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What is the problem with our national team?


Guest nufc_geordie

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It is all down to how we select the youngsters.

 

There is a reason why their are only 4 professional  British Asian players (4-4-2 magazine).

 

Physique.

 

Far, Far, Far too much  emphasis on this aspect of our youngsters. Good athletes, but light years behind other nations in technique and many other skills such as holding possession.

 

 

That is part of the picture and also I suspect there just isn't enough tactical coaching and sometimes the positional sense looks non-existant..Gerrard the worse culprit.

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Goalkeepers

 

Ben Alnwick

Joe Hart

Tom Heaton

 

Defenders

 

Michael Mancienne

Craig Gardner

Billy Jones

Nedum Onuoha

Steven Taylor

David Wheater

Joe Mattock

Richard Stearman

Matt Connolly

 

Midfielders

 

Tom Huddlestone

Adam Johnson

Lee Cattermole

Michael Kightly

James Milner

Fabrice Muamba

Grant Leadbitter

Andrew Surman

Theo Walcott

 

Forwards

 

Gabriel Agbonlahor

James Vaughan

Leroy Lita

Matt Derbyshire

Cameron Jerome

Luke Moore

 

Who do you think will make it to full international?

 

Promising? Not? Why?

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Goalkeepers

 

Ben Alnwick

Joe Hart

Tom Heaton

 

Defenders

 

Michael Mancienne

Craig Gardner

Billy Jones

Nedum Onuoha

Steven Taylor

David Wheater

Joe Mattock

Richard Stearman

Matt Connolly

 

Midfielders

 

Tom Huddlestone

Adam Johnson

Lee Cattermole

Michael Kightly

James Milner

Fabrice Muamba

Grant Leadbitter

Andrew Surman

Theo Walcott

 

Forwards

 

Gabriel Agbonlahor

James Vaughan

Leroy Lita

Matt Derbyshire

Cameron Jerome

Luke Moore

 

Who do you think will make it to full international?

 

Promising? Not? Why?

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?
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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

 

Good post.

 

I really do believe English players don't really understand football outside the context of 'giving it all', 'going in hard' and 'being brave'...None of which win you anything. The England side scuttle around and just try and get it into the box, for them that is job done.

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?

 

Who were those two shit Dutch players Barca or Real signed in the summer? lol

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?

 

I don´t think it´s of a horrible standard. The Premiership would be worse without the money and having to rely mainly on homegrown players, as is the case in Holland.

 

Clubs like Ajax and Feyenoord pick up youngsters at a young age and train them for a couple of hours a week, but that won´t stop them playing their own game in their own spare time..

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?

 

probably cos the netherlands is a small country and the best players move abroad. 93 dutch players playing outside netherlands at the moment. how many england players are plying their trade abroad? one or two obscure players probably, like colin kazim richards, and he's half turkish.

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?

 

It does go in spells as well...Portugal has been producing the good young players the last few years..

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?

 

I don´t think it´s of a horrible standard. The Premiership would be worse without the money and having to rely mainly on homegrown players, as is the case in Holland.

 

Clubs like Ajax and Feyenoord pick up youngsters at a young age and train them for a couple of hours a week, but that won´t stop them playing their own game in their own spare time..

on the other hand the dutch can have the pick of african and south american youth because of more lax employment laws.
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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

so why is the dutch league, outside  the top 4 or 5 horrible and of a very poor standard ? what happened to the likes of ajax picking up kids at about 8yrs and schooling them ?

 

probably cos the netherlands is a small country and the best players move abroad. 93 dutch players playing outside netherlands at the moment. how many england players are plying their trade abroad? one or two obscure players probably, like colin kazim richards, and he's half turkish.

english players arent playing abroad as they don't need to finacially
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While I'm certainly not making excuses for tonight's debacle, Alan Green made a great point on 606. The FA knew a very long time ago that tonight was the date for England vs Croatia which could, and did, decide whether or not we go to Euro 2008.

 

So who the fuck sanctioned a game of American Football on that pitch less than a month ago and subsequently turned it into a mud-bath? Did they expect we would already have qualified by this point, forgetting that they had appointed a man with no brain? Or are they just as dense as the ginger joker and were looking at last year's calendar or something?

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While I'm certainly not making excuses for tonight's debacle, Alan Green made a great point on 606. The FA knew a very long time ago that tonight was the date for England vs Croatia which could, and did, decide whether or not we go to Euro 2008.

 

So who the fuck sanctioned a game of American Football on that pitch less than a month ago and subsequently turned it into a mud-bath? Did they expect we would already have qualified by this point, forgetting that they had appointed a man with no brain? Or are they just as dense as the ginger joker and were looking at last year's calendar or something?

 

The pitch didn't help. In fact it exposed our inferior technique even further.

