A disturbing uncertainty has descended on English soccer. Not because of an unbearable defeat on the field – quite the opposite, in fact. The trouble started last month after Arsenal recorded a historic first-ever win for an English team against Real Madrid in Madrid.

From Gordon Taylor, the head of England’s pro player’s union, came a rueful comment: “It’s an English club, but not an English success … It’s tinged with disappointment.”

For Taylor and many others, what took the shine off Arsenal’s Champions League victory was that the team that had beaten Real did not include a single English player. Not in the starting 11, nor on the bench. “It’s hard to say that it speaks volumes for English football when none of the players are home grown,” Taylor said.

Arsenal is coached by Arsene Wenger, a Frenchman, and he soon came under criticism from Alan Pardew, an Englishman who coaches West Ham United. “I saw a headline saying that Arsenal are flying the flag for Britain,” Pardew said. “I kind of wondered where that British involvement actually was when I looked at their team. It’s important that top clubs don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s the English Premier League, and English players should be involved. Foreign players have been fantastic. We have learned from them and from foreign coaches. But, to some extent, we could lose the soul of English football – the English player.”

Pardew was repeating a long-standing criticism of foreign players, namely that they take club places that should go to English players, and thereby weaken the potential of England’s national team.

Wenger was incensed by Pardew’s remarks, claiming they had a racist tone. “Racism has nothing to do with color, it’s only linked with where you come from or how you look,” he said. “We want to kick racism out of the game, and that’s the responsibility of coaches and the union.”

But Wenger’s defense of his policy was simply that he had the responsibility to field the best team he could: “Soccer is about quality, not anything else. When you’re a young boy of 20 years old, you accept that somebody says to you that you’re not good enough. You don’t expect coaches to say sorry, you don’t have the right passport. We represent a soccer club that is about values and not about passports.”

Wenger’s defiant words would seem to be swimming against the tide on this one. Last December, FIFA President Sepp Blatter declared the tendency for club teams to be dominated by foreign players to be “dangerous.”

“We have to return to a point where, in the Bundesliga, for example, there are at least six German players in each team,” Blatter said. “Six plus five is the formula for the future.”

UEFA, the body that runs the two big European competitions, has taken action. At a meeting last month, UEFA ruled that, starting with next season’s European Champions League and the UEFA Cup, all participating teams must have at least four home-grown players on their 25-man roster. The number will be increased to eight by the 2008-09 season.

But there is less in this move than meets the eye, because a “home-grown player” means merely one who has been trained within a club’s youth system – it does not specify nationality. Thus, should Arsenal sign a 15-year-old French boy and keep him until he is 21, he would count as a home-grown player. Even if the player left Arsenal during that six-year spell, he would still be considered “home-grown” provided he joined another English club.

Obviously, such an arrangement would do little to encourage the development of “home-born” players – the ones who could be members of the country’s national team.

UEFA’s problem with setting quotas and definitions for “home-grown” players goes back to 1995, when the famous Marc Bosman case made it illegal for clubs operating within the European Union to discriminate against players on the grounds of nationality.

While UEFA has plans to extend its quota system to take in national leagues, it is far from certain that such a move will be accepted by a majority of the sport’s more powerful clubs. “We recognize the strength of feeling in Europe on this issue,” David Davies, executive director of the English FA, said. “But there is some significant opposition from our own Premier League clubs and from some of the bigger Italian clubs.”

Logically enough, for England and Italy are the most prolific importers of players. On the day Arsenal fielded its non-English team against Real Madrid, AC Milan tied Bayern Munich with a team that included only three Italians. The following day, Juventus took the field against Werder Bremen with only four Italians, and Inter Milan had only one Italian for its match against Ajax.

The results for those teams were certainly satisfactory; Arsenal, Juventus, and AC Milan are through to the final eight of the Champions League, and Inter Milan can join them if it overcomes Ajax today.

Between them, the four clubs scored 12 goals in the round of 16, 10 of which were scored by foreign players – a statistic that would seem to underline that those clubs are not doing much to help the development of goal-scorers for English and Italian World Cup teams.

Yet the argument that England’s and Italy’s chances at the World Cup have been weakened doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Both countries are considered among the favorites to take the title. The English, in particular, have been trumpeting their own virtues for some time now – from captain David Beckham’s “I believe we have a good chance,” to Wayne Rooney’s swaggering, “Of course we’re going to win the World Cup.”

The Italians have been a lot quieter about their chances, but have recently recorded two highly impressive wins – a 3-1 victory over the Netherlands in Holland and a 4-1 drubbing of Germany.

The current strength of the English and Italian national teams is unlikely to quell the misgivings of those who want to see club teams comprised primarily of home-born players.

But it does strengthen the argument of those who believe that an influx of top-level foreign players, far from weakening a country’s national team, will strengthen it, as home-born players are forced to improve as they fight for starting places on their club teams.