English Premier League Now and Then

Football has been the most popular sport played in United Kingdom, in fact more than 5 leagues exist so far. Like any other football country such as Italy, Spain,etc, England also have their evolving main league,Barclays or English Premier League (EPL). Similar to human evolution, which changes slowly both physically and the way they approach things, English Premier League has also changed dramatically on the way the "beautiful game" is played and the way teams approaches through hard competitive seasons.

The English First Division Football, English Premier League (Barclays), also known as FA cup League back then, was not founded until 1990 after the incident in Heysel. That was the year where the English was introduced to a football league and it grew rapidly. The FA Premier League was on of the most attended sporting league beside Spanish La Liga and Italy Serie-A. Though the path has not been smooth for the English league, but great football clubs have emerged from their comfort zone, from playing a local town to town match, to the prestigious European Champions League. The English football back then was not as hectic and serious as it is right now. In 1991-1992, there were only 11 foreigh players registered in the league, but as the league changes its approach to the game and capacity of playing, it reaches to a 45% foreign players playing in the league. Of course, with different talented players who magically changed the playing style of different teams, more English are interested to watch this sport. In fact, according to Wikipedia, EPL's revenue has reached the first position after Italian Serie-A with approximately 1.4 billion pounds. Playing style has also changed from the slow and steady game in Ian Rush golden times, to fast and pacy game like it is right now. Although there are changes in approach and pace, but the signature English Football moves are always their deadly quick passes and ball exchanges. One of the factors is of course the steady growth of technology in boots, balls, pitch, and stadium. Players have also contributed in the evolution of the league.

Talents like Gianfranco Zola, Michael Owen, Alan Sherer, and Andy Cole who played cool and slow passing game has gradually increase the intensity and speed of the game to the level like Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas, and Steven Gerrard nowadays. With new talents coming in, teams have also been more aggressive to sign new players. It was a little move like Roy Keane from Nottingham Forest to Manchester United, a great midfielder who turned Manchester United from just a football club to a multi champion both in England and Europe, inspired many other teams to increase and spend their transfer budget. Names like Roy Keane and Rio Ferdinand were just small players who turned out to be superstar, but nowadays, with the increasing number of millionaire and football fanatics, transfer budgets have increased to unimaginable numbers like Chelsea FC which spent 30 million pounds for the golden boots winner Andriy Shevchenko, another 20 more million for Floren Malouda and Claudio Pizzaro this season. Following them is Liverpool with 20+ million pounds on Fernando Torres and the underdog Newcastle which spent 20+ millions also on big players like Luque, Duff, Owen, etc. With big names signed, clubs are hoping to gain more wins in the league. This huge change in the player market has raised many questions on the number of domestic talents and crazy transfers which triggers many fans to ask," Now, will the teams be more money oriented than game oriented?" But with big names moving in English teams, number of football fanatics have increased dramatically and reached to the point where it is just 1 place behind the rich La Liga Spanish leage which is the number 1 football leage in the world.

In conclusion, as season changes, stadium buildings, technology, playing styles, talents, have been increasing in number and quality which raises the excitement of the game but also the money factor which raises many speculations on the future of the league.

-James