Some thoughts on England

Mackenzie · Jun 20, 2014

Machiavelli said:
Good post.
I posted on another thread something relating to point 1, which isn't so much the low number of coaches, and more to do with how the young are developed here against on the continent. On the European mainland, it's all about developing technical ability, whereas here, they're thrown straight in to playing games (and games on larger pitches, etc). The English approach is the traditional one. It's also one favoured by kids themselves, as my seven-year-old illustrates to me constantly. I want him to practice, by kicking a ball against a wall (control, hit; one-touch; left foot; right foot, and so on), whereas he just wants to play. Playing is more fun, but technical ability will make playing more enjoyable -- because they'll be more proficient -- in the longer term. It's about future investment. And it's here that the number of coaches also comes in.

My lad plays at Cardiff City's ADC, he was there tonight, and believe it or not the emphasis is totally on developing their technique. Tonight's session was typical, three a side one and two touch football on a 20m by 20m pitch (no goals) and dribbling drills.

I think clubs are beginning to realise where we are deficient, and are trying to improve skills and technique.

Steve.S · Jun 20, 2014

Its funny how we talk about coaching, winter breaks etc. We get to a World Cup and the players who play for England seem to lack good coaching and are tired and need a winter break. Then we have the players who play in the PL and play for other countries, playing really well and not looking so tired. I mean Suarez played much of last season, had surgery and is back playing at his best within weeks, plays in the same team as the Liverpool players and the coaching is not hampering him being world class. We do have a lot of youngsters knocking on the door for England, one of our best players on Friday Sterling is only 19. Just look at our own club and the youngsters who have come on over the last few years. The problem is money, the big clubs tie up all the decent youngsters in this country, they pick them up young, pay them silly money and then they do not develop them. Then the other clubs have to look further afield to find the talent. I can see where the idea for the B. teams for PL clubs was put forward.

Stato · Jun 20, 2014

Not Andy Naylor said:
Daniel (now, incredibly, 'Lord') Finkelstein and Michael Gove were also contemporaries of mine at the Thunderer. That old problem of a gun with two bullets ... Daniel, could you just stand in front of Michael and Matthew, please...?

The two most annoying things about Syed are his ignorance and his pomposity, but they have also led to beautiful moments. First when he wrote a long piece wondering why nobody had ever suggested Harry Redknapp should be England manager (even though they had) which appeared on the very day H was arrested by City of London police working on the bungs enquiry. Proof of the existence of God, I've always believed. Then there was the entire page devoted to the former ping-pong Olympian by Private Eye, quoting all his intros, dropping the names of philosophers ad nauseam. Not so much Pseud's Corner as the entire pitch - truly the Joey Barton of sports writing.

But that's just my opinion. Plenty of other people REALLY dislike him ...

I should add that, although I was impressed with Syed's points, your extreme dislike of Finkelstein and Gove makes me want to trust your judgement.

Stat Brother · Jun 21, 2014

I've just heard Shearer, on Roy, after backing him to the hilt say words to the effect of:-

'But we didn't perform how we see the players perform like the do week in week out'.

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

They did, they perform like that every week, that's the whole point.
They are good and very good players but that's where it ends.

The team performed to their levels of ability, which isn't good enough.

Steve.S · Jun 21, 2014

I do not see many top PL sides conceding hoof ball goals, it annoys me when people say we preformed at our level, total rubbish. Once again we under performed and froze on the big occasion. The truth is Suarez did what he does week in week out in the PL, while the rest of the Liverpool players did not, well almost, because SG set up Suarez's goal. Where I do agree with you, is that we are not good enough to win the World Cup, without a lot of luck. We should be getting out of the group stages, the problem is that we do not prepare for tournament football, the warm up games showed that. 2 players came on as subs in Miami, they were not in the World Cup squad. The warm up games should be about the squad you are going to start with, getting game time together and using subs, that would come on in a World Cup game. We seem to use the friendlies we play, to bring on as many players as we can and not for the main players to try out different formations. Stuart Pearce got it right, let's give the youngsters game time and tournament experience and that starts with the under 21s, England need to prepare young players to get into the first team, by working their way up through the squads. There are plenty of players in the England set, that could be getting more experience playing football in tournaments then sitting on the bench and getting none

hybrid_x · Jun 21, 2014

2 great points have been made on here in recent days.

1. in 1966 we had a system and picked players to fit it - now we pick the best 11 players and shoe-horn them onto the park and flap about trying to get a system to suit. - forgetting about 'team.'

