By Helen Richardson-Walsh | Opinion
Here’s a question for you; given the choice, would you want to train with your club five times a week?
The reason I ask is because I often get asked and hear a lot of chat about the state of our club system here in England, and in particular how it’s no competition for our Dutch counterparts. And it’s true, the quality of player that comes through their club system is not necessarily better, but the quantity of that quality is so vast it creates an unrivalled depth that feeds world-class players to their National Teams for fun.
So how do they do it? They train. Simple I know, but for me that’s one of the main reasons.
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In terms of training twice a week or more – my question is about logistics. I honestly don’t know how far players travel to their clubs to play in Holland – the country is smaller and the cities smaller (certainly than London). It would be good data to know. Using London as an example for the UK where a large number of clubs are – travel is hard, time-consuming and tiring. Is it a factor? (Along with lots of other things I’m sure…)