Recently, we had (at least some of us and I`m for sure had) talked a lot about Russian players.

All of us have some kind of a picture about English football and players.

So, for me, it will be interesting to know more about the most famous, the most promising players of other countries.

Of course, I understand not every country has the abundance of resources or willingness, presently, to develop sports, in particular, football, but anyway...

For example, Evissy, is from Finland, but I has forgetten even the name of the most popular finnish footballer, though I remember it exists.......

C`mon mates share you knowledge? it`ll be an interesting exhibition....

Sami Hyypia? He's Finnish, I believe.

Sami Hyypia? He's Finnish, I believe.

No, I have remember, it`s Jaari Litmanen........

C`mon mates........

I'm from northern ireland. There is no-one lol

Peter Thompson went across to Stockport last summer and hasn't really got settled there. He's been out injured for a couple of months but if he can get a run in the team he is sure to score goals. I would say he is good enough for a promotion chasing championship team. Hope it works out for him

Ibrahim Afellay (PSV) and Ismaïl Aissati (Ajax). Not big and butch, but intelligent readers of the game, positioning themselves well on the pitch. No prima donnas in the best of Dutch traditions either

Sami Hyypia? He's Finnish, I believe.

Is that a typo .. Finnish or finished ?

Edited March 18, 200916 yr by andy

A few promising strikers are coming through at the moment, both of them are playing abroad at the moment.

Teemu Pukki is playing at Sevilla. Chelsea was interested in him earlier on and wanted him on a trial, but couldn't go to London at the time because the Finnish season was under way. He had visited the club a few years ago, though. He's 18 and he joined Sevilla last year, so he's been mostly playing with Sevilla's reserves Sevilla Atletico, which plays in the Spanish Segunda Division, but he has already made his debut in Sevilla's first team(as a sub against Racing Santander). He's already made his full international debut in a friendly match and there have been talks of him being named in the Finnish squad for the European U-21 Championships next summer.

Here you can see him score the only goal of the match in his Sevilla Atletico debut:

Lauri Dalla Valle is another promising striker who is currently at Liverpool, although he has yet to make his debut in the first team(he's only 17). According to reports in the media Chelsea made a bid to sign him as well, but he chose Liverpool. He would've been included in the full international squad for some friendly matches in Japan earlier this year, but Liverpool didn't allow him to leave because Liverpool needed him in the youth FA Cup. According to some old stats I found he has scored 16 goals in 16 matches for Liverpool's youth team(the stats are from January 2009).

Ibrahim Afellay (PSV) and Ismaïl Aissati (Ajax). Not big and butch, but intelligent readers of the game, positioning themselves well on the pitch. No prima donnas in the best of Dutch traditions either

I`ve heard about Afellay and have watched him for PSV in CL and for Netherlands at Euro and friendlies against Russia.

By the way he had grown in PSV under Hiddink`s ruling. Hiddink himself confirmed that and introduced Afellay as a product of correct functioning of youth development system in the country.

I can agree he`s an intellegent midfielder, who can play in centre and at both flanks in the midfield... (maybe I`m wrong here)

I wonder if we have somebody from Serbia or Montenegro. It seems they have some decent starlets. What I`ve heard one of them is playing at Fiorentina first team.

Edited March 18, 200916 yr by sergeyMS

For Canada, we don't have much in the youngster departement that stands out. It's really hard to spot the players do the kind of system we have. There is only 3 professional teams, but good share of amateur teams being the football is the most played game in the country to everyones surprise, it is even higher then hockey.

Recently the system started growing with the addition of the MLS and more cities looking to rise to the occasion. Also, High-schools are getting into the movement as well, my brother is in a program that half of the school day he's in class and the other half he's practicing with trained professionals (this is something when you consider that it's a public school). I can't give you any youngsters, but here's two players that made it trough the system:

Jim Brennan - decent defender, now playing in the MLS for Toronto FC, but had a couple of good runs in lower english sides such as Norwich, Southampton, Nottingham Forrest and Bristol City. One of the most capped canadian players, but we never made it to any major competition except the confederation cups.

