Tragic Football Stories - Let us Kick Around the misshapen Jabulani that is English football right here

Maybe take some of the Britishes interest navel-gazing out of the proper World Cup thread I thought?

Lennon Huddlestone Wilshere Young Agbonlahor Walcott
c'mon fabio you know it makes sense

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:41 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Maybe I shall regret going here but I wonder what it is about those guys that mightn't appeal to England's core fan demographic as much as Lamps and Stevie and Rooney and Barry

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:42 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can't understand who chairmen/managers think they're pleasing when they buy a player in to sit on the bench and play 5 times a season.

In Scottish football, historically this has been a method used by the Celtic and Rangers to make sure they have the player and no-one else does

― I am utterly and abjectly pissed off with this little lot (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:43 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ooooh NV

cmon seriously?

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:46 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

As long as they're winning they'll be fine

― I am utterly and abjectly pissed off with this little lot (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:47 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I dunno. No, not seriously, but let us consider the "type" of an England "hero". Let's think of Stuart Pearce's bulging neck veins as he shouts for Carling in that ad or whatever. I mean "Englishness" is a definite thing for a lot of the England hardcore. And I definitely think the FA is more bothered about the Brand than the football, tbh.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:48 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

There's a shitload to unpack in what are widely considered the virtues of the English game compared to the virtues that other big football nations espouse. I really really don't want to kick start a clusterfuck but it was a fleeting thought when I looked at that front 6 of darragh's up there.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:50 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

saw the england-usa game in a south london pub where the guy behind me was a passionate england fan who shouted abuse at the team from the start, culminating in calling robert green a "fucking paki". so i could imagine this becoming a thing.

― joe, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:52 (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Thought this could be a general argument about the England team rather than a race clusterfuck but am leaving the steps that led here in the interests of full disclosure.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/worldcup2010/3033609/Is-David-Beckham-the-man-to-replace-Fabio-Capello.html

oh, great.

Somebody told me that one at work yesterday. Got plenty of love for Becks but I rolled about laughing at the idea. He's too much of a politician to want the job I'd've thought.

yeah this was needed tbh

I suppose the model there is Klinsmann and Germany

if only for the poetry

Becks has no coaching badges, no managerial experience and has never courted the job. So on the surface he would seem a high-risk successor.

But

Classic But

becks is no klinsmann

Sheringham won't take it, seems to have no interest in coaching.

scholes hates the publicity

You're gonna be stuck with Gary Neville imo

what England needs is a player-manager.

but that man must be Maradona.

Seriously Beckham might be more use to English football right now if he got involved with FA politics à la Brooking.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8766476.stm

g taylor talks sense here imo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8688093.stm

this article a chastening example: According to European football's governing body Uefa, Spain had almost 15,000 Uefa A and Pro Licence coaches in 2008 - more than double the number of any other European nation. And that is despite it taking 750 study hours to acquire a Pro Licence in Spain, compared with just 245 in England.

Should go the whole hog and have John Terry as player-manager if England have no hope of anything ever for the next 10 years.

xp saying that, the english u20s are looking pretty good actually

guess they always do though

Capello will get massive abuse in the media and inevitably eventually the sack, and will likely largely get off the hook here. I reckon the media closer to the truth than we are - the guy created an unhappy camp, took a poor and unadventurous squad, and in any case you're not telling me that that team couldn't've been put out to perform better than that. But I'd still keep him because:

- the guy's track record is still outstanding, even with this massive blot on it
- you don't get a track record like that without learning from your mistakes - no way are England going to turn up at another tournament looking like that
- surely this debacle is at least partly the result of him acting against his instincts - let him have free reign, and if it means a lot of bruised egos well so be it, massaged egos haven't brought results either
- he's getting paid whatever - giving possibly the outstanding club manager of the last twenty years £10m not to work for you is indefensible right now
- realistically, what's the alternative?

- realistically, what's the alternative?

A Scottish manager

england u-20s have always looked good, yeah.

the last england u-15 side i caught ina full match was pretty amazing, AFAIR a certain A johnson was only one of maybe three Middlesborough players in the midfield.

Capello gets free rein from me for creating an unhappy camp, if the alternative is to create a happy camps of spoiled brats.

Bringing the 23 players he did, after picking what i thought was a very bright and encouraging 30 to begin with, yeah that's a black mark.

Selecting the 11-15 players he did from those 23 consistently regardless of performance- ey Fabio this ain't the league mate.

rationally speaking capello should probably stay but the taint of failure is often insurmountable past a point

harry redknapp is the only alternative worth considering - he would do it but the tax fiddling's most likely knocked it on the head

i think whether the fa are prepared to pay £12m to scapegoat capello is going to be a good litmus test of their appetite for real reform, which is why i expect him to get the sack. if they wanted him to stay they could have said so immediately - after two weeks of speculation, he'll be glad to get out i imagine.

I'd keep Capello + get rid of Lamps + Gerrard.

How is letting Capello have his way not going to create another unhappy camp, unless different players are involved? And as you say, Capello picked the squad. So either this was a knowing ploy to get rid of a lot of the old guard after failure, or he's not the judge of a player we might've thought he was, or there's a near-insurmountable pressure to pick guys who aren't good enough/fit enough/mentally right that will still be there whoever Capello is replaced with.

he's getting paid whatever - giving possibly the outstanding club manager of the last twenty years £10m not to work for you is indefensible right now

realest talk, but watch and learn

joe totally otm. Capello sacked, new boss, business as usual. Especially if the new boss is Arry as he would be the perfect expression of the FA as Business Ueber Alles.

redknapp should be able to settle with the revenue. pay them £40,000, call it a misunderstanding. it'll all be dug up again the moment england go through a bad patch but i could see a desperate fa turning a blind eye now.

"ey Fabio this ain't the league mate" pretty much sums up dude's failings, yeah

Arry is also a great exponent of 442. Sticking with Capello would be the 451 thing to do, IMO

^yes I went there

Redknapp would be a disastrous international manager, he thrives on being able to bring in players to solve problems and if those players are just not out there in the 'market' I'm not sure he'd be able to fix things. Also the FA were pretty nervous about Venables' dodgy dealings and I'm not sure they'd take that risk with Redknapp. Also I don't want him to leave Spurs.

Hodgson at least has some experience as an international manager. He'll do.

Far as I can see, only 3 English managers having any degree of success at the moment: 'Arry, Hodgson (off to the 'Pool) and, errrr, Steve McClaren. Go for the younger man I say.

classic material from alan shearer's column in the sun today. it begins: "NO ONE likes kicking a man when he is down..."

oh yeah? http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/85000/images/_86318_alan_shearer_and_neil_lennon_after_kicking_incident300%2830-04-98%29allsport.jpg

Remember when Kings used to lead their armies back in ye olde times? Get Prince William in there and make that sponger earn his salary from The FA.

DAER SPURB FANZ wud u take swop caleppo and renkdapp

i can't remember where i read the slow cooking/fast food domestic league vs internationals analogy but i'd trust arry & sandra to whip a quick buffet sooner than fabio or woy tbh

Redknapp, and I don't want it to happen for two main reasons, would be the ideal manager for this group, and I think that he's done well out of players he already had at Spurs as well as buying them in Matt.

Also, that would be ignoring that he could 'bring in' any number of players like Walcott, Huddlestone, Dawson, Rodwell, Wilshere, Zamora, whoever.

Bentley and Bent could suck it tho

Did Arry really say that about swapping a bentley for a honda on BBC after the Japan game btw?

Honda have quality cars, get into a Civic.

he did

it was a groaner but the shaggy-dog delivery was kinda impressive for a pundit imo

Remember when Kings used to lead their armies back in ye olde times? Get Prince William in there and make that sponger earn his salary from The FA.

― They'll be dancing in the streets of Košice tonight (King Boy Pato), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 10:17 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Astride a horse = unwanted redux of Crouchch-on-as-sub high ball tactics

er, Crouch

DAER SPURB FANZ wud u take swop caleppo and renkdapp

― so you want Mark Ronson to cry into your ass (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 10:17 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes; Calippo would not

Astride a horse

http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/avoca/277/kingbilly.jpg

would definitely have capello as the successor to arry. he'd cane bentley up and down bill nick way imo

World Cup 2010: Blatter sorry for disallowed goal

sorry usually means you'll try not to let it happen again.

An idea that just occurred to me - absolute squad limits. Clubs pick their 23 men on day one and are stuck with them. You *can* buy youngsters to sit in the stands, but everyone would have to be honest about it. Any kids in the 23 would be guaranteed playing time. The other kids, if they had any useful mentality whatsoever, would go elsewhere. Also a handy way of (i) shifting talent down the pyramid a bit, and (ii) keeping budgets down a little.

Of course it'd have to apply to the premier league to achieve anything, and there's almost no incentive for the premier league to agree to it. Which seems to be the problem with English football in a nutshell.

xp Try telling that to Bernie Taupin...

Squad capped at 25 is not a new idea, i think, and yeah all for it.

Of course it'd have to apply to the premier league to achieve anything, and there's almost no incentive for the premier league to agree to it. Which seems to be the problem with English football in a nutshell.

Well quite. And expecting any new law to be followed in spirit rather than pushed to a meaningless breaking point is optimistic given the current climate. Now the question is, how far could the FA push the Premier League in theory, and why does it choose not to do so. DJ Shadow answers coming up after this break.

Man utd and Chelsea would just break it with impunity anyway

am I right that teams have to submit their 25 man league squads next season? Except you can play all the players under X age (I forget) you want. Will this make any difference?

how far could the FA push the Premier League in theory

Is the ångström still a unit of measurement?

cunt-hair is workable

Prefer ba' hair

am I right that teams have to submit their 25 man league squads next season? Except you can play all the players under X age (I forget) you want. Will this make any difference?

i think they're some stipulations about those under-25's, whether they're developed by the club, brought in, brought in from abroad, w/e. gets complicated.

