This month, World Soccer have released their annual list of the top 500 footballers in the world. Obviously enough, whenever any of these kind of lists are thought up they will inevitably be purely subjective things.
Despite that, the fact that only one Irish player makes it onto this list is certainly interesting. Even more so when you consider that that player is Robbie Keane.
That's not to denigrate Keane but if he is, in the twilight of his career, the only Irish international who can get into the top 500 players in the world then something is definitely wrong.
In terms of nationality, Ireland are joined on the single entry end of things by the likes of Albania (Shkelzen Gashi), Cuba (Osvaldo Alonso), Guinea (Kevin Constant), India (Sunil Chetri) and Iraq (Dhurgam Ismail).
You have to say that some of those names are rather far-fetched in terms of being within the top 500 players in the world. World Soccer does what it says on the tin in that it is a publication sold around the world. It's quite likely that the appearance of someone like Sunil Chetri in there serves to sell copies in India more than anything else.
If AC Milan flop Kevin Constant is really better than Seamus Coleman then we know absolutely nothing about football. Either that or maybe Irish football really has fallen that far and we should all go back to sticking out heads in the sand.
[Examiner]