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While I'm certainly not making excuses for tonight's debacle, Alan Green made a great point on 606. The FA knew a very long time ago that tonight was the date for England vs Croatia which could, and did, decide whether or not we go to Euro 2008.

 

So who the f*** sanctioned a game of American Football on that pitch less than a month ago and subsequently turned it into a mud-bath? Did they expect we would already have qualified by this point, forgetting that they had appointed a man with no brain? Or are they just as dense as the ginger joker and were looking at last year's calendar or something?

 

You're right.  Unfortunately the American football thing would have been all about money and little else.  That's what comes from paying an arm and both legs to build a white elephant of a stadium

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Martins Samuels is a fat beardy twat but that article is spot on (even if he did get the idea from watching the second series of auf weidersehen pet)

While I'm certainly not making excuses for tonight's debacle, Alan Green made a great point on 606. The FA knew a very long time ago that tonight was the date for England vs Croatia which could, and did, decide whether or not we go to Euro 2008.

 

So who the f*** sanctioned a game of American Football on that pitch less than a month ago and subsequently turned it into a mud-bath? Did they expect we would already have qualified by this point, forgetting that they had appointed a man with no brain? Or are they just as dense as the ginger joker and were looking at last year's calendar or something?

 

You're right.  Unfortunately the American football thing would have been all about money and little else.  That's what comes from paying an arm and both legs to build a white elephant of a stadium

 

I remember the debates about the new wembley - particularly whether it should be dual use with a running track for athletics.

 

I think it was Kate Hoey who backed the FA in their football only preference for this £800 million monster.

 

A total disgrace by the FA from top to bottom not to see how stupid it has been to host an NFL game here.

 

Next time the yanks come over with their crash helmets and shoulder pads they should piss off to twickenham if they want to play.

 

 

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Whats wrong with the national team ?

Lazy moronic players obsessed with how much money they'll make is what.

Lampard being a good example.

Man of the match ????? Which half-wit was asked ?

 

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There seems to be (and this is an age-old thing) a problem with the basic technique of our players which I feel is borne out of the '100 mph' way in which the Premier League is played compared to Spanish and Italian leagues etc. We basically only seem to be able to play a high tempo game successfully and are unable to keep possession enough at international level and consequently are unable to kill off situations in matches. The last two games - Russia away and last night (when we got back to 2-2) showed that for me. Fuck knows what the solution but until the overall technique improves I can't see it ever changing. Mind you, what was annoying about last night and recent games has been the way in which we never even seem to play to our strengths any more - i.e. playing that high-tempo game. The amount of time and space Croatia were allowed  was shocking.

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Blaming the foreign players is just lazy, theres plenty of good English players in the league we're just incapable of finding a manager to turn them into a good side.

 

If there was some sort of foreign quota we'd see less and less good players in the league imo as they'd all go and play in Spain/Italy instead.

 

Don't agree mate.

 

If you look at previous decades at short periods when the England team has been decent there has been a spine of genuine class players. We don't have that right now. If I can be bothered I may look up some team selections during periods when we weren't bad, but just looking at '66 through to '70 I'm talking players of the calibre of Banks, Moore, Charlton etc. We just don't have that level of comparative quality these days.

 

Even going back to 1990, the team then had players like Beardsley, Waddle, Lineker, Pearce, Shilton, Gazza, Walker, Platt.....all of which would be in the England team now, yes I'd put Beardsley and Lineker before Rooney and Owen. [although I wouldn't dispute that Rooney is worthy to step into Beardo's shoes, I'm talking more of a partnership). Only Gary Neville and John Terry of the current team would get into that England team IMO.

 

It's an absolute and total myth that foreign players have improved English players. The top class ones have given glamour to and enhanced the premiership ie Zola, Henry etc, but overall they have stunted their growth.

 

Topical - watching the under 21's now, and Theo Walcott looks every inch the player Keyring Dire dreamed of being, but never will be in a million years. He's finished. His crap attitude has cost him his career, he's wasted it.

 

James Milner has just scored a penalty after Walcott was brought down.

 

It's well recognised that Banks, Charlton and Moore were Englands top 3, true World Class players. I would add Ray Wilson to that list too. Where England really scored was that the players all played to their best, in their most comfortable positions, and the overall balance and shape of the team suited everybody. Some people also say we won because we were at home. This was a big factor, but I think England could have won that cup anywhere in Europe. We were certainly the 2nd best team in the world 4 years later, by which time the Brazilians had found themselves again and had the best international team that has ever won that competition in my lifetime anyway.

 

 

 

 

I think the biggest football travesty of all time is that the Dutch team from 1973 to 1978 won nowt, they were the best team for that period and how they didn't win the World Cup in '74 and again in '78 tells the story that the best team doesn't always win. That Dutch team against the Brazil team of 1970 would have been a spectacle to behold and England would have been in the mix at that time.