This is like the Football League rules that I abuse on FM 2010 but having 4 crappy homegrown dudes on my subs bench every match, right?

Yeah.

Was the thinking behind having 7 subs and not 5 iirc

I think the foreigners debate is worth having but not in the Blatter 6+5 or the 'I'm a racist Sun reader but' sense. I just don't understand what football teams get from buying the majority of foreign footballers. Was John Utaka really worth spending all that money on? Couldn't Portsmouth have spent 1/50th of his wages+bonus+transferfee+agentkickbacks to improve their academy and potentially get a decent striker or three come through every year? What do Mido and Benni McCarthy offer West Ham that Sears and Hines don't, other than limited ability to move away from a pie stand? Southampton were able to create at least 2 wingers of Champions League ability in the past 10 years, the type of players that earned them 10m each, so they use that money to buy Papa Waigo? Is there really no more Bales or Walcotts coming through with the same coaching staff and techniques, so you go for Papa fucking Waigo instead? Or does the giant Senegalise population of Southampton bring in extra needed revenue?

Basically my point is our academies and coaching may suck but really they cannot suck so much that John Utaka seems a valid option ahead of them, surely? Until all academies in the country get to the point where they notice that they can make a Champions League ability player (which Theo is and Bale will be next season) instead of closing your eyes on Football Manager and clicking at random until you find your next signing, English football can get tae fuck. We will continue to have the Gerrard-Lampard debate because there is no-one else of the top quality to make the fucking first eleven, let alone the squad, let alone Premiership teams.

I just don't understand what football teams get from buying the majority of foreign footballers

very much my point from earlier on. Redknapp style payoffs from agents?

What do Mido and Benni McCarthy offer West Ham that Sears and Hines don't, other than limited ability to move away from a pie stand?

consider this english-football imaginary board excelsiored

lol tho theo walcott is not a champion's league quality player

As of next season-

Clubs have to declare an A squad of which 8 must be trained (3 years in the country before the age of 21, i.e. buying a player from abroad at 17 is fine but as Brazilian's can't travel till 18, Rafael or Denilson for example, do not count) within the UK and 4 of those must be trained by the club itself. They may also declare a B squad of any youngsters under 21.

just don't understand what football teams get from buying the majority of foreign footballers

*splutter*

All morning now I've been thinking "ten two-footed dudes who can pass short" is the way to go, really.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 11:09 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

england don't have ten of these guys- by the time they get to full-international age they've all given up and gone breadman

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 11:12 (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I should be posting this in the other thread, soz.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 11:12 (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

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Clearly England don't, I was positing it as some kind of development plan.

I know you are trolling so I won't go into it but I was thinking of smaller clubs making money or having top class players (and as lol as me saying it is, anyone who plays for a top 3 side usually = top class) come through their academy. Whether that guy who has demolished teams such as Liverpool and Barcelona and Porto in the CL is of that quality or not then you decide whether to troll or not. :)

teams such as Liverpool, you say?

Tom top level players are different. I can obviously understand what Torres or Drogba add. Or as I said in the other thread, Wigan's ability to buy foreigners makes perfect sense. But what has Newcastle's proven track record of buying from outside the country added to their game, let alone the national side, other than complete and utter failure? Did *sorry Ronan* Rafa need to buy 97 players in his time at Liverpool?

demolished liverpool in that loss that time?

walcott has played in the CL, and if that's the only stipulation then that's the mark i guess.

I'll choke the first time someone describes benoit assou-ekotto or jermaine jenas as CL 'quality' players. I sincerely hope you think about that

don't undertand the confusion about ahh's basic point- why do southampton need to buy a bad player from spain for ££££ as opposed to promoting a bad player from the reserves in that position?

why do liverpool? Spurs?

were all of our right backs worse than alan hutton?

9m worse?

don't for a second buy that.

Tom top level players are different. I can obviously understand what Torres or Drogba add. Or as I said in the other thread, Wigan's ability to buy foreigners makes perfect sense. But what has Newcastle's proven track record of buying from outside the country added to their game, let alone the national side, other than complete and utter failure?

*cough cough* Scottish football *tumbleweeds*

'xactly! 9 poxy million put back into the academy compared to the fucking pittance any club currently spends on it would give you four thousand alan huttons!

Yes, why are English clubs wasting millions on players from a strange culture and who don't speak the language like Alan Hutton

at least then we'd have more than one right back to take to the fucking competition let alone choose from.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU WANT FOUR THOUSAND ALAN HUTTONS

'twas a joke my maine, calm it

Tom okay why the hell did Scottish clubs do it?

Perceived wisdom is that foreign players are better value for money in terms of skill/asking price, but that's been evident bollocks for ages.

Maybe all the club scouts are foreigners?

This is gonna turn out to be about agents and backhanders again, isn't it?

that's what i said about 30 posts up

Perceived wisdom is that foreign players are better value for money in terms of skill/asking price, but that's been evident bollocks for ages.

even in the short term, that's still v debatable

Perceived wisdom is that foreign players are better value for money in terms of skill/asking price, but that's been evident bollocks for ages.

Not that evident I would suggest, in terms of price + wages. It gets to be a trend, it's the done thing.

Top English clubs develop home grown talent up until the age of maybe 18, and then what's the thingummy rate? 95%?

What's the point of that? There's no way a player is the finished product at 18, not even at 21.

Shit, Aaron Lennon was fast but gash until last year, and he's been first team for four years or so.

It's chicken + egg tho. Decrease in quality in footballers coming thru the ranks, this is Scotland I'm talking about, was probably happening before the influx of foreign players and buying foreign players was seen as a short-term solution to that.

D'you think that the loss of talent to English clubs played a part in that Tom?

Not that evident I would suggest, in terms of price + wages.

But that would only apply to homegrown kids being overpriced by lower league clubs selling on, it doesn't apply to talent that the club develops itself, surely? Unless some guys in charge of academies have been Arrying a lot off the top.

D'you think that the loss of talent to English clubs played a part in that Tom?

Oh no, Scottish players have been playing in England since the formation of the English League, they won the league for those clubs!

Ireland produces a lot more good footballers than Scotland, how are they doing it?

Gaelic Football dropout wimps

^srsly^

Too crap to kick it over the crossbar?

I'm right in thinking that's how it works, yeah?

Too fucking soft, lad

But at least they're playing a sport?

Where d'you think Quinny got his bad back?

Away with your disco pants ya pansy fuck ya

I dunno what the % of irish lads playing organised sport in their teens would be, but yeah I'd imagine that it's pretty high for all of Giles/Dunphy moaning on the subject.

It's not the Gaelic thing, rly- most kids with aptitiude will play both until forced to choose. That's v common even within the Gaelic disciplines of Football/Hurling

The fact that GAA is a local game with local heroes is a big thing in encouraging participation to a fairly professional standard though, so I do think there's something there.

I know nothing about the development of soccer players though, because, simply put, you need to be from dublin or cork to get a game or a sniff of a game at FAI utd FC

I tell you when I know Scotland was in trouble: on 1st June 1997, I sat down to watch highlights of a friendly between Scotland and Malta, and soon realised there was a player wearing a Scotland shirt who I had never heard of before - that man was David Hopkin

Played for leeds for a while? looks like rorscharch from watchmen?

anyway, sure that happens all the time under trapattoni- it's a bit of an adjusment to think of internationals as the first place your boys play first-class first team football, but it's seems to be working so far.

Since Rafa took charge of the Academy, there have plenty of English boys impressing and making names for themselves, so hopefully they'll get a chance when Roy's installed (although he's not known for nurturing youth particularly well?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/8611991.stm

I didn't realise as many as seven of that Barça team were home-grown - that's really quite impressive

WELL DONE BARCEFUCKINGLONA GO AND PLAY WITH YOUR UNICEF FRIENDS AND MAKE A COMMERCIAL

Ha, I was about to parody that lj post practically word-for-word. If you're not eulogising FC Bonyodkor as footballing nirvana by the end of the close season I will feel majorly let down.

It's pretty fucking amazing in this day and age, Louis don't be a cock.

Not uncommon in Spain tho? Apart from Real Madrid, of course.

hahaha I was definitely posting very much in character, not making an actual argument there - it is pretty damn impressive yes

also yeah Bilbao's feats are probably even more impressive - they don't have a worldwide scouting network and the best youth coaches money can buy

besides Messi everyone who's currently starring after being brought through the Barca youth system is Spanish though, no? But no doubt that Bilbao's shit is remarkable indeed, especially with the history (to what extent does it still apply?) of restricting themselves to a place with a population comparable to that of Wales.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQ80x2MrG8

I remember Mallorca doing well one year in a European competition and the fact that all of their players were born within 20 miles of their ground

... in the UK, we'd say "Oh well of course that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore" blah blah blah

in the uk, it doesn't.

We're so much more advanced here

the uk football team

Loathe as I am to add grist to the mill of less-reputable posters, I must confess to finding Spain pretty boring to watch. It's good when there's a real struggle on and they look vulnerable, but in this tournament that's been just the opening against Chile and maybe half-an-hour today. Possibly the last ten minutes against Switzerland at a stretch. Otherwise there's no drama, it's mostly just waiting around for them to score. That's kind of how I remember 2008 as well.

I want to see them hounded, and have to respond, in big games that could go either way. If they do that well then great, I'll be a fan, but until I see that I have no faith. Holland would probably beat them. Uruguay too maybe. Germany would have a good chance. Brazil would murder them.

― Ismael Klata, 29 June 2010 22:27 (Yesterday)

<3 IK, he's a serious football poster etc- but is this attitude (is it prevailing, for a start?) a large part of the problem wrt English international footballers being so rushed, impatient, dramatic on the ball?

