Funny, to my mind capitalism had destroyed much of the sport. But it's true I'm thinking from the perspective of somebody coming from a small country (Romania

Funny, to my mind capitalism had destroyed much of the sport. But it's true I'm thinking from the perspective of somebody coming from a small country (Romania in my case). 20-30 years ago we used to have pretty good teams and players, but the entire sport was gutted once it was open to the international market. Romanian teams didn't have the funds to compete with Western clubs. Eventually all the good players and coaches left - nowadays Romanian football is played at the level of a second league in a powerful country. The best players get sold off quickly, the experience accumulated over the years has been lost, the national team is in disaray etc.