posted Feb 9, 2007

We are all passionate about football. I hope the next generation will as well. A successful England Team is a vital part of the jigsaw that will enable this.It is an obvious thing to say that to be successful as a national team we have to better than the other countries.To better at anything you have to work harder and smarter than your opposition. In youth coaching in this currently we are not doing it. It is that simple. We do have good players but too few of them. That is why they are so expensive in the transfer market. Simple. Supply and demand. We are not going to produce enough technical gifted players of quality by going about it as we do currently. If we were we would be doing already. Our national teams at every age group cannot retain possession. Why? Because they lack quality as Arsene Wenger would say.Big international tournaments take place in the summer when it gets hot. In the heat you need to retain possession. Don't blame our manager, blame the whole system that produces players from top to bottom.The solution is to get players of all ages to get a ball at their feet as often as possible. The talented and hardworking ones will eventually master the ball. Coaching must concentrate on skill development and place physical development at the bottom of the priority list as the Dutch do. We must learn from best practice and we should look no further than the most innovative coach in this country Simon Clifford. Yes he is a maverick but so was Brian Clough. When your in need of a change and root and branch reform you don't send for a civil servant or a man who will keep the chair warm. My message to the football establishment of this country is that if we don't do something serious soon then future generations will start takimg up other sports and pastimes in greater numbers and our national game will slowly but steadily decline. Football has no divine right to be top in the popularity stakes and youngsters today have many more choices than previous generations. Let us all get real.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 9, 2007

i_amRonaldinho10

England had 53% possesion, Spain had 47%. It is a stereotype that England can't keep the ball. The only problem with England was their finishing.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 10, 2007

If a team is only allowed to have players from within a 10 minute radius, what teams could anyone born in Cornwall play for? No one.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 10, 2007

I have heard the same things said about the England since the fifties. We managed to lose to USA with one of our better teams!!!
Somehow we managed to win the 1966 world cup, due primarily to a truly world class defence and Charltons great shooting ability.
The Brazilians, Italy and Germany have their crisis qualifying, but most times somehow get it together when it matters.
The problem with England is the choice of manager, and we usually end up with the wrong person. Any half intelligent fan could do a better job.
We do not lack the talent or skills that is a myth. The problem is that a bad manager can always mess up a good squad.
It is all about formation, tactics and implimentation.
So first you have to decide on a formation, once you have decided that then you find the players, not the other way round.
Tactics requires somebody who can see what is happening, and get around it.
Implimentation requires constant honing of skills and practicing formation and tactics.
I remember Merson and Allison taking over the England team in a shambles, and immediately transforming it into a good team, I think they may have one of the best records, please check that.
Poor McClaren is not very sharp, he does not even know what the problem is never mind how to fix it. We will probably qualify for the Euro Champs and end up going out in the quarter finals as usual. We should always make the semi's.
McClaren is the wrong person, almost every fan knows this, do not blame him, blame those who selected him.
The solution is to let him go and now, but that will not happen.
Another damage control option is to draft in some help, I think that 'Appy 'Arry and Pearce together would solve the problem.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 10, 2007

There is not a great problem in youth development in england. The problem is that some clubs develop players and others don't. Two main names that crop up are Wenger and Benitez. Wenger has been at Arsenal 10 years, the great thinker, helps designs a stadium, build a good team but has nothing to add to the gunners youth set-up. How can this be? 10 years. He could have addressed the issue if he wanted.

Shinning examples like Man Utd have a manager who dedicated to bringing through players or Boro who have a chairman who states he wishes to see a team of teesiders, then builds towards that.

Liverpool have had managers from abroad but there no evidence to show that they have brought their knowledge to develop youth players.

Its a myth that other countries have better set-ups. Scotland beat france in a real match, did the french blame the youth set-up or state that the scots must have a better system?

Englands poor performance was down to tatics. Why play a right footer at left back and a centre mid on the left? Shorey, Baines, Matty Taylor, Andy Taylor and Barry would have provided a decent left side. Lampard was never in front of Neville once in the game. Does not really matter if a player only gets the odd cap, just that they come and do a job.

It was a friendly and nothing was explored. Gary Neville played rather than Richards. Lampard and Gerrard where crow barred into the same team again. Crouch showed that he could hold the ball up, so what. The BIG risks where playing Carrick (keeps the ball well), Foster in goal (i'll give this credit) and bringing in two injury prone players back into the fold.

Why not leave Gerrard or Lampard out to see what happens? What does Dawson (holding spurs defence together) have to do to start? Three centre halfs that played don't need the experence and one of them will be out again soon with injury (Woodgate) Does Barry have to score more than 9 goals (his tally so far) to get in?

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 11, 2007

"3) Stop competitive 11-a-side games for the youngest players. Most academies spend two thirds of their five-hour allotment with the kids on preparing for the upcoming weekend’s game. That leaves just one third of the time for work on technique, the very building blocks of young player’s career. Less focus on competition, with smaller games and more touches is the way forward. Who cares if their teams under-12s are top of the table if your under-18s can’t trap a ball?"
=============
I know a lot of kids who would howl at the prospect of losing their competitive games, although 11-a-side is unnecessary.