I mean, I'm just happy if John O'Shea can find a team mate, to hell with the pass being in any way forward progress on top of that tbh.

The problem with Spain is that Iniesta and Xavi started their careers as DMs, so do they really need them two, Xabi Alonso AND Sergio Busquiets in midfield w/ no wingers? They are by far the most creative team in the world, fucking do something with it, try and beat yr man occasionally instead of making your 67th consecutive pass. It's effective football but its also extremely boring.

Brazil v. Spain will be p intense tho

Not the problem w/ English football. We'd fucking love some of Spain's patience and ability to back it up. England play that fast and dramatic because they are scared of losing the ball soon enough if they try and pass it to each other.

Hey, I'm taking none of the blame for that nonsense!

You've got a serious point wrt to actually watching the England team, namely that they're such a drama queen - and drama queens do make such great viewing. No idea why England (and France! And I guess Argentina!) should have become the football equivalent of high camp, but they are almost always undeniably compelling. I don't know if 'twas ever thus - I can't think of a proper example before 1986, though the seeds are there in 66 and 73 - but since 86 it has turned into a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that passion and hysterical overreaction have become the answer to everything. Not sure we'd like calm efficiency very much. It certainly wouldn't make for a memorable narrative.

xxp

Iniest and Xavi are DM's, but not in the English understanding of the position. They're deep-lying playmakers. Iniesta never convinced in the role because of his preference for attacking options in movement/passing. He also beats his man more often than any english player I could name, tbh.

Villa plays wide on the left- he's an real winger, as opposed to playing Milner on the right of midfield.

With Villa on the left, they don't need anyone on the right- Ramos gets into the opponent's box more often than Lampard/Gerrard/Lennon/Walcott.

Spain keep the ball and attack with runs from deep because that's how you break down teams that refuse to attack you- When England learn to do this rather than run en masse up front and wait for a long ball, taking away any options for the man on the ball in the process, they might make the 1/4 finals again.

xp to IK

Yeah, the sturm/drang of the premier league is carried over in the english player mentality, I think. If you're not achieving something immediately, it's suspiciously foreign.

Villa is not a winger wtf although I guess he'll turn into a wing-forward for Barca.

Darragh OTM on Villa and Ramos, they both got past their man time and time again. I'm not sure A Hoy Hoy was watching the same Spain as me last night.

Also Andreas Pirlo was the best player in the best team at the last World Cup and you didn't see him charging past his man very often.

Ramos spent the first half in his own half, was a lot better in the second.

Villa not a winger? The dude touches chalk for 50% of the game!

Ramos: Opposition teams tire, you want your right back disciplined to begin with tbf.

He's an out-and-out striker who drifts into wide positions, its what players can do in these modern teams that aren't wedded to 4-4-2.

Basically- Spain are set up to take into account the actual movement of players when the team has the ball, which is why you get three-four options when it comes to picking out a killer ball. Almost like a playbook is Yankball, maybe?

I do love Tom Humphries' writing. Here he writes about German youth/English youth footballing methods

^^^ E-fucking-xactly.

Capello digging his heels in. I can't see him being cowed by The Sun, so this might not end in complete disaster.

John Terry, while prob one of England's best performers, can kiss his international career goodbye if Capello stays, right?

That was a good article.

can't think of a proper example before 1986, though the seeds are there in 66 and 73

The dramatic narrative in '82 was provided by the inclusion of two 30something stars-that-we-couldn't-leave-out, who were both carrying injuries - Keegan and Brooking. Keegan's best years as an international had been wasted in non-qualification and now he'd returned to English club football. The whole thing seemed to be about Superstar SuperKev of the SuperSaints and his WC Dream.

Sans KK and TB, England coasted through the group, drew 0-0 with West Germany in the second group stage and needed to beat Spain by two goals to make the semis. On came the crocked veterans for the last 20min. Brooking crosses for Keegan to head wide from six yards. I think this was also the debut of Clough's non-truism "it only takes a second to score a goal". And Big Jack C's helpful "if they get one with enough time to get another one, they'll be alright." Which, taken together, essentially meant 0-0 at 89:58 was still a winnable position.

John Terry, while prob one of England's best performers

... exsqueeze me?

Wait, Brooking played in 1982? WTF?

I thought Terry was one of england's better players- obviously pretty awful in the German game, but certainly in the group stages was one of the only performers, alongside A Cole.

Struggling to think of who could count as one of England's best performers. Ashley Cole? Jermain Defoe? Someone who came on for a few minutes at the end of the game and didn't disgrace themselves? Michael Dawson? Theo Walcott?

Carrick will have been pleased with his own individual standing- Dawson also came out as a sure thing for the next campaign.

Thought Cashley was OK. And Calamity James. Terry arguably squeaked by against the mighty forward lines of Algeria and Slovienia but was mince, when you get right down to it

the problems were with teamwork so there's no point picking out good performers. for every missed pass there was a lack of movement to give any decent options. the really telling detail was when james took a goal kick or anyone took a throw in, they would always wait for a few moments looking out in despair at the field in front of them.

Terry 80% pass success rate, FWIW, according to article above.

anyone took a throw in, they would always wait for a few moments looking out in despair at the field in front of them

lol tottenham hotspur, as long as i've watched them. we lose possession from the majority of our own throw ins, i swear.

80% success trundling the ball sideways to Upson

What d'you want from John Terry in possession, I ask?

Whatever happened to Statto by the way?

Terry 80% pass success rate, FWIW, according to article above.

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Wednesday, 30 June 2010 11:34 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

means nothing for centre halves btw

I know nothing about the development of soccer players though, because, simply put, you need to be from dublin or cork to get a game or a sniff of a game at FAI utd FC

dunno, one thing ive noticed in recent years is players on the irish team not from those cities for a change - stephen hunt (waterford), kevin doyle (wexford), shane long (tipperary)

Wait, Brooking played in 1982? WTF?

Oh yes. But never again afterwards (and incoming Eng manager Bobby Robson dropped Keegan from the squad for the first Euro 84 qualifier in Sept '82, so that lame 20min cameo at the Bernabeu was his last hurrah too).

Lousy structure to that tournament - second round of four three-team groups. Spain had nothing to play for vs England (though the other final R2 matches were more "live", in each case one side only needed a draw to progress).

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/30/article-1290711-0A432C17000005DC-888_634x531.jpg

Lennon is da pimp

Michael- yeah, but hunt has been in England since forever (since he was 15 I think) and I think both of the others came from Cork City?

Great article by Humphries

the really telling detail was when james took a goal kick or anyone took a throw in, they would always wait for a few moments looking out in despair at the field in front of them.

^realest of talk, if someone made a Zidane-style film of James v Germany it'd be like Bad Lieutenant or something, he looked that angry every time the camera picked him up

(may be wrong about doyle coming from cork, tbh, but waterford still the rich and pampered east of the country imo)

no youre right, doyle played for cork city

Nice piece on England's 1982 World Cup here http://www.morethanmindgames.com/2006/06/01/the-nearly-men-englands-1982-world-cup/

England's problems are deep, man.

Structurally, there's the whole Premier League set up, which makes clubs more powerful than country. There's the poor youth training - though apparently the kids at U18 level are very good. There's the lack of depth in the talent pool, where players like Upson, Milner, SWP and Barry become first teamers when they shouldn't even be on the plane. There's the subletting out of key positions to foreign players, so England cannot produce either a decent defensive midfielder (Barry was the direct cause of all England's faults v Germany and gave Upson/Terry zero protection) OR a decent creative midfielder (when did we last produce a decent playmaker - we had buckets of them 20 years ago when football was infinitely shitter).

Then there are the mistakes made by Capello. So many of them, it beggers belief. I really didn't expect him to lose it so badly and the whole contract thing is absolutely disgraceful.

I don't blame the players at all really: there are too many that simply aren't good enough (and that's not their fault) and the rest weren't trained properly and weren't man-managed properly. Given the endemic structural problems, the team was never better than the quarter-finals, but it's Capello fault they didn't even make it that far.

What to do? I say let him see if he can learn from his failure, manage expectations (England will be lucky to qualify for the next Euros) and use the big gap between the current crop of players and the next (who are all under-20) to implement some of the changes in coaching and prioritising that are required. Easy.

(Looking forward to reading the youth article above. I saw the Chelsea youth team this season against Blackburn and Villa, and there was a huge difference between Chelsea's ballplayers (including this amazing little English playmaker called McEachen) and Villa and (especially) Blackburn's cloggers, suggesting athleticism is still being rated too highly by youth coaches. But the Chelsea team itself was a massively better than the one I saw two years before, suggesting you can make the changes relatively quickly IF you have the resources.)

Okay, so I've read the opening paragraphs of the Irish Times piece and am shaking my head already. Sam Hutchinson is a very promising player but has the same knee problem as Ledley King, and he's only 20. The fact he has played for Chelsea at all is a minor miracle. Not the best example to pick...

there's the whole Premier League set up, which makes clubs more powerful than country

while I agree 100% with the rest of your post, Pete- This doesn't explain why the PL clubs don't produce young English talent to the level that big teams in other countries are doing for etc Barca in Spain, Bayern In Germany, Ajax (and others, tbf) in Holland.

Why are Everton able to produce 30m british youngsters, and nobody else sees the value in it?

including this amazing little English playmaker called McEachen)

McEachen, eh? Better make sure Ireland (or Scotland possibly) don't claim him first.

Surely scottish

not that that'll stop us (lol mcgeady)

Why are Everton able to produce 30m british youngsters

Because they are not bankrolled by sheikhs or Russian oligarchs?

