- Jul 9, 2007
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It's the right way to go for the big teams. It's an awful way to go for the lower division teams. As someone with knowledge of Italy and Spain having connections to both countries the lower leagues are much worse than in England in terms of engagement. In part because England treats the lower leagues much betterall fair points I don't agree with them all - loans its not a one size fits all I agree, I think that they can be over emphasised a bit but generally the trend is that they are split into two - one the boys who are fast tracked and others where they are effectively put in the shop window - for the majority they are not an option
A few clubs have ditched the u21s and I would expect more might follow for both financial and development reasons . The B team or affiliates are for me the right way to go at the expense of an U21 sides with defined squad sizes you give boys a potential path and I don't see how it undermines the integrity I think it raises the quality and the competitive element (you haven't seen an u21 team win the cup that they compete against League sides yet)
I do take the point about different pathways just don't see that the u21s league fits that purpose for anyone
But also when you have the big teams in Spain and Italy hold onto 60-80 players sometimes, it's not good for competition, because these players get stuck into these big club systems and talent gets kept away from smaller clubs. This makes it much much harder for smaller clubs to go up through the ranks. And much easier for bigger clubs to hoover up all the talent.