Thomas Radzinski - Played pretty well for a good number of english sides, but stopped his career after his contract with Fulham expired two or three years back, a really strange move.

I would have mentionned Hargreaves but he decided to be English, and so f*** him!

Frank Lampard, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole and Michael Mancienne.

What more can you ask for?

Personally I'm getting excited about Conor Clifford who is in the youth set up at Chelsea. I believe he has at least been on the bench for the reserves on one or two occasions. If he ever makes the first team I'll buy a round at the Shed End piss up in the relevant year (no Scotch allowed of course).

Sweden has a few, but I'm not sure how highly rated they are.

Albin Ekdal who plays for Juventus. He was bought from Brommapojkarna - a team that prefers to train youngsters instead of buying players (a friend of mine once played in one of their many youth teams) - and was supposed to either play for the youth team or else go out on loan to some small club. But he played well for the first team in pre season and because of injuries he has already played some for the first team in the league.

A really good young player.

Denni Avdic plays for my favourite team in Sweden - IF Elfsborg - and even though he hasn't really developed as well as some might have hoped he's still a good player. When Elfsborg bought him a few seasons ago he was considered the most talented 18 year old in scandinavia.

He is supposed to play as a striker, but so far he's been rather bad at it. Instead he has played alot as a midfielder or else slightly behind the striker.

Hopefully he'll take a few steps in his development this season.

Sweden also have a few talented defenders that might become really good in the future.

And we also have a player at Chelsea - Marco Mitrovic - but I've hardly seen him play yet. I think I've only seen him play a few minutes for the youth team once not so long ago. But I've read on chelseafc.com that he has done really well in some games.

I know we have a few more talents here but I don't know much about them. Also, a "talent" in Sweden might not be the same thing as a "talent" in England or Holland.

Speaking of talents, I know this one isn't swedish but I have to mention him, does anyone know much about Kroos in Germany? I've heard lots of good stuff about him.

Jim Brennan - decent defender, now playing in the MLS for Toronto FC, but had a couple of good runs in lower english sides such as Norwich, Southampton, Nottingham Forrest and Bristol City. One of the most capped canadian players, but we never made it to any major competition except the confederation cups.

Thomas Radzinski - Played pretty well for a good number of english sides, but stopped his career after his contract with Fulham expired two or three years back, a really strange move.

I would have mentionned Hargreaves but he decided to be English, and so f*** him!

I`ve seen few games with Radzinski for Fulham several years ago, but, obviously, no impressions kept in my mind about him.

Any chance of qualifying for WC-2010?

F**k Hargreaves, yes, sure thing. I`m with you here

Personally I'm getting excited about Conor Clifford who is in the youth set up at Chelsea. I believe he has at least been on the bench for the reserves on one or two occasions. If he ever makes the first team I'll buy a round at the Shed End piss up in the relevant year (no Scotch allowed of course).

Is he someone you know? Any relation?

The MLS season is just about to start here, but the few I have heard most about are Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore who are currently playing abroad and from what I hear getting no playing time. Altidore is a big powerful striker who I thought would turn into a good player but I think he is on loan to some second division Portugese team or something. Sacha Kljestan is a young CAM who recently had a trial at Celtic, but unfortunately the transfer policy for American players is not done by the actual team, but the association that runs the league, and they put a ridiculous price tag on him.

Then there is always those Fulham players like Clint Dempsey.

Afraid not many players here that Chelsea will be after any time soon, it would be great though!

Freidel

Howard

Demeritt

Spector

Dempsey

Beasley @ Rangers

Edu " "

Donovan @ Bayern?

Mike Bradley@ Borussia Mönchengladbach

Freddie Adu still @ Monaco I think?

Hope you didn't want any well know footballers :)

:D

Is he someone you know? Any relation?