2. England should play with spirit, virtue, power, aggression, and pace..........which are our natural genetic / national talents.......because since we started to try and copy the more technical nations (who dont have to play in wind and rain) - we have been awful.

I don't see these two points changing - so no success is on its way.

look at uruaguay - not really very good, but they played as a team, same goes for costa rica and many other 'teams.'

drew · Jun 21, 2014

Pavilionaire said:
My son is 8 and he's just played his first "league" season. We played on small Under-7 pitches, huge Under-9 pitches, pitches that were long but narrow, pitches that were short and wide. And throughout we played some weeks 5-a-side, some 6-a-side, some 7-a-side - it was down to whoever was the home team.

Paradoxically, the 5-a-side was played on the biggest pitch of the lot, so getting a corner was actually a DISADVANTAGE.

What this meant is that one week the kids would be hoofing it and running around like crazy the next week they'd barely touch it and it would go over the dead ball line. Some standardisation from the league might have helped.

Did this 'league' conform to FA guidelines for mini soccer as per the attached?

http://www.thefa.com/~/media/my-football-resources/youth-dev-review/u7-and-u8-ydr-booklet.ashx
http://www.thefa.com/~/media/my-football-resources/youth-dev-review/u9-and-u10-ydr-booklet.ashx
http://www.thefa.com/~/media/my-football-resources/youth-dev-review/u11-and-u12-ydr-booklet.ashx

There are rules but if organisers of this 'league' ignore them and parents are ignorant of the FA rules for that age group, what can you do about it?

crasher · Jun 21, 2014

Interesting thread. My take on it is that a huge part of what undermines England at tournaments is psychological - an inferiority complex combined with a residual discomfort at being "abroad" which affects our nation more than any other.

As Steve S says - some of our players can't even reproduce what they do every week in the Premier League. For instance defending a goalkeeper's punt down the middle - which is what led to Suarez's winner. The reason they don't perform to their ability is they're paralysed with fear which comes from insecurity, a deep-buried belief that others are better than this. So until we rid ourselves of this inferiority complex we won't improve.

Youth coaching of course has to be part of the answer to removing this insecurity. Only if English kids are steeped in the best-quality technical training will they grow up assured that their skills are as good as anyone else's. They ALL need to have this belief, not just the two or three in the team who are extremely technically gifted.

Finally there's the organisation of the game in England. How many times have I read about how another country, after a rubbish world cup, made a conscious decision to revolutionise their training system. France, Germany, Belgium - the list goes on. Yet despite the obscene cash machine that is the Premier League it took us more than a decade to even get the national training centre together. We've had a sucession of buffoons (sometimes well-meaning, sometimes not) like Brooking, Scudamore, Ken Bates, Palios, David Davies, Crozier, Barwick, Dyke running our national game without the vision, determination or political nous to do anything except keep the money flowing.

I'm not optimistic that anything much is about to change.

Weststander · Jun 21, 2014

A lack of truly world class players in the squad.

Uruguay have Suarez and Cavani, then a team of players with immense passion, organisation, determination and a game plan behind them.
Italy Pirlo.
Germany, France, Brazil - ditto

Not Andy Naylor · Jun 21, 2014

Weststander said:
A lack of truly world class players in the squad.

Uruguay have Suarez and Cavani, then a team of players with immense passion, organisation, determination and a game plan behind them.
Italy Pirlo.
Germany, France, Brazil - ditto

I think you're very close to the truth here. Our pampered Premier League so-called superstars are told every week that they are football geniuses and believe the publicity, with the result that too many of them feel that the basics are beneath them - look at the way Jagielka and Cahill switched off and didn't cover the possibility of that ball getting a nick off Gerrard.

Tim Sherwood today in the Independent says: "Our concentration levels are poor. Certain players when they train just go through the motions. During passing drills they look at each other as if they are too good for it. Keeping the simple things sharp eliminates mistakes during matches."

Roy Hodgson needs to decide who our match-winners are and then build a team of hard-working, intelligent footballers that will do their jobs - as other international managers have done, without trying to cram 15 or 16 monster egos into a set of 11 shirts.

When Hodgson went to Liverpool he wasn't respected because he was seen as a manager who was okay with small clubs like Fulham or international sides like Switzerland who wanted to punch above their weights rather than massive clubs like Liverpool who deserved better. The trouble with England is we think we are Liverpool. Our international record over the years suggests we are Fulham and Roy should get back to managing as he did at Craven Cottage.

