Why Does Liverpool Produce so Many Top Footballers?
There is something quietly amusing about the fact that Liverpool as a city has produced so many excellent footballers over the years. The manner in which the rest of the country seems to hate Liverpool and Scousers in particular means that they have to engage in some cognitive dissonance when it comes to supporting Scouse players in their team or in the England setup.
In fact, the North of England in general does well at producing decent footballers and football clubs, with Manchester and Liverpool having won more top-flight and European titles than the rest of the country put together.
The question is, why?
It’s a Footballing City
The reality of Liverpool is that it is a footballing city, with the sport looked upon with almost religious fanaticism. It means that people think about and play football almost before they’re able to walk and talk, such is the extent to which it is ingrained in the people of Liverpool.
Speak to someone from Liverpool and one of the first questions that they will be asked is ‘Are you a Red or a Blue?’ It is significantly more strange when someone says they don’t like football than confessing that they do. It is with this in mind that the city has so many youth teams that offer a path into playing football for those in the centre and the outskirts.
As a result, scouts know to make their way to Merseyside in order to find out whether there are any hot young prospects making their way through the ranks of the youth system that can then be promoted to play for the likes of Liverpool or Everton. Failing that, they can try to get onto the books of one of the smaller teams, such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Tranmere Rovers or Wigan Athletic.
Football being in the blood means that the vast majority of youngsters will kick a ball at one point or another, discovering pretty quickly whether or not they have an aptitude for it that might see them make the grade.
Producing England Players
Given the manner in which Scousers are looked down upon by large portions of the rest of the country, there is something ironic about the fact that the city of Liverpool has produced more England players than any city other than the capital. Prior to the World Cup in 2022, there were 285 players that had represented the Three Lions either in the European Championships or at a World Cup.
Of those 285 players, the North West was responsible for 73 of them; largely thanks to the success of Manchester United and Liverpool. London saw 56 players line up for England, whilst Merseyside produced 28 players for those tournaments.
Yelling “scouse bastard” at Kelleher, when Trent and Gordon are literally in England shirts just shows how England fans areš
I remember when united fans used to do the same thing when they played Liverpool while their best player in the club history is a Scouserš pic.twitter.com/I0yOcJLbGP
ā Nwa Liverpoolā¤ļø (@ImOliviaPatrick) September 7, 2024
From Steven Gerrard to Terry McDermott, Wayne Rooney to Robbie Fowler, Liverpool had sent more than two dozen players off to tournaments all around the world. If you look at Sefton alone it had produced three players, which put it joint-fifth on the list alongside Birmingham. Steve McMahon, Phil Thompson and Gerrard himself came from the area, with the working class nature of Merseyside meaning that many have seen football as a possible escape over the years.
Even in the modern Liverpool team there is Trent Alexander-Arnold who played for England, with Curtis Jones likely to represent the senior team in the future.
A Working Class Sport
The element of Liverpool as a working class city and football as a working class sport cannot be overlooked when it comes to why it is that area has produced so many top-quality players. In the days when working class men were expecting to head down the mine, one of the only escapes was to be good at sport.
That resulted in a passion for the game and the playing of it that has carried on through the generations, even if people aren’t exactly trying to get away from having to go down the pit nowadays. It also helps that Liverpool and Everton both have excellent youth systems, through which the players make their way.
@prosportparent Liverpool’s head of academy Alex Inglethorpe shares some of the practices that go on behind the scenes at Liverpool’s football academy from the U14s to U18s #proficientsportparenting #footballacademy #footballinsights #footballadvice #academyfootball #LFC #YNWA #Footballparent #footballcoach #footballer #sportparent ā¬ original sound – prosportparent
The beauty of a good academy is that it is mainly there to produce footballers. Obviously it is a benefit to the club if a player moves on to play for the club that the academy belongs to, but if the player ends up playing for another top club then that is also seen as a success.
The young, largely working class lads who play for the academies in Liverpool can often make their way elsewhere to succeed, showing the ability of Scouse players in a way that encourages scouts to have a look at other players and on and on the cycle spins.
