foreign players don't understand club's rivalry ...

"If I said to Benoit [Assou-Ekotto] we have not won at Chelsea for 20 years, he wouldn't have a clue. He probably doesn't even know we are playing Chelsea tomorrow until we tell him later on," Redknapp told reporters.

"He won't look at the fixtures. He will turn up and say: 'what time is the coach tomorrow gaffer?'. And that is it. He will be here, but he won't be sure if we were going to Arsenal or Chelsea.

"All players are like that now, most of them. You still have some throwbacks, still I am sure there are maybe a couple of the lads at Chelsea.

"We have got a lot of foreign players here now and they get on with it. The history of the clubs is probably lost on them in all honesty.

"I was showing a picture of John White on the wall to Rafa [van der Vaart] the other day.

"I was telling him he was an amazing footballer that got struck by lightning but he didn't know.

"I come from the East End, we knew about the Arsenals, the Chelseas - we knew all the players.

"I don't think they do that now, not so much. And certainly the foreign players, they are not going to know.

"I think it's a disadvantage. If I asked Frank Lampard he would tell you all about players. He has been brought up with it. His dad would talk about Bobby [Moore] and all them players. It's rarer now I think."

dixit Haary Redknapp

I totally agree with him , but it is a consequence of having foreign players in your team. football have changed and it is not a problem for me , better have foreign players who don't understand the rivalry but who are top class than the opposite . But i miss it .

Bullshit.

Foreign players understand a rivalry as well as any native ones. That's like saying that a player from another nationality will never understand the native language. It's absolutely ignorant.

Sometimes...I think if a player doesn't have a love for the club, that's what it'll be like.Show up to work, do my best, hope for a promotion etc etc.It's not that he can't understand the rivalry....he just doesn't want to....he doesn't care about the club enough to take it into consideration.

Assou-Ekotto knows how to read and write, though

I don't see Redknapp's point here. Why would Assou-Ekotto know about Spurs' record at Chelsea? Why would van der Vaart know who John White is? Those two aren't Spurs fans, and won't have been exposed to all the Spurs history and rivalries like a native would. It's simple logic.

Hell, I don't know who John White is. And Spurs not winning at Chelsea for 20 years is hardly common knowledge amongst most Spurs fans, let alone people who aren't Spurs fans.

So I'm not sure what Redknapp expects from these guys.

And if these guys are giving you 100% regardless of if they know the importance of club history and rivalry, why does it matter?

Ekoto?the same guy who said he only plays for money?

Depend from where they come. Latin America player in Italy or Spain know all rivalry becuse latin america player when young watch and know La Liga and Serie A more than other Europe league. England have more African player which maybe do not have ability to watch european football when young.

that is a lot of bs lol

Without foreign players Tottenham (and most top EPL teams, if not most teams in the world) would be absolute crap. If the club doesn't educate them about obscure facts regarding rivalries, how can they expect them to know?

Harry is losing it , Spurs are feling huge pressure .The problem is not there .

He only have a plan A and he play the same guys week and week out even when they need rest ( adebayor , bale .. )

He should have involved players like dos santos, kranjcar , even gomez ..

whatever

I have to disagree.

Suarez hates United more than normal Liverpool fans.

GoonerJay29 wrote:I don't see Redknapp's point here. Why would Assou-Ekotto know about Spurs' record at Chelsea? Why would van der Vaart know who John White is? Those two aren't Spurs fans, and won't have been exposed to all the Spurs history and rivalries like a native would. It's simple logic.

Hell, I don't know who John White is. And Spurs not winning at Chelsea for 20 years is hardly common knowledge amongst most Spurs fans, let alone people who aren't Spurs fans.

So I'm not sure what Redknapp expects from these guys.

And if these guys are giving you 100% regardless of if they know the importance of club history and rivalry, why does it matter?

This.

Also, if you don't like it, don't wank away hundreds of millions on foreigners and build ap roper youth academy, you lazy f*ck.

Seriously, what the hell? First they spend all their coke-money on their 300m squad like a bunch of Wall Street housewives at Tiffany's and now they complain that their 90% foreign squad didn't grow up in Tottenham?

Is 'arry totally retarded now?

And besides that: If your players don't even know who they play on the coming match day, they're not foreigners, they're f*cking morons.

