Soccer hypothetical situation

[medgar]

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soccer players have a much shorter peak than most athletes. a team of 12 excellent EPL players (including a number of elite players) today would be pretty awful five years from now, i think. if you picked all players who are 18-22 and you had some decent luck with injuries, you might do it in five years, i guess. seven or eight would be more likely.

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That's ridiculous, most players can last at the very top level for at least 10 years, sometimes closer to 15 (or more). There are countless examples of players dropping down a division or two when they reach mid-30s and coping fine. A team of players in their 20s would have no trouble.

The standard in England's lower leagues isn't THAT good. The cup final thing only really works in one off games (hence its name). Over a league season the quality would tell. Your first choice 11 would be 3 top class players, 3 EPL squad players and 4 who already play in the Championship. That kind of team would easily see you up,, SaltCracka is spot on. They'd only struggle if they lost several of those players to injury, where the backup would be sub-standard.

[KDawg]

getting 3 successive promotions, or 3 in 4 years is insanely tough, I really don't think that any team, but those that are in the EPL top 6 could pull it off to be honest. Things can go wrong, and if say, they have a bad run of form in league 1 for a month stretch, that's six matches, they could easily drop enough points to where they are in the play off places and from there it's anybodies game. Only once that I can think of has a team rapidly climbed the league tables to go from the 4th tier to the top flight within 5 years, and that was when swansea somehow did it in the late 70s and early 80s with John Toshack. It should also be noted that they fell as hard as they climbed

[medgar]

I really think you're overestimating the closeness of general quality between the Premiership and lower leagues. There's a massive gap now, the days where Nottm Forest could get promotion, win the top division and then the European Cup in successive years are long gone. Hell there's a fair gap now between the top sides in the Premiership and the rest of it. If we were talking one top class player I'd probably agree but really, potentially 6 players taken from the top sides plus another 4 from the Championship would be plenty to get to the EPL.

Your point about it never being done is kinda irrelevent, no side has ever been given 3 top class players and 3 EPL quality squad players to try it with.

[The_Bends]

Assuming competent management and good crowds (caused by the novelty value, winning record and success) it really should be done in four years. Lower league standard is really not the same as Premiership. I have no doubt the team would get to the Championship in straight promotions. However the championship would be difficult. Every year three teams who last year had premier league squads try to get promoted (mostly with the bulk of the team intact) and often struggle. However I still think the proposed team would have the required quality to do it. Especially if they made good signings in the three years.

[talentdeficit]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
soccer players have a much shorter peak than most athletes. a team of 12 excellent EPL players (including a number of elite players) today would be pretty awful five years from now, i think. if you picked all players who are 18-22 and you had some decent luck with injuries, you might do it in five years, i guess. seven or eight would be more likely.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's ridiculous, most players can last at the very top level for at least 10 years, sometimes closer to 15 (or more). There are countless examples of players dropping down a division or two when they reach mid-30s and coping fine. A team of players in their 20s would have no trouble.

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i'm not saying they are only playing for five years, but players who are elite for more than five years are incredibly rare. your elite team now will be merely good in five years time when it's most important for them to be at their best.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I don't see how you can make that claim since tey would be playing against worse players and they would be playing less games.

[Michael Davis]

"soccer players have a much shorter peak than most athletes."

No. They peak very early and don't drop off until about 30 or so. If they are extremely skilled they can stick around forever on that alone (think Zidane, but this also applies to lesser stars like Stoichkov--perhaps misspelled-- who stick around until they are 85 and play in the MLS until they are 100.)

-Michael

[KDawg]

THey'd only be playing less games if their Prem club went deep into european competition and deep in either the league or FA Cup. Every league division below the prem plays 8 more matches in the league season, and if they are in the bottom two divisions, there is also a cup competition for those clubs too. Don't forget that while the players are of lesser quality in the divisions below, the games are much much more physical, so the likelyhood of injuries being picked up is greater