On the ball in Slovakia
By CNN's Richard Quest
 |  Slovan in action. |
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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (CNN) -- The stadium told me all I really needed to know about Slovan Bratislava soccer club.
Built in a different era (it was completed shortly after the second world war) and was now well past its prime.
But I was here to find out how the its players and its fans thought European Union membership might help the ailing club, not discuss the intricacies of European football (which is just as well, because as you will know, sport is not my strong point!)
Slovan has an impressive history, the height of which seemed to be winning the UEFA championship in 1969 (they beat Barcelona.) Since then their trophy cupboard seems to be made up of decanters and goblets for regional and Czech wins and not much else.
This season the team is languishing near the bottom of the Slovak league, so tonight's game against another Slovakian team was considered important if Slovan was not to slither further down the table.
Everyone seemed rather good humoured about the team's horrible performance this year, usually brushing it off with a shrug of the shoulders.
Not that there were many fans in the crowd to watch. Just 2,500 turned up to rattle around the 30,000 seat stadium, because the game was being shown on television.
The fans hope that once Slovakia joins the EU it will lead to an improvement in their team's fortunes. "It will improve the economy and that will give more money to the team" one told me.
The team's Captain Ladislav Pecko, too, believes that joining the EU is going to help.
"Our young players now have a better opportunity to get to Europe which can be a good motivation; and we also hope that joining the EU will improve the situation in all our sports."
Put another way -- joining the EU will offer the players of teams like Slovan the opportunity to defect to larger, richer clubs to advance their careers.
And this is the remarkable aspect, because both players and management both seem to relish the chance that they'll be able to sell their best players and raise more cash to bring on even more players.
It is a case of selling the best corn today, to use the money to buy seed and grow better corn tomorrow.
Not that the management of Slovan need worry anytime too soon about losing too many of its players to wealthier poachers.
The coach, Josef Adamac was brutally honest. "We would be very glad if we had players those European clubs want to buy because that is how it works all over the world and it would help us a lot."
Which seems to me a bit like your boss bemoaning the fact you won't leave ... because no-one else wants you anyway.
Oh, for the record. Slovan lost, again, 3-2.