But I don't know why they should have to be forced to do so out of necessity, when it seems to be the best long term blueprint

i hear good things about this man city youth product silva, btw

reckon a lot of english clubs like the idea of getting a player from elsewhere cheap, watch their value rise, then sell on. like flipping a house. can't do this with english players because they pretty much don't leave england.

Wayne Rooney didn't have to leave England to earn Everton 30m.

There are loads of reasons for this:

There simply aren't as many English 10 year olds playing football these days (pretty sure this is the case)
Poor PE training.
Lack of top quality coaches.
Those who do play, play too many games and on too big a pitch.
The big PL clubs can nick semi-developed talent from abroad and get praised for it
Too much money in the game - they can spend rather than nurture, even the smaller clubs piggyback on the success of the bigger ones.
They don't take it seriously enough (this is a brilliant read on Ajax - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html)
The even smaller clubs are put off nurturing talent by the fact the bigger clubs will just thieve their kids (Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham)

The rumours are that some of this is changing (foreign kids are less fashionable), but it's going to take a while to drip through into the Premier League and requires clubs putting their kids into the mixer and bugger the consequences.

I don't know much about the Everton story, but would be interested to learn more. I presume they are in part benefiting from Liverpool's near complete neglect of local talent (although haven't Pool done well in the Youth Cup).

Josh McEachren, born in Oxfordshire, hotbed of football talent (see also: Why football is turning middle class).

Even the Mancs rate him.

http://www.redcafe.net/f7/josh-mceachran-296926/

was just digging up that ajax article, fantastic read.

Yeah, fascinating to see the comparisons made with American sports for a chance.

The even smaller clubs are put off nurturing talent by the fact the bigger clubs will just thieve their kids (Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham)

#1 problem imo, but have the new rules on compensation etc been in place long-enough to have borne fruit as yet?

Regarding why more clubs don't go down the Everton Rooney route

a) football clubs aren't financially literate
b) they can make almost as big a profit by finding and flogging a Valencia or Santa Cruz
c) these kids are hard to spot and take time to nurture and then may discover women or wine or get injured, and clubs don't like risk
d) why bother, when you can nick a 16-year-old from Barcelona and claim he is homegrown?
e) you may make £30m, but you look like Man U's bitch - how much is that worth? that's the Ajax angle.

There are signs this is changing. Arsenal were responsible for some of the bad youth policies of the past when they obsessed over foreigners, but Wenger now reckons English is good and everybody else will follow.

b) they can make almost as big a profit by finding and flogging a Valencia or Santa Cruz

Srsly though? Cost of developing one player (even allowing for attrition) can't be comparable. And

(c) it's not like buying in yr Santa Cruz's is a risk-free effort. Wages alone, etc etc. And whether or not they'll settle.

(d) Everton can't nick 16 year old's from Barca. That's an elite number of clubs that can do that to begin with.

(e) Even Man U are a selling club.

Return to a)

Josh McEachren, born in Oxfordshire

Where was his grandad born, that's what really counts

i mean what you're saying there is that we'd all make a better job of running the transfer affairs of 95% of english clubs.

can't be that simple.

Well, you have to factor in the stuff I was saying before about the quality of the English talent pool before it even gets to the clubs, that makes it harder to find the good stuff. It stems from there.

But English clubs definitely see bringing in foreigners (if not 16-y-o from Barca) as an easy option and one that can prove massively profitable if done well, and if you have scouted carefully you remove a lot of the attendant risks - plus you have a player who can improve the team from the get-go, not theoretically in five years time and then only momentarily before he moves to a bigger club.

That article is great, but it saddens me that being the world's greatest selling club is the best Ajax can aspire to. They've been screwed. They should be contenders every year.

Well bringing in better foreigners, yes- England doesn't monopolise raw talent.

But there's gotta be a huge amount of former eng u-21 players that could play first team for premier league teams. where are these guys going to?

Ajax article- am still working my way through, but yeah it's v interesting stuff. I've chilled at a BBQ with Denis Bergkamp's former Ajaz roommate, btw

Jennings said that his scouts, in response to the “unsuitability of the indigenous population of Britain” — children who are too sedentary and spend their time with video games — were increasingly focused “on the inner city of London, among Africans, Eastern Europeans and Caribbeans.”

teling quote, tbh

But that's part of the problem - there has been a big gap in the England talent pool for the last decade. There simply aren't that many good players coming through, and those that stay in the Premier League are manifestly not good enough to play for England (Sidwell, Bentley). It's a question of numbers, not that many are getting pro contracts (partly because of the squeeze from foreign players, but that's not all of it) and those that do, aren't particularly good because of lack of good coaching.

Where have all Liverpool's FA Youth Cup winning players gone? They just drift down the leagues.

I interviewed a youth development guy at charlton. he said of 40 players that come in and out of a group as it moves from u-11 to u-17, two will end up playing professional football and one will make a career out of it, most likely in the lower leagues. And that's at a club with a good record in youth development.

Sidwell & Bentley are good enough, imo, they're just feckless.

Is it more of a mental thing- is this a coaching thing?

Before Rafa overhauled LFC's Academy, the club employed around 100 part-time scouts, some around the age of 80. Since then, with 12 full time scouts in place, and 2 of the coaches that worked with the likes of Messi and Fabregas when they were kids, there's been some very promising youngsters coming through, and the U18 team contributed 2 players to the England U17 team that recently won the World Championships.

"Where have all Liverpool's FA Youth Cup winning players gone? They just drift down the leagues. "

Anyone can have a good cup run. Being able to sustain that over a league season is another matter, and that appears to have been the problem. I'm guessing they simply weren't good enough.

Seems like Scotland was actually ahead of England when it comes to gradual drying up of talent and inexorable decline into mediocrity

(great thread title btw)

Austria and Hungary once again showing the Brits how it's done

Funny you should say that, I always bring up Hungary when discussing Scotland's decline into shiteness

Spurs youth team of a few years back had a good couple of years in the league, iirc. Didn't get much out of it.

Everton's FA Youth Cup winning side of 1997-98:

Dean Delaney (Port Vale and then back to Ireland)
Carl Regan (Barnsley, Hull, Chester...)
Adam Eaton (Preston NE, Mansfield, retired at 25)
Edward O'Brien (no pro career AFAIK)
Adam Farley (1 first-team appearance in '99, then non-league)
Richard Dunne (5 years at EFC, Man City, Villa, Irish international)
David Poppleton (no pro career AFAIK)
Leon Osman (still a Toffee)
Danny Cadamarteri (bit of a ringer at that point, having already starred in first team, goal vs LFC, etc; lower leagues from 2002)
Phil Jevons (a star in the reserves but only 8 full appearances, into lower leagues from 2001)
Jamie Milligan (four sub apps, then Blackpool, then knee injury and non-league)
Tony Hibbert (still a Toffee)
Francis Jeffers (£8m to Arsenal, all LOLs thereafter)
David Knowles (no pro career AFAIK)
Kevin McLeod (five sub apps, QPR, Swansea, Wycombe...)

Sorry but 40 > 1 shit professional is someone being fucking terrible at their job.

Pennant, Bentley, Sidwell, Cole - all from the same group of Arsenal kids and taught the Arsenal youth coaches to focus as much on talent as making sure they don't end up complete dickholes.

I mean how the fuck are Brazilian academies able to produce a new team, of which there are 1 or 2 outstanding players potentially of the highest quality A YEAR and yet a well funded London club, not long ago residents in the best league in the world (tm) able to get 1 lower league player from 40?

Blaming it on video games is stupid and passing the buck.

Sorry but 40 > 1 shit professional

refers to what, out of interest?

I interviewed a youth development guy at charlton. he said of 40 players that come in and out of a group as it moves from u-11 to u-17, two will end up playing professional football and one will make a career out of it, most likely in the lower leagues. And that's at a club with a good record in youth development.

― Pete W, Wednesday, 30 June 2010 13:27 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"England have so many top stars in their squad that they will always be part and parcel of the international football scene," Müller said. "But there are so many 'alpha males' in their squad. It is difficult to have so many alpha males and have them row in the same direction. You don't only need chiefs. You also need a few Indians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/30/world-cup-england-thomas-muller/print

how much does a player earn for playing for England btw? I am fucking hating the 'oh he earns 130k a week and cannot do it for a different club that doesn't pay him that' but don't have the figures to spit in their face w/

Michael Owen on England: “Life has changed and kids cannot be getting the same practice as my generation. Yet look at the beaches in Brazil and the streets of Africa and you can see why so many players come from abroad.”

Is the problem maybe that our beaches aren't up to scratch?

David Cameroon to make England's streets as good as African streets, speech at 11am tomorrow.

You used to get a few hundred quid for playing for England, but I bet that's not the case now (these guys should be paying us, right?)

Interesting hotchpotch of an article, nakh - good points all round. I'm most impressed with Müller - can you imagine any England player being interested enough in another side to offer thoughts like that?

Germany? Oh yeah Schwein... that guy with a big name has a fit wag who is free to call me, yeah?

