Route 1 football - England's future?

[oxford blue]

Apparently the FA would seem to think so judging by recent appointments:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/mar/08/football-association-fa-england-under-20s-steven-gerrard

 

Followed by an interesting piece on Billy Davies

 

 

[Stadt]

They should be trying to get as many German and Spanish coaches in as possible to start a restructure.

I've seen a lot of C licence learning resources and the FA are focused on developing individuals rather than focusing on team play.

They seem to be just trying to copy Spain's style rather than encouraging coaches to implement their own philosophies and encourage kids to play a different way.

Hopefully under Dyke some positive changes will be made but everybody at the FA seem to be 'safe' rather than mercurial.

[Dan]

Nothing will change. Absolutely laughable that Boothroyd's managed to get a job as a youth team manager. It just sums up how seriously we don't take youth development.

[Stadt]

Nothing will change. Absolutely laughable that Boothroyd's managed to get a job as a youth team manager. It just sums up how seriously we don't take youth development.

Hoddle needs to be appointed and listened to.

[AKCJ]

I just give up with the National side.

 

What a laughing stock we are.

[Heart-Shaped Fox]

Continuously behind every other nation, probably 20 years now.

 

Whole FA needs a restructure, honestly think they are a joke. I lost all faith in them when they hired everyones 5th choice in McClaren  then we failed to qualify.

[Dan]

Hoddle needs to be appointed and listened to.

 

Hoddle speaks sense. I don't care how, but get him involved somehow and get him listened to. He knows his stuff. He knows a hell of a lot more about development than a lot of these lazy appointments do.

 

Boothroyd is an amazing appointment. They've officially become a parody of themselves.

[Des.]

Is it wrong of me to find International football really boring?

I have never really been into it, especially friendlies, they are more a hindrance than anything else

[Guest ttfn]

I think that the notion that to be successful we need to copy Spain is just as flawed as that that which suggests that the long ball is the way forward.

 

Ultimately the tiki-taka which took Spain to three consecutive world titles is already being superseded at a club level by a more "muscular" version, whereby possession of the ball is less important than the high-pressing which accompanies it. International football has always lagged behind club football in this regard and it would certainly be a surprise to see Spain look to cherish the ball in quite the same manner as they have done in the last three tournaments (albeit they'll still be getting 60%+!).

 

Spain's use of possession-based football is not the "right way", the "best way" or the "only way" to play and be successful at the highest level. What it is is an excellent use of the attributes of the specific set of players Spain had available to them. England's problem is that at a youth level, the fact that muscularity and speed are so prized, tiki-taka is not even an option.

 

It's my belief that to see any success at international level, we need to refine our own national footballing identity from the hareum-scareum high-intensity game that is our heritage only slightly - we need to go from having an XI which see the ball as a ticking time bomb to a side which can retain it and use it wisely at key moments in the game. We've always developed fast, exciting, energetic and brave players and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But where we have been left behind is in the technique department. The days of kids growing up on council estates and learning their own technique (Waddle, Beardsley, Gazza etc.) are gone and have been replaced by a generation of youth coaching which has focussed on the physical side of the game.

We need a balanced approach which recognises what we lack and where other countries are ahead of us. But we also need a system which preserves our own identity, because there remains a lot to be said for it.

[davieG]

Being able to trap a ball with either foot, being generally more two footed, able bring the ball down on your chest. To be able to find a team mate. To get overvthe ball when shooting. If you're a striker to have the presence of mind to not just lash out at the ball but to think where you are putting it.

Just some basics like this would be a start.

So many of our footballers lack basic skills.

[Mark_w]

Is it wrong of me to find International football really boring?

I have never really been into it, especially friendlies, they are more a hindrance than anything else

 

It's not wrong at all, International Football is incredibly dull.

[stevelcfc]

Hate International football, and the current England team and set-up is doing nothing but cement this view. Dull and uninspiring at best, I have no interest in the world cup and will be spending the summer watching the cricket and looking forward to Leicester's Pre-season.

[Uncle Albert]

Someone start mentioning the Bundesliga.. 

 

[Donut]

Someone start mentioning the Bundesliga.. 

 

 

Agreed. Take away Bayern Munich and youve got a hugely overrated league.

 

In fact Bayern Munich will probably kill the goose that laid the egg with their dominance.

[Dan]

ttfn's post is excellent and I agree with a lot of it. England for me have no identifiable style of play and our traditional style (which is becoming less common but still exists to a degree) is very limited. Physical football is just a waste of better facilities.

Someone start mentioning the Bundesliga.. 

 

 

Well, that looks a bit stupid.

[Donut]

I think the issue with Boothroyd and such like coaches is two fold. It is not only their core principles as are lagging behind the major teams and nations in the world, but its also the inability to be flexible enough to adapt different styles around different players which is even more disappointing.

 

As for the bundesliga comment, i interpret it as wanting to take the best parts from their league and interpret it into our football and national side. Fact of the matter in my opinion is when you take away the partizan support (which will probably die out anyway if Bayern Munich continue their monopoly) then the league is on the poor side of average.

[Pride_Of_The_Midlands]

They should be trying to get as many German and Spanish coaches in as possible to start a restructure.