We're all related over here Sergey.

Any chance of qualifying for WC-2010?

Nop, we're already out and had a real bad time in the qualifications. We were in the same groupe as Honduras, Jamaica and Mexico. To be honest, the only team that I saw us struggle with was Mexico, but with 2 points in 6 games proved that we had no quality at all and getting beat by Jamaica and Honduras is unacceptable for a team looking to go forward. We need a much better youth system and more teams in the country to allow the yougsters to go up, because it is really difficult (I had 8 friends playing for the Canadian U18 team a few years back, only 2 of them have any kind of chance of progressing beyond that level).

Freidel

Howard

Demeritt

Spector

Dempsey

Beasley @ Rangers

Edu " "

Donovan @ Bayern?

Mike Bradley@ Borussia Mönchengladbach

Freddie Adu still @ Monaco I think?

Hope you didn't want any well know footballers :)

:D

Donavon is coming back from Bayern unfortunately, I wanted him to succeed there but it wasn't to be. And I believe Beasley is on the move.

Edu is a good shout, Rookie of the year last year.

Ryan Giggs. - Man U

Aaron Ramsey. - Arsenal

Gareth Bale. - Spuds

Jack Collison (part Welsh, played for us 4 times) - Wet Spam

Danny Gabbidon - God knows.

Michael Owen - Traitor.

Jason Koumas - Wigan.

But to name a few.

We have a fair few youngsters coming through in the Welsh Squad too :)

Bulgaria tends to produce a fair bit of talent that makes it at top teams. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, there have been a great number of fantastic players that play in Europe's finest leagues. I won't mention the big stars, as you all know them well, since they play in the Prem (Berbatov, Martin Petrov and Stiliyan Petrov), but here are the most promising players to come out of Bulgaria:

Valeri Bojinov - Still the biggest hope of our football, although he has been in the spotlight since he was 16. Caught the eye of many while at Lecce and at 18 he moved from Fiorentina with a transfer fee that was at the time the highest for a Bulgarian footballer (Berbatov later eclipsed that). He plays as a striker, he is very fast, quick thinking and has a thunder of a shot in him. His last two season at Man City have been plagued by injuries and as a result he has barely played 5 games for them. He is also dating a very popular singer and has featured in some of her videos.

Valeri Domovchijski - The best thing to have come out of my other team Levski Sofia's youth, he is a young and versatile striker, very cool in front of goal and with an excellent touch. He made his name with Levski's fantastic run in the UEFA cup in 2005/2006 and Levski's consequent entry in the group stages of the CL, the first Bulgarian team to do that. He currently plays at Hertha, although he spends most of the time on the bench. Known for scoring the last goal on Oliver Kahn.

Nikolay Mihaylov - The son of the legendary goalkeeper ad current president of the Bulgarian football Union Borislav Mihaylov, Nikolay too came through the ranks of Levski (as did his father). He was considered very promising, but at one of his first games as a starter against Werder in Sofia (which was conceivably the only game, from which Levski could get something) he made two shocking mistakes, which eventually cost the team and Levski lost 0-3. He was booed by the fans (and as a member of that crowd I am proud to say I didn't) and substituted at half-time. At this point, his career was widely considered finished and then last summer he made an extremely surprising switch to... Liverpool. They, however, didn't keep him and now he plays on loan at Twente with mixed reports of his performances. After that, public opinion suddenly turned around and he is now hailed as one of the biggest talents of Bulgarian football. He is the captain of our Under-21 national team.

Edited March 18, 200916 yr by Virosh

Donavon is coming back from Bayern unfortunately, I wanted him to succeed there but it wasn't to be. And I believe Beasley is on the move.

Edu is a good shout, Rookie of the year last year.

Edu has had a tough season at Rangers. To be fair to him he hasn't had many chances in the first team and even when he has been picked it has been against the weaker sides in the league. Money is very tight in Scottish football just now (Rangers have recently announced redundancies for a number of office staff) and they must be wondering why on earth they paid £2.5m for Edu.