Thomas Muller's wife is lush.

this is kinda late but with 'all said and done' about this recently deceased team, i don't think there was much chance of them ever doing anything, whoever was managing them and whatever the tactics. the hilariously protracted gerrard+-lampard inanity is kinda central to this.

there's a core of athletic, intelligent and fairly skilful defenders; ferdinand, king (:x), a cole, g johnson (ish), previously campbell too. they're comparable in type to many of the top defenders elsewhere, though perhaps not as composed in possession. they're fairly good and could justify some of the popular hope invested in them.

and of course wayne rooney and previously owen, whose premature obsolesence apparently doesn't matter cuz rooney is better up front on his own. they're highly accomplished players.

all of which is dependent on having some kind of midfield. so.....lampard is rly intriguing here. basically i think he *is* a first rate player, tho i'm not sure how helpful it is to think of him as a cm, even if notionally he is.

post mourinho he usually plays towards the left in a 4-1-2-3, with a makelele/mikel covering him. there is malouda/robben (first rate lws) to stretch the flank and the incomparable drogba and essien, the former's hold-up play and latter's knack for recovering possesion high up the pitch allows for fairly simple and rapid attacks which drag apart the defence, with lampard arriving late to supply the final pass or more usually clear up the spoils. he's insanely good at this and is able to be a hugely successful 'cm' without having much of a short passing game, ie what it's all about.

then gerrard, superbly athletic, awesome striking technique and a good tackler, can be devastating as support striker with his instinctual sense for attacking space during rapid breaks - if that's in short supply he is limited by his suspect concentration and atrophied possession game. another first rate player but only in a very specific context where his indiscipline is compensated for or even encouraged. basically not a cm despite having qualified as such and possessing some of its skillset in abundance.

gerrard/lampard are franchise players, embodying a certain mythic english archetype (the box to box midfielder) but sensibly adapted for current trends by iberan negativists. they're each twinned with examples of another archetype of limited viability outside of local context, the catastrophically slow and clumsy yet inspirational/shouty defender.

the other english players are often franchise players from lesser lights in the pl, possessing one or two noteworthy qualities, usually from the numinous 'power, pace, passion' checklist of motd fame. to which is sometimes added 'ability' - to be able to pass, move and control with distinction. this drudgery is usually left to the guest workers.

Is there even anyone else who fulfills the gerrard/lampard box-to-box midfielder role in the premiership? Or anywhere else? I guess Kaka but it seems a dying breed.

iberan negativists

^ saw this and wondered what having a go at Portugal had to do with all this

they aren't rly box-to-box are they tho (xp)? they might make a few challenges in their own half but basically one is a support striker and the other a sort of deep-lying poacher. there's very little resemblance to the attacking mids employed by the top continental teams.

kaká may play like gerrard on fast counterattacks, but he's quite different (and superior) when having to attack an entrenched defence.

quality not having a play on me trying to figure out *that* kinda player. stephen ireland kinda like it too. maybe box-to-box not the best way to describe them but they are all v similar in terms of style

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/7825/beckssplash11076855a.jpg

Anyone else seen the Stevie G rumours?

Is this the whole 16yr old sister preggers thing? Hasn't that been doing the rounds for ages?

Now it's got a bit about EBJT pasted on the end.

tragic football story^

careless, imo, for a dude to get someone pregnant when he claims to be able to 'turn it on and off' when he needs to.

ps nakhchivan ur football thoughts have been conspicuous by absence in this the darkest of times imo

So a large portion of that seems to be unsubstantiated, and I could care less about the private lives of, well, anybody really. But somebody - Capello really - shd be deciding whether players are carrying around too much irl baggage to have their heads in the game. Hey, maybe somebody did.

Michael Owen on England: “Life has changed and kids cannot be getting the same practice as my generation. Yet look at the beaches in Brazil and the streets of Africa and you can see why so many players come from abroad.”

Or the beaches of the Netherlands and North Germany for that matter

I love the idea that a judge bases the legal framework of a case around his concern for the England manager's position.

tbf, there's a precedent. Chilcot Enquiry strongly rumoured to have been a whitewash so as to avoid upsetting Sven's prepartions for Euro 2004 qualifiers.

Great comments on Gerrard and Lampard btw.

Regarding the 'athletic, intelligent (hmmmm, Johnson? Rio?) and fairly skilful defenders', one of the real problems I can see is that there are none of these coming through. Three of England's current leading centre-halves - Terry, Ferdinand, King - are very comfortable on the ball, but I don't think any of the younger ones are in the slightest.

File lack of ball-playing centre half alongside lack of first-rate goalkeeper, deep-lying passing defensive midfielder and mobile poacher and I really think England are going to struggle to qualify for the next two tournaments.

Though should be said I've not seen enough of Smalling, who is probably useful.

Thomas Muller's wife is lush.

Seems a bit young to be married but, having seen his wife, better to snap her up before someone else does

If only Tom Huddlestone could run and turn he would be the answer to all our prayers :(

Or some of them at least.

Surprising number of that much-hyped England Under-17 side seem to come from Liverpool and Everton and they may get a chance in the coming years. A few from Man City, who obviously won't, and a handful from yer Southamptons and Boros and what have you who will probably end up picked up by Spurs or Arsenal or whoever in the future.

No one from Chelsea/Man United/Spurs/Arsenal at all.

Lancashire = home of English sport

(Arsenal had a striker on called Benik Afobe and the playmaker who got them to the final was injured in the semis, an Arsenal lad called Chuks Aneke, although he may still choose Ghana iirc as his international team.)

An England player called Chuks would be a boon to tabloid sub-editors everywhere, which reminds me

there's a lot of misconception around the success of junior sides. as that lengthy nytimes ajax piece explains, it's far better to have 2 potentially great players in a crappy u-17 team than 6 or 7 who'll eke out careers in the championship.

Regarding the 'athletic, intelligent (hmmmm, Johnson? Rio?) and fairly skilful defenders', one of the real problems I can see is that there are none of these coming through. Three of England's current leading centre-halves - Terry, Ferdinand, King - are very comfortable on the ball, but I don't think any of the younger ones are in the slightest.

naturally i did caveat glen johnson who is prone to catalepsy in defence. if rodwell is developed into a cb as moyes wishes then add another to that list.

File lack of ball-playing centre half alongside lack of first-rate goalkeeper, deep-lying passing defensive midfielder and mobile poacher and I really think England are going to struggle to qualify for the next two tournaments.

dunno about mobile poacher, bojan looks amazing but it's difficult to see where he fits into a 4-3-3, or even 4-2-3-1. so little 4-4-2 at the highest level. huddlestone shd be played in a 4-3-3 and if tottenham get a rly good forward he may get his wish next to modric and palacios.

I just assume most of these youth players will be the same as they've always been in the past: kids who are big and skillful for their age but end up vanishing as adults once their developmental advantage has gone bye-bye.

One of the Everton under-17s is apparently called Jasper Johns. Good target man, I hear.

^^^^otm.

Huddlestone next to a shield like Rodwell or Cattermole, with an inventive attacking midfielder in front of him (Wilshere?) would be terrific to watch imo.

One of the Everton under-17s is apparently called Jasper Johns. Good target man, I hear.

Wow

huddlestone shd be played in a 4-3-3 and if tottenham get a rly good forward he may get his wish next to modric and palacios.

451, iirc tbh, based around Pav

x-post

No one from Chelsea/Man United/Spurs/Arsenal at all.

Think this is wrong, Chelsea had two players in the team, McEachren and a 15-year-old called Chalobah, and William Keane def plays for United.

http://www.uefa.com/under17/matches/season=2010/round=15345/match=2002343/index.html

1 youth player per annum graduating to stay first team = fielding an entire team of homegrowns ranging from age 30-19.

I was basing that on Wikipedia, so it could well be wrong.

really, what huddlestone needs is a tough tackling yet mobile player behind him, and a player who makes the late runs into the box and can take a pot shot too to stretch the defence/midfield.

zokora, jenas are prob good bets.

Take it to the Tottenham thread dudes.

Or do a diagram, one or the other.

          ^
          |
<-   Cattermole  ->
      Huddlestone
     /     |     \
    /      |      \
   |       |       |

-> runs/screening/rough nasty sweaty work
- wonderful elegant killer balls

- Profit

ya profit sheesh

I think what i'm tryin to say there is that cattermole and huddlestone should comandeer a spider legged spaceship for maximum effect

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aRIdDrwDIgs/SuFflCWmJGI/AAAAAAAADJk/N5BVE634MBM/s320/parliament_mothership_connection-1.jpg

Germany skipper Philipp Lahm has delivered a withering put-down to England by claiming his side "now have to beat a big team".

I don't even think the Germans are trying to zing at this point, just speaking truth.

Worse again, I think Beckenbauer is trying to fuckin help ye

Yeah, I thought Beckenbauer sounded more disappointed and concerned than anything.

Those Germans really dig that 'measured by the strength of yr enemies' shit imo

Not unlike English pundits expressing concern for the plight of Scottish football

English pundits like Hansen and Lawro you mean?

Get fucked are you getting away with palming Lawro off on us.

srs line in the sand shit right there

lololololol

http://cache1.asset-cache.net/xc/78981510.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF87892155F29F61288AC1CA45CED72E9EA92363790556070386E3A220EF5264B1D9A9B9

nope, it checks out

have you seen the news lately? anyone can get an irish passport, sure.

http://scottdouglas.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/tony-cascarino.gif

"Ah begob 'tis the wearin' of the green"

English pundits like Hansen and Lawro you mean?

Has Alan Hansen ever spoken about Scottish football? Lawro has, occasionally, sure he's a terrible man for the pontificatin'

I'm pondering now if Hansen's ever had occasion to broach the subject.

xxp swear to fuck i have that exact jpg just ready to paste

1st up on GIS innit

This is the pity of Scotland not qualifying for major tournaments, now that media is more hysterically Anglocentric than it's ever been (IMO), I wonder how they'd handle it, Hansen would have to do some research on Scottish players for a start

Fingers crossed that we're on our way back to the 70s, with Scotland qualifying and England not qualifying, oh what fun!

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2008/12/5/1228491824927/Tony-Cascarino-001.jpg

was gonna go with this xp, being garotted for defiling the green by true son o' the soil

xxp re hansen having to do some 'research' -would he fuck, going on the level of research demonstrated this past couple of years.

HE'S RESEARCHED SOME OFF-LICENCES, AMIRITE??

*slouch* *sneer* *pick up expenses*

I can imagine the reaction you'd get asking townsend to come spend a few hours sweating on the bog with you

I can't imagine, amidst all this WC shockah fallout, that England still won't absolutely cruise to qualificiation for the Euros, btw.

btw I still think if Argentina win the World Cup under Maradonna this year, Gazza should get a shot as England manager.