Do you think all those Brazilian kids don't play competitively until they grow up?

On the contrary! That's what these kids live for!

Actually, I think the best additional ingredient to youth training would be regular camps/exchanges abroad in foreign clubs as home-grown players broadly lack the qualities/attitude/culture/psyche nutured in other countries.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 16, 2007

It's not just football suffering in this country. It's any sport. There isn't the investment with young, old, rich, poor, black, white. Why do the Americans keep churning out top athletes in all fields (apart from footy, but we all know the USA don't really support footy)? Because they invest massively in their sportsmen/women and the opportunities provided are endless.

The opportunities are so poor in England that athletes have to go abroad to get quality training and time to play their chosen sport. This takes cash. Which, because it's so
damned expensive to buy mediocrity in this country, is hard to come by. That's why we have people like Paul Casey and Luke Donald in the top echelons of golf. Or why Andy Murray (I know he's Scottish, but a good example) is doing so well now he has an American coach. They went and learned their trade in a foreign country.

The other problem which, I believe, will not be resolved in the next 25 years is the attitude of the country. The country, as an entity, does not support the individual because of the attitude of the collective nation. These days it's "cooler" for youngsters to smoke their back-sides off and place buns in the young ovens of our teenage ladies than spend time and effort in any endeavour that uses brain-power and physical attributes. Add to that the seemingly unrestricted media who failed as sportsmen/women and decided to write about it instead. In the process they are hyping up the potential of some sportspeople and when they don't deliver (because of the poor opportunities) they are cut to shreds. The media are like pushy parents who are trying to fulfil their unattained dreams through their subject matter.

For an athlete, this pressure is unnecessary, unwanted and damaging. The problem with England football team performances is that they are scared to "play". You can see it in almost every game. Sports are games. They need to be played. You can see that the England team are scared of trying anything and just "playing the game" in case it doesn't come off and they get rated with a 4/10 in the Sun the following day. They may say in interviews that they don't care about that, but it's there in the back of their minds. That in itself is enough to impair performance.

There's little hope for en-mass production of quality sportspeople in the near future in England unless a whole crop come across some cash from somewhere, take the bold step as a youngster to live in another part of the world, then come back at age 18 and show the rest what it's all about. Unless the opportunities improve here, massive personal sacrifice and effort from the individual is the only thing that will produce quality.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 16, 2007

So just want to put some outside view on this. I am living in Germany and used to live in the UK.
To be honest I don´t think yous should moan that much about all the stuff surrounding the development of english football players. After all you have to admit, that looking on the England squad usually is a pleasure to do. Apart from a quality goal keeper you got it all, on every position.
And since I am from Germany I obviously tend to compare our national side to yours and since about 1996 I cannae remember thinking that we could match your team at all, and as time moved on it only seemed to just get worse and worse for us.
In Germany we took our big crisis a few years ago (still somehow we managed to get to WC final 2002, which is absolutely astonishing). I think since 2000 we finally managed to turn our system around and we are at the point where we earn those changes through all these new young players coming through, who are a pleasure to watch.
So what I think about England is
1st: it is absolutely beyond me how England is able to massively underachive with a squad like that every time, for me that is a freak accident
2nd: England needs finally to get a good manager, I think Germany would have been nothing without their managers
3rd: english players seem to lose their attitude as soon as they put on this shirt that represents their home nation, usually guys like Gerrard never know when they are beaten, but they somehow accept defeat so easy with the national team (that is something what I really admire about our national side, we can be as bad as you want, but we tend to get results though)
And for your league „problems“: There can´t possibly be a money problem in England at any football club. These clubs are getting obscene money in comparison to the german clubs. If they are not able to convert that into sth. good then that is it for english football.
All in all, i am amazed by the bad handling of this situation of not achieving at big tournaments. This situation isn´t new and still there is not one solution found, why does it take so long to turn things around. Why don´t you make a deep cut like we did in Germany after 2000 and especially with Klinsmann 2004? It´s not that you can lose anything, it can´t get worse than underperforming in the extend as yous are doing at the moment. I really will never understand how England stands at one major win, that is a joke.
But don´t get me wrong, I quite enjoy watching England lose time and time again on big occasions, not because I dislike yous, but I just love the build up in front of every tournament, where your media declares you as the only possible winners (as well as the guys of BBC, what is an even bigger joy to watch their faces afterwards), and then blames everyone and everything else than the team for going out of the competition. Somehow it is paranoia there.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Feb 18, 2007

like many others we saw the future as soon as mad mac was employed. 'it was always gonna be a difficult-hard-tough game'
It is the sun newspapers fault for begging we needed an english manager and helping ruin the chances of scholari.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 25, 2007

How many English players playing at the very highest level can be classed as two-footed?
Check this concept out www.theotherfootsoccerschool.com

add comment | complain about this comment