There’s an interesting outburst from former England rightback Paul Parker hitting the media at the moment. Basically he’s flat out come out and said he wants England to fail to qualify for Euro 2008, because the England team needs a wake-up call. I for one find it difficult to disagree with his sentiments.
Since we’re short on Forest-related things to talk about with postponements, it something interesting to pick the bones over. If (when) Russia defeat Israel at the weekend, it will be pretty much nailed on that we won’t be going through to the European Championships – which will surely make the already unpopular Steve McClaren’s position untenable as England coach.
However, this shouldn’t be used as an excluse to further malign the admittedly useless England gaffer. The players need to take a look at themselves too, as do the powers that be in English football – because it’s a right royal mess from top to bottom. The FA are a crumbling and bureaucratic pain in the arse, resistant to change and not open to any kind of risk-taking.
The appointment of McClaren is a product of this – admittedly he was a rush decision after the first choice let them down, but he was a very poor choice in anyone’s language. The players – supposedly the best of a generation for England – are a bunch of over-paid nancyboys whose lavish lifestyles have lost their hunger and work-ethic for the game. And don’t get me started on the media…
You’d have to be mental as a serious manager to take on the England role – because the scrutiny and expectation levels placed on the role is insurmountable. All in all, it’s a quite uninspiring time to be following the national side, and I must confess that my interest in them is increasingly fleeting – Forest will always take precidence over them for me anyway, but I remember a time when I actually cared about how England got on – and I felt that the players did too…
It’s not quite as simple as capping foreign imports because young English players aren’t coming through, although I suppose that’s a factor – but there does need to be some revolutionary thinking at the ivory towers of the FA headquarters if they seriously think England are ever going to be anything other than a quarter-finals-at-best team for the foreseeable future – and that’s only if they qualify!
Filed under: Thoughts
Nice write up on a sorry situation. The post had a good article about this mid week too.
We’ve had a shite England team for almost 10 years now because of one man. Beckham.
After the last 3 major tournaments he has come out and admitted that he wasn’t actually fit enough to play!! Yet because of his status and media power consecutive managers have picked him. How many good up and coming players have lost a chance to impress because an unfit, below-par beckham has been selected ahead of them?
Yes yes yes, I remember the penalty against Argentina, and the free-kick against Greece (although i also recall he had had about 7 or 8 free-kicks earlier in the game, none of which troubled the ‘keeper).
Harsh maybe to blame Beckham for being picked, that’s down to the media (for they pick the team), but for too long now we have been playing with 10 men.
Having said all that, I am a firm believer in playing your best players in their best positions. In other words dont play a ‘superstar’ out of position just to accomodate him and keep the press/player/agent happy.
As for the future? Go to your local park on a saturday/sunday morning and watch the dads screaming at their kids. Then pop abroad and watch the french and italian parents encouraging their kids to enjoy their football and express themselves.
I have, and until we as parents and junior coaches realise that our books and dvds teaching us are wrong, we dont stand a chance.
Have a nice weekend!!
What people forget is that actually Ericsson was incredibly successful.
Fifties – achieved nothing.
Sixties – win a world cup with home advantage
Seventies – fail to qualify for major tournament
Eighties – fail to qualify for major tournament
Nineties – fail to qualify for major tournament
SGE – become a team that consistently qualifies for and reaches the latter stages of major tournaments
and now … normal service resumed.
In other words, England are just returning to their natural level and no amount of media hype about our “world beating” players will change that.
The problem we have now goes all the way down to grass roots level, Mattyboy is correct about the pressure we put on young players from 8/9 years upwards both from a parental and game playing point of view. I am an FA coach and one of the major problems I see is that we push kids into competitive football far too early in terms of player development. Players as young as 8/9 are being told they are defenders/midfielders/forwards without having the chance to develop the required ball skills that may one day turn them into good players.
At my club we start training at 4 years old but we took the decision not to start playing competitive league football until the age of 10 (one of Trevor Brooking’s recommendations was to delay this until the age of 13) so we work on fun, ball skills and small sided games with the aim to make sure the kids are comfortable with the ball at their feet, are able to pass and move, able to play in any position and to keep them playing football. The drop out rate of players in teenage football is massive mainly due to them falling out of love with the game.
One of the reasons that clubs buy foreign players is that their ball skills are so superior because it hasn’t been coached out of them.
I watch a lot of football and it is so sad to see parents/coaches screaming at the kids abusing the ref and the opposition. This the rubs off on the kids who dive, play act and have no respect for the officials.
Paul Parker may well be right, because until we change the very core of our game we will only ever produce comparable players to Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Zidane etc once in a generation.