Fuck that, If Maradona wins the WC for Argentina, the FA should be targetting him

I dunno man, Wales will be up for it and that Montenegro team must have 30 or 40 professionals to choose from.

I would just like to see Maradona try and snog Stuart Pearce tbh

I dunno man, Wales will be up for it and that Montenegro team must have 30 or 40 professionals to choose from.

Once you've faced the might of Slovenia you can have few fears

Fuck that, If Maradona wins the WC for Argentina, the FA should be targetting him
― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Thursday, 1 July 2010 13:12 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Nah surely it's time for an english manager now? After a swede, a dutch and an italian??

Has anybody suggested Shearer yet?

I suppose if you take the position that the Malvinas are British territory, it's not that far of a leap to getting Diego on board tbh.

xpost fuck alan shearer, he's too fucking dearer

Maradona worked for Argentina, so surely only one man will do for England:

http://www.xrv.org.uk/forums/attachments/chatter/302d1181841322-bbc-headline-abbas-warns-collapse-gaza-gazza.jpg

It's just possible that Gazza will be too out of it to worry about what the press thinks of his team selection.

Jimmy 5 Bellies at centre half.

Do England shirts come in XXXXXXXXL?

Clubs at which, according to Soccerbase, the England Squad from 1990 began their careers (and their clubs at the time of the tournament):

Stoke City (Derby County)
Brighton and Hove Albion (Glasgow Rangers)
Wealdstone (Nottinghasm Forest)
Reading (Manchester United)
Nottingham Forest (Nottingham Forest)
Ipswich Town (Glasgow Rangers)
West Bromwich Albion (Manchester United)
Tow Law Town (Olympique de Marseille)
Wallsend (Liverpool)
Leicester (Tottenham Hotspur)
Sudbury Court (Liverpool)
Fulham (QPR)
Nottingham Forest (Glasgow Rangers)
Oxford United (Derby County)
Aston Villa (Chelsea)
Everton (Liverpool)
Manchester United (Aston Villa)
Nottingham Forest (Nottingham Forest)
Newcastle United (Tottenham Hotspur)
Burnley (Glasgow Rangers)
West Bromwich Albion (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
Leeds United (Arsenal)
Edgware Town (Chelsea)

This year:

Watford (Portsmouth)
West Ham United (Liverpool)
Arsenal (Chelsea)
Liverpool (Liverpool)
Nottingham Forest (Tottenham Hotspur)
Chelsea (Chelsea)
Leeds (Tottenham Hotspur)
West Ham United (Chelsea)
Tottenham Hotspur (Tottenham Hotspur)
Everton (Manchester United)
West Ham United (Chelsea)
Norwich City (West Ham United)
Liverpool (Aston Villa)
Aston Villa (Manchester City)
Luton Town (West Ham United)
Leeds United (Aston Villa)
Nottingham Forest (Manchester City)
Liverpool (Liverpool)
Charlton Athletic (Tottenham Hotspur)
Tottenham Hotspur (Tottenham Hotspur)
Leicester City (Aston Villa)
West Ham United (Manchester United)
Shrewsbury Town (Manchester City)

We've been worrying about Premiership teams giving chances to their youth team products but I wonder whether we should think more about how and why English football has managed to reuce the supply lines of players from smaller clubs to the best clubs?

Everybody knows the top 4 have got all the best English players, silly

West Bromwich Albion (Wolverhampton Wanderers)

Should've have 50-odd caps :D

I didn't know he started at West Brom - was he a boyhood baggy?

Don't think so. He was born in Tipton anyway.

Liverpool and, uh, Rangers dominating the 1990 squad

how and why English football has managed to reuce the supply lines of players from smaller clubs to the best clubs

because now the bigger clubs buy all before them at as young an age as possible, and then nurture them in a professional and successful manner through the ranks?

xp And Forest.

not xpost: more than they did then? It's not like Manchester United didn't have a youth team in the 70s and '80s.

The point I'm trying to make is serious, if not very thoroughly thought-through: finding the lads who will be the very best players is always hit and miss, even for clubs like Ajax who do it remarkably well - guessing which of your youth will be the best players in 8-10 years time will always involve mistakes. If we have reduced the way back for players who miss the cut at 14 then we're likely missing some class.

tryign to think who the second tottenham (tottenham) player is besides king- is it crouch? not sure he had signed forms for us tbh

xp

no, i agree with you tim, to be honest

Yeah it's Crouch, he did actually sign a professional contract and he played for the Spurs youth team.

xp It is. Doesn't look like he made the first team so maybe that should read QPR (Tottenham).

Of course I have an ulterior motive because it'd be really nice to see a few more of those pounds sloshing into the lower leagues.

There's a thing in the back of my mind where I suspect that coaches select (at least in part) on players' ability to absorb and respond to coaching, and that's one of the things which programmes out the hint of the mercurial which England could do with so badly just now. But that is baseless speculation really.

xpost how tall was crouch when he first signed?

(and how good were his feet?)

Wealdstone (Nottinghasm Forest)

Think the local tourist board should change the name to Nottinghasm forthwith.

Now available for call-up again

Marlon King out yet?

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_03/bartonDM_468x589.jpg

HE'S READY

we did that england XI already didn't we?

With Adams for manager, obviously?

nah, he'd be too preachy.

gazza has already been locked in for this one imo

Didn't Harry say he'd take the England job?

yeah he said that.

he wasn't asked by anyone important, but he said it nonetheless

Fabio's staying.

Arsenal have made the bold decision to pull out of the FA Premier Reserve League. The surprise move comes despite leaked details of a much needed revamp, which is set to come into play for the new season.

The Gunners join Fulham, Stoke City, Birmingham City and Tottenham Hotspur in deciding to pull out of Reserves League, and will instead opt to arrange their own second string fixtures in the form of friendlies. The decision will see a complete overhaul of youth development at Arsenal, with those previously in the Reserve team now stepping up into the first-team as part of the 25 man squad rule. The Under 18′s will continue as normal, while a large number of players will be leaving on loan.

The clubs prowess in the Reserves has been well documented, and it was thought that Arsenal would be one of the key participants in the new re-shuffled league. However, this move is a sign of the quality in the Academy, with players now poised for a quicker route from Under 18′s football into the first-team. The best players will be moved up to work with Arsène Wenger, while those just needing a little extra will leave on loan.

Neil Banfield’s role should also adjust slightly. He is expected to focus more heavily on helping making the transition into the first-team a smooth one, while still taking the friendly games.

Further details of how the new ‘Arsenal XI’ will play their games this season should be announced shortly.

ignoring the arsenal specific bits of the arsenal based article- messing around with what is seen as the 1st step for youths as english football shows it obv needs more than a knock out round that could see most clubs u21s not have anything to play for after the first couple months of the season. ffs fa.

Davenport was accused of launching the ferocious attack on his 28-year-old sister Cara after being told she was pregnant again.

hum, Gerrard or Terry?

28-year-old tho

too young for Rooney

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/02/article-1291467-0A4C3526000005DC-726_468x346.jpg

http://ezpicshare.com/images/bigsam-1278198850.jpg

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/world_cup/865175/ENGLAND-FACE-YEARS-IN-THE-WILDERNESS.html

LET'S be clear about one thing - no country has ever won the World Cup with a foreign coach.

Fucking stupid walrus face, might as well suggest digging up Alf Ramsey.

But whoever succeeds Capello will have a huge job on their hands otherwise we might have to accept suffering a spell in the international wilderness as Holland did in the 1980s.

Holland won euro '88.

But yeah, really looking forward to Capello choosing John Terry for the Hungary friendly. You know, just acting like nothing happened and then killing his Eng career, slowly but surely, and finally dropping him at some point during qualification for the Euros.

Haha, 'strue - you'd think he would've cited england's spell in the wilderness in the 70s instead. I'm sure that must've been under foreign coaches too, so it would suit his argument perfectly.

Yeah its got nothing to do with it.

Also given that Dunga and Maradona failed to lift the cup people might have been saying all sorts about how former players don't win WCs as coaches but bcz Beckenbauer did with Germany in '90 that won't happen as that scenario has worked, even if only the one time in nearly 20 WCs.

But whoever succeeds Capello will have a huge job on their hands otherwise we might have to accept suffering a spell in the international wilderness as Holland did in the 1980s.

did they have a foreign manager or something?

*All* foreign teams have foreign managers.

I think the point is everyone has managers who aren't Big Sam's Big Fat Face.

Also given that Dunga and Maradona failed to lift the cup people might have been saying all sorts about how former players don't win WCs as coaches but bcz Beckenbauer did with Germany in '90 that won't happen as that scenario has worked, even if only the one time in nearly 20 WCs.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 4 July 2010 11:12 (Yesterday) Bookmark

carlos perreira, iirc?

Heskey, who will “wait and see” on his own England future, reckons fellow squad members in South Africa James Milner and Stephen Warnock aren’t the only Villa stars with a part to play in the qualification campaign for the European Championships in 2012.

He said: “I think there is a great group of players behind this on. Didn’t the under -21s get to a final? The under-17s, too, became European champions.

“James Milner has just been promoted to the senior squad and there’s some good new lads coming through. So yes, I still think the future is safe.

“Look at Villa. As well as James, there’s English players in Stewart Downing, Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor.

“I don’t think there will be a new, huge batch of players sweeping into the England squad. There’s going to be fresh players, though, younger ones.

“There’s going to be some experienced players still doing their thing.

“But we will have young legs in there too so, fingers crossed, everything is bright in my mind.”

Not sure Heskey isn't OTM

Only clicked on the link because I was sure he meant David Villa.

