| Product: |
England National Football Team |
| Date: |
19/12/07 (147 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: This will hopefully improve our game
Disadvantages: It will take time, effort and patience
THE RANT BEGINS
And so - for the first time in over a decade, England fail to quality for a major championship. Steve McClaren's epitaph has been in some quarters "worse that Graham Taylor". What a legacy; does he not like that, I am certain. As McClown (as he will be henceforth known) presided over the gradual disintegration of a half decent team previous incumbent Sven Goran Ericsson managed to get at least sporadic performances from (and a qualification record that looks positively gleaming with hindsight), we were all left to ponder:
* Why can't England produce decent goalkeepers anymore?
* Why couldn't Lampard and Gerrard gel after 5 years of practice?
* Why can't people who earn more in a week than most of us to in a few years kick a ball accurately to a team mate near them?
* Why do we expect so much of our team when they patently aren't up to it?
This rant aims to take to task those to blame and in no particular order here we go.
YOU CAN'T WIN EVERYTHING WITH KIDS
Let me relate to you a story I have heard from grassroots. There is a once proud Northern club running junior teams for the various age groups. One of these teams, under 10s perhaps, played a game where they were winning 4-0 at half time. The other team pushed hard to get the game back to 4-3 and just fell short, but their coach was proud of their effort. Meanwhile, the coach of the winning team laid into his juniors, berating them for letting the other team back in, with no word of congratulation or encouragement for their win. This team is also well known locally for poaching kids from other teams, and then dropping them like a sack of spuds if they perceive them not to be of the standard they require after all.
What sort of example does this club set? How exactly is that encouraging kids to play football? Is winning everything and how much are they actually teaching them about skill?
It seems to me that from a young age, players are bawled at from the touchlines. Over eager parents, vicariously living their dreams through their children; competitive coaches with perhaps little else in their life they have control of, pushing on kids to win at all costs to give them bragging rights in the pub. These are just two examples of the many motivations that seem to have taken our game off track.
BLING BLING
Shall we blame the players then? Well they should take their share of the blame. I don't think they don't try hard enough due to being pampered in this case; if anything, when under such pressure from fans and media, they try too hard and can't think logically how to deal with situations. Their football education perhaps does not encompass intellectual tactical aspects, as they would for example in the Netherlands. English players on the whole just do as they are told and disengage their brains; by contrast a Dutch footballer is renowned for his opinion giving - and, it has to be said, resultant byproduct of his argumentative arsiness. But nevertheless, there is surely a lesson to be learned here. Hopefully this will be part of Mr Capello's brief and the signs look good so far.
MEDIA MADNESS & FANS FORUM
We build them up, we knock them down, every time. We're going to win the World Cup. We go out in the last 8, we're useless. Ad nausium ad infinitum. A good team isn't useless overnight. We need to reign in our expectations and hopefully the media will cotton on and not try to hype us up every time. Perhaps under less pressure even our cerebrally challenged team can perform to something more akin to their alleged ability.
MISMANAGEMENT
Looks like Sven wasn't such a bad manager was he? Three convincing qualification campaigns and half-decent knockout stage performances. Maybe he realized the limits of the team, and just played as pragmatically as he could, with the inevitable ending when faced with a decent team. Alternatively, you could say he failed to inspire talented players. Well I think a bit of both is in here; for certain, the players have not fulfilled their potential, but equally they haven't shown that as a team they can do this. Perhaps the way players are picked needs to be looked at; pick a team based on what each player can bring to the table as a cog of a machine, rather than the best 11 individuals at each position. Look at the way Gareth Barry briefly flourished; no-one would have picked him in a 1st 11 on paper.
AN EASY SCAPEGOAT
Foreigners in the Premier League have also been blamed, and I think it is not so much this per se, but foreigners in the club's academies that do the damage. With less of a pool of indigenous people to pick from, the inevitable consequence is, even if players do make it through, as a proportion, less of them will be English, thus there are less English players even in a "homegrown" talent squad.
WIN AT ALL COSTS
Winning at all costs as seen in the example of kids I've given extends all the way up to the adults. Premier League clubs are under enormous financial and commercial pressure, with the consequences of relegation being potentially fatal to clubs overstretching themselves for success; look no further than Leeds United for an example of what can go wrong. With such high stakes, it's no wonder nurture of talent takes a back seat to instant success, bought with expensive imports than are already the finished article.
FA USE TO US
And who exactly is running out game? The FA and their various committees, all of whom seem have conflicting interests. The International Committee, made up of club chairmen. Who do they want to appoint as head coach? Certainly not their successful club coach. How exactly is this helping?
THE SOLUTION (OR AT LEAST A START)
With all these factors contributing and more that I'm sure I haven't even considered, it's clear to me that our game needs a radical overhaul. Whilst these measures surely won't cure our ills in an immediate way, they will at least ensure that things improve for the next generation. Although this won't guarantee anything (let's face it - what can?) at least it will give us a fighting chance.
1. Make sure the kids are enjoying themselves and learning skill, as much as learning how to win. Make them think about the game more too, and make their footballing education more than telling them to hoof it and feeding them stout & raw eggs to make them tall and powerful.
2. Emphasize technique over power. Too much emphasis from a young age is on size and strength. Look at the Manchester United golden generation; all taught skill from a young age, never mind their physique. The Nevilles and Paul Scholes are hardly giants and yet they have been highly successful professionals, due to their skill.
3. Reform the FA into a coherent, more accountable, organization. Not just some self serving old boys club based on nepotism and favour.
4. Set some sort of quotas for foreign players in academies. Controversial but surely necessary. It can't help Spain or France much that their best youngsters are poached almost out of the cradle.
5. Set a maximum wage in the professional game, or at the very least reverse the current trend of ridiculous amounts of money being extorted from paying fans for inflated wages. With less money to play for, the clubs won't be so paranoid about the financial losses due to relegation, and may give player and coach alike a chance to develop.
6. Implement some sort of "draft" system as adopted in American football, where.the best players are shared fairly amongst the top league teams. I don't know the ins and outs of this but it seems to be a more level playing field will encourage a broader base of talent, rather than a small pool from big clubs, with half of those not even getting a game and rotting in the reserves.
Summary: Good luck Mr Capello - you're going to need it!
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