I've seen a lot of C licence learning resources and the FA are focused on developing individuals rather than focusing on team play.

They seem to be just trying to copy Spain's style rather than encouraging coaches to implement their own philosophies and encourage kids to play a different way.

Hopefully under Dyke some positive changes will be made but everybody at the FA seem to be 'safe' rather than mercurial.

 

That would be embarrassing.

 

How about we train up our own English coaches?

[Pride_Of_The_Midlands]

Continuously behind every other nation, probably 20 years now.

 

Whole FA needs a restructure, honestly think they are a joke. I lost all faith in them when they hired everyones 5th choice in McClaren  then we failed to qualify.

 

Continuously ahead of 90% of nations you mean.

I just give up with the National side.

 

What a laughing stock we are.

 

That's loyal support.

 

Did you give up on Leicester when you were in League One?

[Dan]

I think the issue with Boothroyd and such like coaches is two fold. It is not only their core principles as are lagging behind the major teams and nations in the world, but its also the inability to be flexible enough to adapt different styles around different players which is even more disappointing.

 

As for the bundesliga comment, i interpret it as wanting to take the best parts from their league and interpret it into our football and national side. Fact of the matter in my opinion is when you take away the partizan support (which will probably die out anyway if Bayern Munich continue their monopoly) then the league is on the poor side of average.

 

Boothroyd is one of the last coaches I'd want doing it. What exactly does he offer? His football is dire and you can't exactly claim he's effective like Pulis is.

 

They've become a parody of themselves. It's almost like they're struggling to find someone who actually wants the job at all.

[lcfc"weasel"]

That would be embarrassing.

 

How about we train up our own English coaches?

Who we gonna get to train our coaches then?

[Guest Bilo]

Continuously ahead of 90% of nations you mean.

 

 

Well, yes but it's not that simple.

 

90% of countries don't have one of the richest and most viewed football leagues in the world, they don't have multi billionaires backing their clubs, they don't have over 150 years of footballing history to call upon or some of the best training facilities in the world.

 

When you consider all that England has as a footballing nation, we underachieve massively. We have the history, the money, the population that is crazy about football and the facilities. The fact that we're currently ranked 15th in the world, behind countries like Greece and Chile, is frankly shameful. England has everything in place to have a team that is consistently among the best, and by that I mean genuinely one of the main contenders for trophies along with Brazil and Germany, but it doesn't have the right people in charge to bring it about.

 

It's down to attitude as well, an attitude that goes right back. It's almost as though we think that the name of England will simply improve things by itself, but the FA needs to realise that it needs to work massively on the English style. Germany did it at the start of century, realising that the three World Cups and harking back to Beckenbauer and Muller did bugger all when being dumped out of the Euros by Romania and smashed 5-1 at home by an England side that had Heskey up front. They go to Brazil in the summer as one of the favourites. Spain realised that the fact of their club football being among the very best on the planet meant nothing on the international stage, so invested time and effort into development. Two European Championships and a maiden World Cup later, it's safe to say it's worked for them.

 

We need to learn from foreign coaches and methods and employ them. There is no point having the best training facilities in the world at St. George's Park and then paying long ball merchants like Boothroyd to run it for you. 

 

Long ball is dead. It's been dead at the highest level for twenty years or more, and even the majority of teams in our division have binned it as a style. Christ, even Stoke keep it on the deck these days. 

 

We can't simply copy the styles of these successful foreign nations, but we can implement some of their style alongside ours. Technical ability needs to be worked on for ball retention, but we also need to press and work hard off the ball. We need to look objectively at what often makes foreign players struggle to adapt when they come to the Premier League and consider how to use that information to our advantage in a game situation; most foreign players will tell you that the pace and intensity is what they most struggle with, so implement that in a game rather than slowly pass it sideways for 90 minutes. Get in teams' faces and learn to retain the ball whilst still moving it around at speed. This is what teams in the top five, the top ten, do well. It's not as if we don't have the resources to work with.

 

This all means that we can use the proliferation of foreign players and coaches in the English game to our advantage rather than our detriment, crying about how they're stopping English players from getting a chance is self-pitying and self-defeating.  We can learn from them whilst they're here and think why we're importing foreign players.

[Fox92]

Still don't rate Hodgson, either. Long way before we win anything again.

[Uncle Albert]

Well, that looks a bit stupid.

 

How does that look stupid?

 

All people seem to do instead of naming ways of improving our own nation, yes I know some have had some fantastic suggestions in this thread, but a lot of people including yourself Dan, would rather keep slating the system and keep telling us how superior the German way is compared to our own. 

[MooseBreath]

A better manager than sven would have taken that England team to consecutive semi finals at least, and we probably would have won something. That was without copying the spanish or the germans. National success is all about having enough naturally world class players available, you can't youth coach your way to naturally world class players.

[Uncle Albert]

A better manager than sven would have taken that England team to consecutive semi finals at least, and we probably would have won something. That was without copying the spanish or the germans. National success is all about having enough naturally world class players available, you can't youth coach your way to naturally world class players.

 

It wasn't Sven's fault that Beckham shit a tackle and Seaman got lobbed from 30 yards out, we should have beaten Brazil that day and we would have gone on to play Turkey in a World Cup Semi-Final.