“England players want Fabio Capello to be fired following the release of the ‘Capello Index’ ratings. A backlash from the FA in May forced the England boss to shelve the launch of the internet site that rated every player and team at this summer’s World Cup finals. But the controversial stats were published yesterday provoking a storm of protest from the players. An England star said: “The FA should either fire him or he should do the honourable thing and resign.”

England team wish for Capello to be sacked for he is showing the world how shit they were. Previously they were able to get away with it without anyone noticing.

seems I am on a sunday morning of reading football news-

How can England win the World Cup? They could start by asking Watford - worth a read?

half decent article on the top 4 academies producing so little for the england team

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/academy-system-of-big-four-has-zero-impact-2029322.html

Article from F365's John Nicholson after watching England u-19's in a few games. Not promising

Pretty much sums up everything I believe about The Englolish Game.

For a second I thought this was the much-vaunted under-17s.

But here's the thing:

English lumpish big strong we'll-worry-about-technique-and-possession-when-we-see-what-height-you-finish-up-son youth development has obviously been a thing for a long long time.

But the knowledge of this as a problem has been around for probably 10-15 years now. Maybe tied to acceptance of foreign talent into the english game in a big way?

When does it start to get solved?

xp maybe Matt just answered that for me

Wouldn't be in the least surprised if the under-17s were cut from the same cloth. "Hey guyz we won this tournament against kids half our size but twice as able. Shd be no problem once we're all at the same physical level eh?"

(that said i saw england u-15's playing a few years back and they were technically superb- all boro players in the midfield iirc, including a johnson. what happens these guys?)

Allegedly the U17s can pass the ball properly, which is a good start.

Said it a month ago didn't I? 10 mediocre players with sound technical skills wd be a thousand percent improvement on the shite we've got now.

is that wolves fan or england victim speaking?

is this mentality tied to over-competitiveness at youth level? the bigger kids at 10 are more likely to win an under-11s tourney (particularly if they're played on fullsized pitches), so they get picked and developed ahead of maybe the potential Leo Messis?

xpost lol england "fan" but I don't care enough to be a victim. Wolves heading in the right direction imo

bit peeved about the whole Maierhofer debacle tho. Dude deserved a chance.

Tha article is ok but somehow also confused as to how 'fannying' they want from the kids that are coming through. Some 'sophistication' ok but not too much, y'know. Almost scared to bore people with passing.

In some ways it'll probably be a small country doing a Hungary 7-1 score at Wembley that might get the FA or someone to wake up. The problem then becomes the Premier League (the sky ad on the side of that F365 article) that will try and resist the change.

Also, there is love for the Championship, the product gets people through the gates. Wonder how that compares with lower leagues across europe.

is this mentality tied to over-competitiveness at youth level?

Yes, I think so. The excellent article on Ajax stressed the focus on individuals rather than team results- often to the extreme of entire youth teams really only existing to support the development of the one or two potential stars in it.

Almost scared to bore people with passing.

i'd say nearly 50% of the problem could broadly be aligned with this tbh.

scared to bore people != successfully completing 5 yards passes

English lumpish big strong we'll-worry-about-technique-and-possession-when-we-see-what-height-you-finish-up-son youth development has obviously been a thing for a long long time.

A long long time, like the entire history of English football basically?

In some ways it'll probably be a small country doing a Hungary 7-1 score at Wembley that might get the FA or someone to wake up.

That was 1953 remember.

Yeah but I think Ramsey's 60s team were tactically innovative and modern. Problem is we've had nobody forward-thinking in charge since then- Venables perhaps, but I hear the "Theme from Flash Harry" in my head whenever I think of the dude.

Not that that's got anything to do with his tactical nous.

was gonna say ask me would i swap arry for straight man curbishley or whoever

Dodgy geezers make the best managers, look how shit Italian football went when they tried to clean it up.

Yeah but I think Ramsey's 60s team were tactically innovative and modern

At the time, yes - but you've been playing the same way ever since! Also, Ramsey was all about hard work + organisation + fitness not flair

http://www.tvcream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/cole.jpg

"Awight lads, vis is called ver Chwistmas Twee"

Also, Ramsey was all about hard work + organisation + fitness not flair

one out of the first three present at the WC

Hard work + organisation + fitness = Catenaccio? Works for me.

Also, Ramsey was all about hard work + organisation + fitness not flair

one out of the first three present at the WC

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Friday, 23 July 2010 12:42 (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I can't even figure out which one you are suggesting.

lol that's whay yer shit

(I was granting them hard work, tbh)

Hard work + organisation + fitness = Catenaccio? Works for me.

Fuck yer Catenaccio

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/32860.gif

Thinking about Spain this World Cup a lot of the outright flair players didn't really produce the results tho. Iniesta for example did a lot of that mazy ball-on-a-string shit to little effect, mostly. It was the organisation and work ethic that won them the tournament.

no....

I'm biased because I grew up watching the England vs. Scotland game every year... which was always the same... five foot nothing Scottish forwards trying to dribble their way past nine foot tall English defenders, ball playing Scottish midifeld trying to do the unfashionable thing and pass the ball run off their feet by English duracell bunnies, comedy Scottish goalkeeper, some poaching bastard like Lineker scores the only goal of the game

the truism about tiki-taka as defensive strategy kinda proved itself in the world cup.....the other side seldom wins the ball, and when they do it's largely in their own half w/ almost the entire spain team in front of them ready to recover possession

xp watching some old highlights the other day, didn't realise at the time just how good Lineker was

I'm totally a fan of tiki-taka but it seems to me that as a system it doesn't require outright flair players. Strong technique and positional sense, yeah. Jesus I would settle for (excuse pun) passable technique from an England team at the moment.

xp watching some old highlights the other day, didn't realise at the time just how good Lineker was

... great at diving, just ask Cameroon.

Germany turned things round pretty quickly, didn't they?

When did England beat them 5-1? They were fucking rubbish then.

Gay guys more open-minded, innit?

Also perhaps it had reached the point where Ballack was the albatross dragging them down. Felt the same way about Bryan Robson's entire international career tbh.

Yes. And Lamps/Stevie G?

I'm totally a fan of tiki-taka but it seems to me that as a system it doesn't require outright flair players. Strong technique and positional sense, yeah. Jesus I would settle for (excuse pun) passable technique from an England team at the moment.

xavi, iniesta, silva and villa may not be ~flair~ players in that they seldom go in for meretricious tricks, but their close control and core skills are of a rarified level that other sides can't match (except for argentina w/ messi and aguero)

there aren't really any lessons for england in their success because england will never play that football, and will be lucky to develop a single player in a generation who gets near their level of technique and football-sense

hence the abortive efforts to include 35 yr old scholes

Do you think, in theory, that it's exceptionally difficult to develop players with technique and football-sense?

I remember seeing little kids -6 or 7 yo - playing in a park in Barcelona, just a pickup game, not an organised event. The amount of skill and positioning sense was amazing, none of the boot the ball forward and everyone chase it stuff you get over here. its a football culture thing as much as training methods imo.

Do you think, in theory, that it's exceptionally difficult to develop players with technique and football-sense?

― flashing drill + penis fan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 23 July 2010 13:13 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

brazil and holland do this all the time and other countries are catching them up so no.

there aren't really any lessons for england in their success because england will never play that football, and will be lucky to develop a single player in a generation who gets near their level of technique and football-sense

― nakhchivan, Friday, 23 July 2010 13:09 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rpHP5-LnPcM/Sx6etA1GJLI/AAAAAAAABXk/dMDeTmJmeu4/s1600/wilshere_wenger.jpg

SUP Y'ALLLLLLLLL

xpost

Yeah this is what I think. Don't really buy into culture as an expression of National Spirit or some other 19th century nuttiness, think cultures can be changed if the will is there.

Of course I don't doubt for a second that in England's case, the will ain't there.

Do you think, in theory, that it's exceptionally difficult to develop players with technique and football-sense?

― flashing drill + penis fan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 23 July 2010 13:13 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

brazil and holland do this all the time and other countries are catching them up so no.

― one man meme-denier - jol in? (a hoy hoy), Friday, July 23, 2010 12:28 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

a hoy hoy otm here.

Also think tomofthenest is correct about the culture thing.
I would settle for England developing players who don't mind receiving the ball when marked. Also players happy to give the ball to teammates who AREN'T in space confident that they will manage to retain possession. A lot of the time with England their passing looks so poor, and they revert to the long ball so often, not because the players are terrible at finding space necessarily but because they seem to rule out passing short to anyone if an opponent is in the general vicinity, oddly enough they seem happy to pump a long ball to someone similarly marked so go figure.

A pretty long and relatively unbroken stint of English club success in the Champions League has fooled much of the English footballing establishment into believing that everything's fine.

If we go four or five years without English clubs getting much further than the quarter or semi-final then that delusion might slip, but the clubs will spend big to avoid that happening, and probably not on English players.

scared to bore people != successfully completing 5 yards passes

― one man meme-denier - jol in? (a hoy hoy), Friday, 23 July 2010 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Its all varying the pace and number of passes, sometimes its 5 x 5 yeard passes, at others 30. Ultimately => whatever is necessary.

Part of the reason things don't change is prem league resistance but the other part is because we are mostly fed on championship type stuff which people really like (and is exciting as spectacle). That brings in the bacon, making the championship bigger than the Bundesliga, its all good except the once-in-four-years when Eng perform badly in a one month international competition and the fans beat themselves about until the end of August or so.

I can see other countries overtaking Eng because football isn't as big a show so there is less focus on 'product' and more room to get a good team with good technique playing well together.

Ultimately the way Eng may not be 'an expression of the national spirit' but its certainly an expression of the ways things are in the particular country.

Clubs like Doncaster or to an extent Notts Forest have played a more measured passing game in the Championship of late and I don't think it's had a negative effect on their gates tho?

