Most of soccer-loving America will not get a chance to monitor Tim Ream’s progress in England like last year. That’s because his club, Bolton, has been relegated into England’s second tier. The wealth of English Premier League matches now available to U.S. audiences simply doesn’t carry over into England’ s second tier.
A real high-def bummer, eh?
So, Ream will stall, regress or (hopefully) progress apace without the rest of us knowing too much about it. So long as he’s playing (he should) and so long as Bolton doesn’t move into relegation danger (they shouldn’t) we can probably assume Ream is doing OK.
And it he does keep up with the field, we should see Ream once again in a national team shirt – sooner or later. His drop in flights shouldn’t damage those chances. Bolton’s efforts to regain its Premiership spot will keep pressure on things around the Reebok Stadium. That’s good for his development.
Competing in the English npower Championship means navigating a madly packed gauntlet of matches; each team plays 46 league contests as a start; Then you stack some cup competitions contests and that nine-month run becomes a proper British beast.
So, there’s plenty of matches from which to collect experience. Plus, England’s second tier has often been compared to Major League Soccer in quality, so it’s not bad in terms of collective skill.
That’s certainly the way Ream looks at it; what he told ESPN Soccernet’s Richard Jolly:
I don’t think it is imperative to play in the Premier League. The way he [U.S. manager Jurgen Klinsmann] looks at it, he just wants guys playing first-team football. The Championship is still a quality league.”
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- seanb20124 - Aug 17, 2012 at 6:42 AM
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So MLS is the same quality as the Championship.
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- schmutzdeck - Aug 18, 2012 at 4:43 PM
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Why do you think that? The top six teams in the Championship are probably EPL level.
I don’t see any MLS teams that can say that. Besides, it is really apples and oranges. The average MLS team has little depth and play fewer games. This means on a given night, the average Championship team is probably more talented and sharper.
MLS teams , on the other hand , have comparatively ridiculous travel requirements.
At the end of the day it’s all about resources and money. EPL and Championship teams have
more of both when it comes to their players and teams.
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- twalkray - Aug 17, 2012 at 3:38 PM
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I thought it was more that MLS has been compared to the English Championship in quality