 

In 1970 England weren't far behind Brazil both individually and collectively, it would have been a very competitive final in 1970 had it been England versus Brazil and we may have won, the teams were that close. Overall, for a number of years we were a benchmark for the rest even though we only won it in 1966.

 

While I'm comparing players of today against players of the past I'm doing it in the context of comparing the current players against those of other nations right now and it's clear that we just don't get close individually. We could always fluke something, of course. Like Greece.

 

Agreed - the 1970 England side were really unlucky not to meet Brazil again in the Final ; even Pele thought they would after the game at Guadalajara in the Group..

In some respects, they had better players than the 66 side that won at Wembley.

I am sure that if Banks had not been ill(some suspect poisoning in his food)just before we played W.Germany, we would have beaten them again - Bonetti had a nightmare in goal, and we were 2-0 up..

 

We have gone downhill ever since that game, and although we played well in 1990 under Robson, we were never the International force again that we were between 1966-1970 - the team used to play decent football, keeping possession well.

 

The answer will never be addressed - its like everything in the UK, too much short-termism..

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Re: What is the problem with our national team?

 

i think the problem is we are playing too defensive, the defence does need time to settle though.

Another problem is layers are playing out of postion, which doesn't help towards the settling of the team and i believe Martins should be playing every game. Allardyce also needs time.

 

+10 Soopafan points

 

cheers

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and   on full size grass pitches.  In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

 

missed this earlier. I agree. It's also topical now.

 

Made me think back to when sky bought the premiership, and we were told all the new money from the sooopper dooooper league would go towards improving facilities for kids, building "academies" ["academies"  mackems.gif] and what have we got ? All the money has ended up in the back pockets of tossers like Kieron Dyer, Frank Lampard, Rio bloody Ferdinand -- all of whom constantly tell us how mcuh they love the fans and won't let us down again blah blah blah.

 

Even the new satellite money from the new deal this summer was - so we were told - possibly going to go towards the cost of helping fans travel to away games/reduce admission because they are concerned at the amount of youngsters being priced out of football at the age where it "grabs them for life".

 

The game in this country as we know it is in trouble, I think, long term. And money money money is at the root of all of it.

 

 

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That article by Samuel is excellent btw.

 

Agreed, I'm not sure how much of the blame is down to the FA or individual clubs though.

 

You just have to look at the standard of players we've brought through in the past 20 years and Clarkie's probably the pick of the bunch technically (unless I'm forgetting anyone) we're not the only one's either and one quick look at the current England squad shows that there are hardly any technically gifted players from this country, Rooney and Joe Cole stand out as the only two.

 

I remember Sven made the point about if we(England) had a set up like the French have with Clairefontaine then we would have already won a trophy by now, perhaps giving Trevor Brooking the boot and replacing him with Gerrard Houllier could be the best move the FA could make with a view at long term success.

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There are many solutions including

 

- Better acadamy structures more like the setups in Holland, where schooling, nutrition and training all go together.

- More oppertunties, less focus on winning more emphasis on having fun

- Smaller, more technical training. 5 a side, small games where space is tight etc , training both feet from an early age

 

An important difference I've seen when living in England is English boys hardly play football in their free time, and when they play it's institutionalised and on full size grass pitches. In the cities in Holland the culture is completely different. I live in Rotterdam, where there is hardly any space for full size football pitches in the city centre, so youngsters very often play football every day after school and in their free time on small, concrete pitches.. The objectives are completely different too, as it´s not about scoring goals, but about trickery. A goal without beautiful passing, movement and/or skill will be laughed at and possibly not even counted. It´s not until these boys are in their early to mid teens that they get picked up by scouts and start to work on the tactical and physical aspects of the game. In this way in Rotterdam alone in recent years talents such as Van Persie and Drenthe have surfaced. If a player is intelligent and motivated enough playing more effective football, tactics and physical strength can be learned/trained. The extraordinary levels of skill that many players possess are self-thought, and often these players will say they actually played with far more talented players out on the concrete pitches, but these other youngster didn´t have the desire to make it out in the professional world of football..

 

Are you joking? From the ages of about 5 - 15 me and my mates done nothing but come home from school, football out the shed, then down the street. Honestly, if we had a propper pitch to play on it would have been a dream come true. we used to play against a corrogate door at a local homeware shop that was ideal goals, we would get chased off here now and again then we'd go round the back of the co-op because there was absolutely no greens or pitches to play on without having to hire it for a fortune! This was the case for most of the lads in our school, as soon as the bell went out on the yard for a game.

 

Really, your study on this must have been in a more affluent area of the country!

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And might I add - I once put 13 goals past Scott Carson in a game of headers and volleys down our street. The lad hasn't got any better!

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