Do you think Ribéry doesn't care about Bayern? You think Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't know about the Clasico rivalry? I'm pretty sure Mark van Bommel knows when Milan are up against Inter or Juve.

Just buy smarter players, or even better: get smarter yourself.
/ragepost

Ridiculous . And if he was talking abt motivating players for today's game , forget the rivalry history , just show them the league table.

forget about foreign players, even foreign fans understand rivalry, even while sitting 2000 miles away

This is like politics. If things go badly just blame the foreigners.

Just his excuse for when we lose. i guess managers dont know tactics silly me thats just Arry i'd rather Disco Benny manage us atleast he tells it like it is.

It's true for some foreign players. For example, wherever Ibra goes, I doubt he cares about the club rivalries.

And Assou Ekotto did say he plays only for money.

But of course, extending it to "all" or even "most" foreign players is stupid.

I agree to a certain extent.

Unless you grew up with it, do some research, or seriously invest yourself in a team, players don't bleed for the shirt like ones who grew up with it, or came thru the ranks.

That is not to say ALL foreign players can't understand, but I think it is true to a certain extent for some players.

some people don't understand rivalries, some people don't understand that you have to pay taxes...

This is utter crap.

There is a very distinct difference between players not understanding a rivalry and players not having an encyclopedic knowledge of the clubs history. Even if the players don't know the details of the history, they are more than capable of judging the supporters feelings toward the match. Besides, isn't it partially the club's responsibility to acclimate them to the "derby's" climate? I know the modern coach usually comes out and says something along the lines of, "Well, every game matters, and we're just glad to get the three points today." Hopefully, we are all capable of seeing through that load of crap. Some matches really do matter more than others. If 'Arry's players really don't understand the rivalry, then I blame 'Arry and the Tottenham fans for not upholding the derby atmosphere.

What he says has a lot of truth in it, not sure about Spurs case though, but in general it is. Now if that is a good thing or not depends on the individual tastes of the viewers, in games where the rivalry is well taught to the players and taken way seriously you mostly see intense and physical games and not much of good footballing but it has its own special taste.

Usually at team that takes rivalry more seriously in the derby has a huge advantage regardless of the quality of player that team has, the way I see it, what played a major role in killing rivalry to an extent in the BPL, and La Liga is the laws that have been set for the fans, turning stadiums to "lecture" like environments, and in most major leagues is the over usage of foreign players.

A player can't simply play for one club this season and all of a sudden plays for the rival the following season and still expect to see from him a win or die attitude game when the both play.

One other point that reduces the rivalry attitude among players is football turning into a very professional game, with agents and contracts ruling it, and that has a serious effect on the "rivalry" part of the game, when an agent makes the top priority of his "client" to be his personal reputation, when yellow cards and red cards automatically detects money from the players wages, when a player is signed on a 1-5 year contract how do we really expect him to develop that kind of attitude when there is a big possibility of him switching clubs at the end of the contract.

When was the last time we saw a "one club" player? well in the BPL the ones I count and are still playing are Terry, Lampard, Gerard, Giggs(?), in Serie A I can't name many, and when those retire in the coming 1-3 years I can't name any.

I think the club rivalry attitude has been a big advantage for Barca over RM in recent years, since many of their players have been brought up by the club and understand the importance of the rivalry much more than RM players.

Anyway in short I think 'arry has a point here but it is not only that, that effects the rivalry attitude, if anything foreign ownership of clubs kills the rivalry much more than that.

Sorry for the randomness.

I would go as far to say that you can see proof of this at Juventus...

Most of our players are Italian so they know our history and how big of a club Juventus are in Italy. Now with Conte, who is already a juve legend, he knows Juventus never say die attitude and has brought it back. We have seen this mentality keep us unbeaten in Serie A.

Beat Milan in the league and beat them over 2 legs in Coppa Italia. Beat Inter. Beat Fiorentina(twice). We perform in the big matches and it shows because the players take them really seriously and give it their all.

i just wanna remind everyone that Inter won the treble 2 years ago with a team full of foreign players.

Moddaws wrote:Just his excuse for when we lose. i guess managers dont know tactics silly me thats just Arry i'd rather Disco Benny manage us atleast he tells it like it is.

You guys are really missing a goalscorer , adeba is good but he isn't a great goalscorer . too bad , against chelsea 65%possesion in 2nd half