“To have a player feature in the first team for his hometown club is very uncommon (although another Mancunian, Paul Scholes, has been a stalwart of the United lineup for the past decade)”

It is NOT uncommon at Manchester United! Off the top of my head, in recent years mancunian players include:

Danny Wellbeck and
Paul Scholes – as mentioned above

Wes Brown (also from Welbeck’s neighbourhood of Longsight)
Gary Neville – club captain
Ryan Giggs (born in Wales but brought up in Manchester)
Danny Simpson
Richard Eckersley (from Salford, the area surrounding Old Trafford)
Adam Eckersley (as above)
Phil Bardsley
Phil Neville
Nicky Butt
etc..

All the above players have featured in United’s first team in the past few years. Although, granted, Phil Neville, Butt and Bardsley left a while back.

There are numerous other squad members from the surrounding areas of Lancashire. Also players such as Jonny Evans and his brother Corey who although Northern Irish have lived in Manchester with their entire family for years.

You seem to be suggesting that what you describe as “the homogeneous style” is not only a disgrace to soccer/football itself, but to the “traditions” inherent in each club and that those traditions, depending on the club, are of particular stylistic importance. Are they? Should a team that has a particular style not adapt that style if that style is no longer reasonable in a climate where stadiums are well-tended and have manicured lawns? Muddy fields are bad fields — if quality soccer means anything (and perhaps it doesn’t) then why should a team not improve itself?

Do you, as a fan of ManU, really believe that your team should have nothing but locals playing when that means that the quality of your play will plummet? Don’t you, as a fan, want your team to be better than it would be if only Mancunians were playing in the side? I don’t disagree that the money-grubbing elite of the world are ruining the game in many ways, but isn’t that a reason to advocate a salary cap and spending limits rather than trashing the “new style” brought about by attempting to win leagues and tournaments through the best possible system and with the best possible players?

If you admit, and it seems you do, that the long-ball style made famous in the muddy fields in northern England is not as good as the “homogenous style”, then why shouldn’t clubs adopt the better style if it helps them win? Or should Toon replace their field with a mud puddle and get back to shoving each other around? At least the traditionalists would be happy with their relegation battle, right?

Is Man City not deserving of the same opportunities given to their cross-city rivals? Or should they, by dint of not being one of the “big clubs” be kept out in the dark, incapable of winning championships or European glory simply because, well, their tradition is to lose, so lose they should.

Also, each of the teams you listed in your last sentence, by the way, have their own homegrown talents — in fact, Real Madrid has more homegrown talent in their ranks than ManU, Chelsea, or AC Milan. I fail to see how ManU is any better a club for having Scholes and Welbeck. Like any large club, they are required to bring in talent from the rest of the world to shore up their ranks. They just have the money to do so and, in a purely theoretical sense, there’s nothing wrong with that.

If you really want teams to build from within and maintain their “traditions”, you should demand a hard league salary cap (no luxury taxes a la MLB or soft salary caps a la NBA) and spending limits within the league. Moaning about stylistic decline, a lack of tradition, and a “loss of identity” is counter-productive if you don’t couple it with real changes to the system as a whole.