does it really matter?

[feles_dormiens]

so, as everyone knows by now, england lost and now i understand that what it means when Bill Shankly said (albeit slightly misquoted) 'Football isn't a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that

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[feles_dormiens]

essentially it boils down to supply and demand.

there are a finite number of spots available on a national team. and there usually are more people who are able to play then there are spots available. So either they resigned themselves to be be good or just not-good enough for the national team, people who want to continue to play professionally will have to decide if they want to stay on and fight for a sport for their own national team or go to another country where they stand a better chance to be on the national team.

The most obvious examples would be table tennis players from China. China has heaps of table tennis players because they have great academies that spot and develop talent. In any pool, you want more talent than spots, so you can pick the best and this is what happens. They pick the best and the rest are left to work out what they want to do with their lives really. The problem (though that's probably not the right word) is that even the players that China doesn't want are so good that they are of an international standard. The only people better than these people that don't make it, are the ones that made it to the national team in China. So that's why you always get the Olympics where the Singapore team or any other team (Holland and Denmark I think also have China born tennis players) always come in 2nd, 3rd or 4th and who do they lose too? China.

Perhaps the question not so much is what standard are they but rather- how far would they go to continue playing in that sport? If you are willing to give up your country to play for a sport, that must mean that you are determined to win at all costs and that's a good thing isn't it, if you're willing to do anything to win which is what sport is mostly all about. but at the same token, what kind of person are you when your sport is more important than your nationality? I'm not judging (though it might sound like it). I think that if you have the talent, and you're willing to take it where you want, and people are willing to have you, why not use it to the best of your ability?