Kevlar · Jun 21, 2014

why do we think we should be winning the World Cup?
the biggest problem any England team has are the 11 players and
coach on the otherside

Brighton Mod · Jun 21, 2014

Interesting to hear about the coaches, these would be coaches trained by the FA? Who teach the same flawed techniques and systems, over simplifying things and giving people certificates and ticking boxes. If you look at the England team, all the players apart from Sturridge and Sterling tick those boxes, we're coaching skill out of our players. How many boxes does Suarez, Balotelli or Messi tick?
I completed my Cycling Club Coach Award some years ago and over the 8 days it took nearly half was devoted to equality, discrimination in the workplace, child protection and how to complete forms. So its coaches getting bored, frightened and little reward or acknowledgement. It starts at the top and FA who have had a very well paid director on this issue need to take a serious look at themselves instead of travelling the world on expenses, glad handing celebrities and living off the reflected glory of others.

Can I just cite Ollei March as he broke into the first team squad in the pre match friendlies last year scored a couple of goals, a super one against Norwich and was then played in different positions as and when it suited, never again did we see that free spirit, running at defenders and scoring from him again this season. The system is coaching the talent out of players, we need inspired managers, leaders and real vision from those running the game. Its not going to come as we see them filling their faces and loading their bank accounts and the national team will be condemned to being second rate.

Machiavelli · Jun 22, 2014

MacKenzie said:
My lad plays at Cardiff City's ADC, he was there tonight, and believe it or not the emphasis is totally on developing their technique. Tonight's session was typical, three a side one and two touch football on a 20m by 20m pitch (no goals) and dribbling drills.

I think clubs are beginning to realise where we are deficient, and are trying to improve skills and technique.

This is all encouraging, but the problem might just be that such technical development is reserved for the very best, whereas the first of Stato's points was that there is a lack of qualified coaches especially in comparison with other countries like France, Germany and Spain, which means that they have a better spread of talent.

Herr Tubthumper · Jun 22, 2014

Machiavelli said:
This is all encouraging, but the problem might just be that such technical development is reserved for the very best, whereas the first of Stato's points was that there is a lack of qualified coaches especially in comparison with other countries like France, Germany and Spain, which means that they have a better spread of talent.

Totally this

e77 · Jun 22, 2014

Also, I think not entering a team in the Olympics doesn't help (granted we would have only qualified a few times).

Mellor 3 Ward 4 · Jun 22, 2014

Not enough decent coaches to coaches.

Coaching courses not accessible enough, particularly the more advanced ones. (ie why not have more at weekends, instead of making people take time off work)

Kids playing competitive football too young, and kids Manager's perusing results rather than teaching technique and skills

Not enough young English players playing in the Premier League

That's just for starters.

Mackenzie · Jun 22, 2014

Machiavelli said:
This is all encouraging, but the problem might just be that such technical development is reserved for the very best, whereas the first of Stato's points was that there is a lack of qualified coaches especially in comparison with other countries like France, Germany and Spain, which means that they have a better spread of talent.

There could well be a trickle down effect from these ADCs and Academies.

My son plays for a club side as well as Cardiff, and many of the teams he comes up against (and indeed his own team) are coached by Cardiff coaches. I'm not sure if that is typical, but it seems to be the way they do it around here. Cardiff have put the head coaches of several clubs in our area through their coaching badges (to level 2 I believe) and in exchange ask the coaches to put forward their sides better players for trials and do some coaching at one of their regional centres. West Brom have also got a similar system operating in our area.

drew · Jun 22, 2014

e77 said:
Also, I think not entering a team in the Olympics doesn't help (granted we would have only qualified a few times).

I'm not sure that has any effect whatsoever as it wouldn't be an England team and it's U23s. Plus there is the perceived threat that to enter a unified team at the Olympics would threaten the votes of the home countries on the IFAB. What was stupid was allowing some of the youngsters to miss the U21 tournament a couple of years ago to play in the Brazil friendly. They would have got experience of tournament football which would have served them better when playing in tournaments for the full team.

perseus · Jun 22, 2014

I don't think the prima donna stars will adapt to the coach (especially Capello). They are used to playing in their normal style and cannot adjust. I think with Hodgson this doesn't happen but the tactics adapt to the players and it is not good enough.

I think this may apply to other national teams as well.

Better to play youngsters rather than the old stars.

Weststander · Jun 22, 2014

PL has all the money and the power.
Starting with Fergie and Wenger, but now most clubs do the same, players with slight knocks/fatigue miss U18, U21 tournaments, or full international friendlies, but seem to make most PL games.
Most of us may love the PL, but the consequence is that it increasingly rules over international aims.

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