina 2-0Arsenal game 6 Cl,Fiorentina2-0Man Utd Phase 2 game1,Rome1-0Newcastle Uefa .

ITALY81

Please, you can't take the results into account for the quality of the teams! Like I said before: Italian teams are always playing on result, English are trying to make it a good game 2!!!

Canoe,
1.I don't remember saying anything about long ball not being tactics, I think you're mixing me up here with someone else

2. I don't really care about that stat of goals per game and I said so previously. I only brought it up because some people here were saying that all the games in England are 3-2 and in Italy its always 1-0, and that is utter nonsense.

3. I agree that better players don't necessarily mean better football or team, we all can name teams with theoretically good squads that played like crap, or conversly teams with mediocre talent winning the league. However these are exceptions which prove the rule.

4. Also how else can you judge the quality of the team if not by results? I mean this is not a beaty contest we are talking here.

PolishPower - Sorry for that incorrect accusation, it was in fact not you, can't remember why I thought it was though. I respect your comments and views, your probably one of a very few that try to stay impartial.
As for your point 4, I fully agree, results are the proof of the pudding. BUT I don't think results are always fair. I doubt you would've seen it, but when Sweden played SA two weeks ago, they lost 1-0. That's the result. But SA decided to host their european opponents in one of the hottest places in SA. So the Swede's had to play against a noisy crowd, the heat, and the ref, who sent of anderson for alleged swearing when even the SA players were calling for it to be just a yellow. Afterwards he admitted to swearing at one of the sa players who he thought was trying to win a free kick unfairly. I think everybody here has either played or watched a lot of soccer, and swearing is rife throughout the world. How many times have u seen players swear on camera ? Many times, but they don't swear at the ref, which is the important factor. So, to come back to the game, SA had an unfair advantage due to the ref, and they were rather poor in trying to break down the 10men swedes, but eventually did. Now SA will climb a spot or two in the FIFA rankings cause the won against the swedes. Damn shame that's what it is. So I don't think results always show the quality of a team.