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The international trade of players in EuropeanNorway (see Table 6C; Figure 3)Norway’s all-time high on the FIFA ranking was its rating as second in October1993 and July/August 1995. Since then, Norway has fallen down theladder, with a ranking of 52 in July 2006 as the all-time low. The correlationcoefficient indicates that the national team has performed better themore its internationals have played for foreign teams. The teams in the1994 and 1998 World Cup finals and in Euro 2000 recruited 68%, 86% and68% respectively of their squads from foreign teams. Figure 3 illustratesthat theforeign percentage in the Norwegian league has grown. Due to a shortageof data, it was impossible to confirm any correlation between this developmentand the performance of the national team.1995-96 to 36% in 2007-08 (see Table 1). In the German Bundesliga, theproportion increased from 41% in 1998-99 to 52% in 2007-08. The proportionof foreigners in Spain’s Primera Liga grew from 21% during the1995-96 season to 39% during 2007-08. However, there are no indicationsof a correlation between this growth and the performance of the Spanishnational team (see Table 6F). Unfortunately, we do not have data onthe distribution of Spanish internationals on domestic and foreign teams.The same pattern applies to the Czech Republic (see Table 6I), where ourdata did not unveil any correlation between the export of internationalsand performance of the national team.TABLE 6E Correlations – ItalyTABLE 6F Correlations – SpainFIGURE 3 Norway FIFA rank, percentage of foreigner in the domestic league,internationals playing for domestic teamsTABLE 6H Correlations – NetherlandsTABLE 6C Correlations – NorwayGreece (see Table 6D; Figure 4)Greece’s all-time low was a ranking of 66 in September 1998; its all-timehigh was in April/May 2005, when it was ranked 12th. The national team’svictory in Euro 2004 was the highlight. Greece has also performed betteras more of its internationals have played for foreign teams. This pattern isconfirmed by the correlation coefficients where the direct effect is significantat the 0.05% level, while the lag effect is significant at the 0.01%level.FIGURE 4 Greece FIFA rank, percentage of foreigners in the domestic indomestic league, internationals playing for domestic teamsTABLE 6D Correlations – GreeceThe Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain and Czech RepublicFor the Dutch team (see Table 6H) there is no significant correlation betweenits FIFA ranking and the proportion of internationals at foreign clubs.Unfortunately, we had insufficient data to conduct any statistical tests onthe relationship between the proportion of foreigners at Dutch clubs andthe performance of the national team. Neither for Germany (see Table 6G)nor for Italy (see Table 6E) did we find any correlation between the FIFAranking and any of the other variables. Both national teams have mainlyrecruited their players from their own domestic league.The Italian Serie A increased the proportion of foreigners from 12% inTABLE 6I Correlations - Czech RepublicDiscussionThe success of a national team will, of course, be influenced by a wide rangeof factors, not only which clubs the players play for on a daily basis. However,there can be no doubt that the most basic factor is the talent of aplayer. Although, for example, the coach is of importance, even the mostbrilliant coach is unable to conjure up a successful team of untalentedplayers. The production process for a football team falls into the categoryof team production. In this context, the term team production refers toproduction processes that have the following characteristics (Alchian &Demsetz, 1972):1) Several types of resources are used.2) The product is not a sum of separable outputs of each cooperating resource.An additional factor creates a team organisation problem.3) Not all resources used in team production belong to one agent.In this context, the player represents the inputs in the team’s productionof output. In general, the productivity of an input refers to its effectivenessin the production process, for example the quantity of output per unitof input, which is the average productivity.Furthermore, due to the second characteristic, the inputs are not independentof each other. Let us assume that Y is the output, while X representsthe inputs (the 11 players). Then, the relationship between the inputsand the output can be expressedas follows in mathematical terms:If we replace ≠ with > in formula 2 (which is a suitable characteristic in afootball context), this means that there is a complementary relationshipbetween the inputs. If one player becomes more talented, this will improvethe productivity of his teammates.The productivity of a football player,however, is not a homogeneous concept.Therefore, no common methodexists for how to measure his productivity.A player’s productivity in a team willdepend on a number of qualities, such as the ability to score goals, sendand receive passes, react quickly and technical skills, among others. Theimportance of these qualities will vary, depending on the player’s positionin the team. In general, these (and other) qualities will be influenced by thedaily milieu in which the player operates, i.e. his club and the league to whichit belongs. The better the team-mates and the opponents, the better the‘learning environment’ to cultivate these qualities. Hence, if a player movesto a club and league that is of better quality, this can improve that player’squality so that the national team also benefits.36 FOTBALLtreneren - nr. 5 - 2009