Paul, you make some good points about youuth football but remember that players like Zidane are only come through once in a generation, similar to Gascoigne, Te Tissier, Rooney etc…
Mattyboy – I think blaming Beckham is very harsh. Fit or not, this lad is one of the most talented footballer I have ever seem grace the 3 lions shirt and any manager ignoring him for selection would be digging their own grave. I remember on many occasions e.g Greece, he lifted the team singlehanded, he was everywhere on the park.
I have to agree with Dan regarding Beckham. I think it is all to easy to pin blame on him becuase in many respects he is still the main ‘icon’ for all that most of us find so distasteful in modern day football. Strip away the media circus that has surrounded him in the last decade (most of which I admit has been organised by brand Beckham – she may be untalented in most other areas but as a manipulator of the media for her own gain, Posh is the best in the world bar none) and look at what is left.
As a footballer, Beckham’s skills cannot even now been underestimated. He is the best crosser of a football in the World. Up until the last couple of years, his ‘engine’ has been incredible. I agree that the legs are beginning to go now and to be fair he has adapted his game acordingly. He wore the England armband wth pride and the pride he showed when returning to the England side against Brazil honestly brought a tear to my eye (almost as much as a certain penalty in Euro 96 – but not quite!).
Even now, Lennon and SWP fail to look convincing alternatives on the right because their end product is so erratic. If Beckham had returned to the Premier League in the summer rather than join the US circus (definitely Posh’s idea!) then the media clamour for him to be in the side would be there. There is a snobbery about him playing in the MLS in the media.
And above it all, you get the impression from seeing him in the media that he’s actually a really good bloke. He seems to be universally liked by anyone who comes into contact with him. Or is that Posh at work again??
Dan – I am talking about producing talented footballers who are comfortable on the ball, no matter what position the play in and can use both feet. As a nation we should be able to produce more players of a higher quality but the coaching system is letting us down.
Beckham is a good example, though I disagree with you on him as a footballer. He is not the most talented footballer, yes he has an amazing right leg and he has worked his socks off to become the player he is and to be approaching 100 caps is a fantastic achievement. However I would think most observers would agree that he is technically weak in other areas i.e. left foot, tackling, dribbling. Just think what a player he could have been if his coaches as a kid had worked on his all round ability ?
We should be regularly be producing players that are on a higher level than Beckham but with the coaching system at grass roots level will not enable this.
Pretty depressing really.
Paul
I agree that we produce players with limited technical ability. Football at schoolboy age is still a shambles. How at that age can kids be labelled as a centre half, striker etc. is beyond me. We tell kids to play down the right flank etc rather than creating all round footballers. This is where we differ to the mentality of the Brazilians with their futsal.
I found this to my cost as a kid when it was decided I was a centre half at 9 or 10 and despite my ability to score goals for fun whenever I played further up the pitch I was unable to shake off that label. In the end, at 14 or 15, my interests moved away from playing football onto other things.
As a young boy, you do things naturally – kick with a right and left foot etc. It is only once we get older that we place limitations in our heads as to what we can and cannot do.
Again, to be fair to Beckham he is again a shining example for youngsters as to how far you can get through practice and hard work. I remember the comparisons made between him and Jonny Wilkinson before the 2003 Rugby World Cup when it showed both spending hours on their own practicing their dead ball kicking after the rest of the team had gone.
For me, there is a balance between technical ability and hard work – after all most of the so called football geniuses – Maradona, Cruyff, Gazza, Zidane etc. were incredibly flawed in other ways. We do have some technically gifted players in England – Joe Cole is an obvious example – but he is often stifled by the inflexibility of the coach. I somehow don’t think he would be playing wide left for Portugal, Brazil or Argentina!
However I was incredibly frustrated watching the Russia match to see supposedly our best player (Gerrard?) time and again fail with his first touch. Get Lewis McGugan in the side!
A lot of good points well made. However I do stand by my criticism of Beckham. Yes, he is a gifted player, and to approach 100 caps is astonishing. But in my opinion the press got him 30-40 of them. One of the greatest players in the world of football once said of Beckham: “He can’t tackle, run with the ball, take players on, head it or use his left foot”. Surely George Best knew about gifted players?!
I too am an FA coach, and it’s only in the last year or so that we have been encouraged to praise and encourage the kids. The guys I know have been doing that as a matter of course anyway, but the main problem is the parents. I have a code of conduct I expect our parents to follow, not just the kids, but we still get negativity from the sidelines, or knobheads shouting abuse at the refs.
Barrow, your point about Joe Cole is spot on. It reinforces my comment earlier about playing your best 11 in their best positions. Then again, the next best option is Downing…!
Blimey, I’m feeling quite depressed about the whole thing now. And I bet Beckham plays a blinder tonight, just to prove me wrong!