I have been watching German, Italian, Spanish and English football and I have some questions.
Why is there an “on loan” system and how does it work?
How often do teams get new players? It seems like every time I see my favorite teams, they have different players.
Is the amount of money available to buy new players just a matter of how much money the owner has or is there a cap?
Means that one players who is contracted to one club goes to play for another for a certain time (the loanee club usually gets to pay his wages). Big name clubs with promising young players often send them on loan to smaller clubs to get first team experience. Also a loan can be a prelude to a full transfer or a player can be loaned away when he is surplus to requirements at one club but they don’t want to lose him (Hernan Crespo was loaned by Chelsea to AC Milan for one season, but they got him back the next year and he played a major role in their title run).
The summer is the most common time for transfers. You cannot transfer when the “window closes” about September. Mid season in January you can get new players transferred for a short period of time. The transfer window is a reletivly new concept.
3)How much money the club has, or in the case of Real Madrid, can wrangle from its bankers who seem to have limitless reserves.
Signing players on a full-time contract is a very expensive business - clubs have to pay substantial signing on fees to the old club and the player, so taking a player on loan allows you to boost your squad, fill in any gaps or make up for injured players without incurring huge costs. And from the otherside, if you have a large squad, there will be some players on your books who aren’t getting much play time, but you might not want to sell them straight away, so loaning them out means you save on their wages and keep them match fit.
Well, partly the reason you’re seeing different players is that the big clubs have large squads - they could effectively field at least two teams. So managers rotate players in certain positions to give players a rest, or to change to mix of strengths depending on the opposition. If you’re Man United playing against a small club in a less important cup competition, you’d take the chance to rest some of your bigger players and give the younger players a go.
As for transfers, most happen in the summer (off season), plus there’s a small transfer window in January. But most clubs will only sell a handful and buy a handful, not change their entire team.
No cap, which is why the biggest, wealthiest teams utterly dominate, and why a middling team can rocket up the league if a wealthy owner comes on board (Manchester City and Chelsea being prime examples).
Or Germany’s Hoffenheim, which was promoted five times over the course of less than a decade, finishing 7th in Germany’s Bundesliga a few years ago and coming close to qualifying for European football.
The dominance of a few teams in the national leagues in Europe is really remarkable. As an example, over half the teams (17/30) in the NHL have won the Stanley Cup at one point or another, plus a few defunct teams. Over the last 10 seasons (not counting the lockout) there’s been 10 winners. Of course, there were times when the Habs, the Islanders, or the Oilers were dominant, but a lot of teams have had a chance to shine over time. In recent decades, in any given year, you can be sure that Spain’s La Liga will be won by Barca or Real, that the Premier League will be won by Man U, Chelsea, or Arsenal, that the Serie A will be won by Milan, Inter, or Juve, and that Bayern will win the Bundesliga. And if they don’t, they’ll be top-5 even in the worst case. Liverpool, for instance, have not been champions of England since 89-90, but generally contend for the top spots that qualify it for Champions League football.