Maksimov, do you know anything about Eremenko (can't remember how it's spelled). I remember hearing alot about him and that he would become great, but lately I haven't heard a word about him.

Maksimov, do you know anything about Eremenko (can't remember how it's spelled). I remember hearing alot about him and that he would become great, but lately I haven't heard a word about him.

Which one? Alexei Eremenko Jr. or his younger brother Roman Eremenko? Roman is playing in Dynamo Kiev(on loan from Udinese) and Alexei is playing for FC Saturn in the Russian Premier League.

Alexei showed a lot of promise and he had a great World Cup qualifying campaign for the last World Cup as he scored eight goals, several of which were from freekicks, but he's had some personal problems which have affected his performances on the pitch. He's been a bit lazy and arrogant, but he's definitely talented player. Because of a drunk driving incident he was banned from the national team by the Finnish FA for a while. He had a dip in form and hasn't been picked by the Finnish team's manager since last summer, but now he's been picked for the squad for the qualifying match against Wales. Hopefully he will get his act together now.

While Alexei was out of the national team, his younger brother Roman has become a regular in the national team. He seems to have better work ethic and smaller ego.

Bulgaria tends to produce a fair bit of talent that makes it at top teams. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, there have been a great number of fantastic players that play in Europe's finest leagues. I won't mention the big stars, as you all know them well, since they play in the Prem (Berbatov, Martin Petrov and Stiliyan Petrov), but here are the most promising players to come out of Bulgaria:

Valeri Bojinov - Still the biggest hope of our football, although he has been in the spotlight since he was 16. Caught the eye of many while at Lecce and at 18 he moved from Fiorentina with a transfer fee that was at the time the highest for a Bulgarian footballer (Berbatov later eclipsed that). He plays as a striker, he is very fast, quick thinking and has a thunder of a shot in him. His last two season at Man City have been plagued by injuries and as a result he has barely played 5 games for them. He is also dating a very popular singer and has featured in some of her videos.

Valeri Domovchijski - The best thing to have come out of my other team Levski Sofia's youth, he is a young and versatile striker, very cool in front of goal and with an excellent touch. He made his name with Levski's fantastic run in the UEFA cup in 2005/2006 and Levski's consequent entry in the group stages of the CL, the first Bulgarian team to do that. He currently plays at Hertha, although he spends most of the time on the bench. Known for scoring the last goal on Oliver Kahn.

Nikolay Mihaylov - The son of the legendary goalkeeper ad current president of the Bulgarian football Union Borislav Mihaylov, Nikolay too came through the ranks of Levski (as did his father). He was considered very promising, but at one of his first games as a starter against Werder in Sofia (which was conceivably the only game, from which Levski could get something) he made two shocking mistakes, which eventually cost the team and Levski lost 0-3. He was booed by the fans (and as a member of that crowd I am proud to say I didn't) and substituted at half-time. At this point, his career was widely considered finished and then last summer he made an extremely surprising switch to... Liverpool. They, however, didn't keep him and now he plays on loan at Twente with mixed reports of his performances. After that, public opinion suddenly turned around and he is now hailed as one of the biggest talents of Bulgarian football. He is the captain of our Under-21 national team.

Bulgaria indeed have some very bright players, but, it seems, always failing to qualify for big events, your last forum was Euro 1996, isn't it?

Alexei showed a lot of promise and he had a great World Cup qualifying campaign for the last World Cup as he scored eight goals, but he's had some personal problems which have affected his performances on the pitch. He's been a bit lazy and arrogant, but he's definitely talented player. Because of a drunk driving incident he was banned from the national team by the Finnish FA for a while.

While Alexei was out of the national team, his younger brother Roman has become a regular in the national team. He seems to have better work ethic and smaller ego.

Spot on! )))

3 pts for you mate B)

Lozzy, are you talking about Edu or Freddy Adu?