Time was when you went to a professional soccer match in any of the great footballing countries, you knew beforehand what you would see. In my own case, growing up in the nineteen-fifties in Swansea in south Wales, I knew that if my stepfather and I went to the Vetch Field, home of Swansea Town Football Club — the “Swans” — we would see a certain group of players that changed little from week to week.

The Allchurch brothers, Cliff Jones, Terry Medwin, Mel Charles, Harry Griffiths, Johnny King, Arthur Willis — these players formed the backbone of the team. A match was played between eleven players and another eleven players, for at that time the laws did not allow substitutions, even after an injury. For my stepfather and me, there was a comfortable familiarity and predictability about the Swans when we entered the old stadium and climbed up the terraces. But those days are long gone . . .

Go and watch a team in the Premiership or any of the big leagues in Europe nowadays and you will rarely see the same eleven players from one week to the next. Such are the demands of the modern game, the rigor of a schedule that may involve more than a game a week over eight or nine months, with a tough league to play in, plus two domestic cup competitions and international club matches in various European competitions, that multiple substitutions are part of the game, and matches between clubs are contests between squads of players, sometimes a group of twenty or more from which a starting eleven may be selected. The simple game of eleven against eleven has disappeared, and with its disappearance, repercussions for the coach of the team and management of the club resound every week of the season.

Consider the four clubs at the top of the Premiership (alphabetical order: Arsenal (4), Chelsea (2), Liverpool (3), Manchester United (1)). Arsenal went to one domestic cup final; Chelsea to two, winning them both; Manchester United won the league; and Liverpool went to the European Champions’ League final. Yet, if we read the British press carefully, and despite all this success for four teams in one country, the coaches and managers of each of the quartet are not satisfied, declaring that the team (that is, the squad) must be strengthened for next season.

Manchester United want to strengthen their defense, cruelly exposed in their exit in Italy from the Champions’ competition. Arsenal are developing young players (Theo Walcott is an example), and played them regularly throughout the cup competitions, keeping their senior players for the Premiership. But young players don’t magically appear as mature stars; reinforcements are needed if the London club wants to stay with the top three. Liverpool are talking about reinforcing their front line, and Chelsea are upset that they haven’t been able to survive in European competition, despite all the money that their owner has spent.

(The gossip these last few days is that the owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovitch, is getting tired of the lack of success outside England, notwithstanding the two Premiership titles and the two cup victories this season, and especially after spending billions to build the team. There is speculation that he may want to ditch the club. Gee, how much winning can you stand?)

Fortunately for these four struggling clubs, membership in the Premiership brings in lots of money. By some estimates tens of millions of pounds (double that in dollars). You can see a table of Premiership money at www.theoffside.com/world-football/200607-english-premier-league-money-table.html. The bidding in the meat-market for players is soon to start up for 2007-8, and you can bet that each of the top four will have a different look from their team of the moment.

Do I yearn for the “good old days” of soccer in Swansea in the late fifties? Not really. The noise there was great; the “Vetch Field roar” could be heard throughout the town, but the pitch was a swamp for a third of the season. I miss it only because that’s where I first began to understand this game.

But now turn on almost any match in the Premiership and you will see fabulous skill and excitement week after week. If you love this game as it can be displayed by world-class players, why would you want something less?

And why, do you suppose, are American investors putting money into clubs in England? Couldn’t they invest in Major League Soccer, I wonder?