I would settle for England developing players who don't mind receiving the ball when marked. Also players happy to give the ball to teammates who AREN'T in space confident that they will manage to retain possession.

ties directly to technique, movement

also, i suppose, the propensity of your opponents to press. see- spanish league, midfielders, bovvered?

NV - But what if a lot of clubs lower down adopted a diff style, diff formations, etc. and toned down on what was described as 'stupid' in that F365 article?

Also I don't know what the football is like in Italian, German or Dutch lower leagues. I don't wanna get down and blame things on the championship in particular, but a wider look across the whole of eng football has to be taken.

i don't know that i'd describe forest's passing game as 'measured' tho- they're a very attack minded team, they just keep the ball on the ground.

Do you think, in theory, that it's exceptionally difficult to develop players with technique and football-sense?

― flashing drill + penis fan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 23 July 2010 13:13 (1 hour ago)

to the level of iniesta, yeah

i'd say that depends on the national emphasis on technique (for w/e cultural reasons) and specifically the barcelona school which takes it to an extreme, so they can field an entire midfield of players who would be star #10s for the other big nations

even brazil, w/ 190m ppl and their illustrious history/enthusiasm for football only have a few super technical players (diego, robinho, neymar maybe) and even then they lack the efficiency and system-oriented play of x + i et al

i think you're probably correct w/ the hope that england can just develop similar types of players but with more comfortable close control and more patience, like if you want to field a team of big lads who can kick ppl, at least ensure they can 'play a bit' to use the telling cliché

germany are a far better exemplar than spain for england to follow, if there is the will (probably not as you say)

england fwd with the best touch- k davies, btw

Yeah I think expecting England to become a completely different footballing nation is wildly optimistic and unnecessary, but the gaping absence of fundamentals surely has got to be addressed. Thing is that it has to be the FA that takes that lead and I don't really see the FA as leaders.

i waver a bit re damning the english for lacking core skills when i think of a team like doncaster - regular players passing it around like buggery purely as a result of o'driscoll's bloody-mindedness on the training pitch.

to a lesser extent (more foreign players) you couldve said the same in recent years about mowbray at wba, or even magilton's one crazy month where it all went right at qpr - truly startling how quickly they reverted to donkeys once they lost their nerve and the manager started headbutting them.

A pretty long and relatively unbroken stint of English club success in the Champions League has fooled much of the English footballing establishment into believing that everything's fine.

If we go four or five years without English clubs getting much further than the quarter or semi-final then that delusion might slip, but the clubs will spend big to avoid that happening, and probably not on English players.

― Matt DC, Friday, 23 July 2010 14:14 (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ummm... Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs - the top 4, if not the big 4 - have spent the past ten years pumping money into youth development and are starting to see the effects of it (United's history of it, Arsenal is obv with 400 tricky midfielders, ok I dunno about Chelsea but they are letting go of a lot of 'big names' and not buying any replacements so its possible that opportunities for a Mancienne or whoever could open up?, and Spurs is Spurs, good w/ defenders, that Danny Rose fella etc.)

xpost

Felt like at QPR you had a nice compact pitch that suited the passing game but it went to shit when you had to play away. Could be wrong about that but I guess the possibility of being out-muscled and out-hoofed on a huge pitch is one of the factors that makes it risky for teams to try and play it cute?

look at fulham- fantastic footballers? not really. good tidy possession football? yep.

its possible that opportunities for a Mancienne or whoever could open up?

bollocks to that I think they should sell him :D

nakh- kaka? ronaldinho? are these not surperior technical players? anyway yeah I agree that Germany should be the prototype to follow. That team still players with all the 'English fundamentals' 'national pride and passion', 'aggression', fast pace counter attacking, strength etc. but they have... you know... basic skill and technically ability and an understanding of basic tactics that we so dearly lack.

i'm not sure it's technical ability so much as technical thought. most of england's attacking players can trap a ball (lol heskey) but they don't always (in fact pretty rarely) trap it with intent, already moving in a considered or preparing for the next pass- as xavi, iniesta, modric do

yeah that is otm

English lumpish big strong we'll-worry-about-technique-and-possession-when-we-see-what-height-you-finish-up-son youth development has obviously been a thing for a long long time.

A long long time, like the entire history of English football basically?

I've been reading Jonathan Wilson's new one The Anatomy of England - was going to save my review 'til I'm finished - but he quotes liberally from the press at the time and these arguments have been going on forever, since at least 1929 when England lost in Spain. It basically plays out the same every time - horror and embarrassment, then putting it down to luck, then demanding the players show more pride & effort, then scapegoating a foreigner, then back to believing we're the best in the world. Until the next time.

I'm suspecting it's the insularity of the domestic game that means we always settle at the last stage. Nobody really cares about international success enough, except for two weeks every four years, and that isn't enough to justify proper change.

The book's brilliant btw.

don't think kaká is quite at the iniesta level technically, but he is at least as great a player (superior physically, more direct and efficient)

ronaldinho yeah, but he probably won't do anything significant for brazil ever again

d'you reckon printing this thread and sending it to the FA counts as a job application?

obv no foreigners, but for the rest of you

Technique - it was notable for me, watching Holland-Brazil, how Kuyt could more than hold his own in the little no-space-quick-passing scenes that that game sometimes devolved into. Kuyt! The guy gets derided as a donkey here, evaluated only for his goalscoring ameliorated by his workrate - I couldn't even tell you what his technique's like 'til that game.

it's shit, sorry

every dog tho

No way xp - Capello will get two more years, then it'll be back to looking for passion when England fail again.

I look at Steven Gerrard and especially Frank Lampard and I don't really imagine they lack the basic touch and technique to pass it properly, it's that English players are undisciplined and lack composure and that's where all the problems arise.

Kuyt's touch and technique aren't great, but those around him make up for that imo. his movement and anticipation of those around him at that level is good though- but don't do much for you at a team where everything's based around a player called stevie me.

xpost

Perhaps, perhaps not. If you lack the composure or discipline to be an effective passer of the ball then you're simply not an effective passer, imo. Having the right mindset is technique too, really.

Have we made some proper time to have a good laugh at Gerrard's pretence of "choosing" to stay at Liverpool btw? Or am I invoking the Furies one more time?

i've been trying to leave it, tbh. also liverpool 100% more likeable now under new management, regardless of players and argumental fans.

Ha, only cos you're sure they'll fail

I'd forgotten how sympathetic I was to Liverpool prior to Rafa's reign of terror. Getting rid of Gerrard wd have completed the rehabilitation tho.

I don't think liverpool will 'fail' under roy, but jeez what's 'fail'? they'll not qualify for CL next season, but they'll be moving in a better direction than they have been for a while i think.

Liverpool will qualify for the CL next season

sorry, wrong thread

lol

Mertesacker Emptiness

Just noticed this. A+++ would lol again

how many threads do you guys need to flog the same dead horse? seriously it's like groundhog day around here, 8 threads with the same 2 opinions.

Have we made some proper time to have a good laugh at Gerrard's pretence of "choosing" to stay at Liverpool btw?

have we made some proper time to say something bad about someone based on no fucking idea either way cos who the fuck has a clue about who did or didn't bid for anyone? if not RLOL.

and this goes for all gossip, not just gerrard.;

footballers what vile human beings, they can only aspire to be messageboard posters with all the associated achievements.

Man, these threads seriously need your moderating grumpy old man influence for balance, but I think Stevie can probably handle a bit of criticism to balance out the boneheaded "England superstars" bullshit hype that flourishes in plenty of mainstream media all year round. Think we all know when we're being unnecessarily scurrilous but personally the fact that I've not had a career as a Premier League footballer and serial failure at International level isn't gonna stop me from discussing people who have. Because I'm interested and because I spend enough time watching and thinking about footie.

Nice to see "you're all just jealous" get a run out off the bench tho.

Wouldn't have if it was Chelsea we were talking about, he would have still been sat there with Daniel Sturridge.

Sturridge is at Chelsea?

Criticising footy chat for being repetitive is like criticising water for being wet.

There's so much chat to be had, but there's not really that much to the game when it comes down to it, until you get into technical areas like tactics or finances or whatever. I like discussing those, but they don't really count as banter. Like I said above, even discussing what's wrong with the English game is just adding to a conversation that's been going on since at least 1929. I believe there's a back issue of Ye Private Eye from 1930 where legendary curmudgeon Mr L Garda hilariously lampoons an unfortunate correspondent who had rehashed the topic in his column the previous week.

local garda some kind of nominative determinism amirite

local garda i've got your back fwiw.

far too much b.s. over far too little substance.

i seriously don't know wtf you dudes are looking for in a football thread about england's WC failure on a message board where people basically just shoot the shit all day, and on top of that, during the football close season.

LG, you've contributed maybe a ballhair more more than the same meta complaints to any football thread this whole year, which is a real pity imo. maybe that's indicative of liverpool's season, but jeez that's a poor excuse for making the same attack every time you pop your head in the door.

there's prob too much transfer gossip, prob too much bitching about the premier league's english stars, prob too much posting of dumbass formations, prob too much dissing and not enough appreciation of the subtleties of the likes of r benitez and other very highly paid and experienced/talented professionals. prob too much of myself and a hoy hoy, in short.

but damned if i wouldn't sooner read a thesis from him on why fabregas will finish his career at arsenal than another line about how nobody on this board is qualified to lazily stick the boot in on steven fucking gerrard.

cesc is leaving once ramsey is fit imo fyi

would have happened this summer if barca weren't skint and ryan shawcross wasn't a cunt

i take it all back

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh why am I watching this

?

o look we scored hurrah

http://www.atdhe.net/21576/watch-spain-u19-vs-england-u19

that third goal sums everything up

Forgot this was on. Spain outclassing England in every way imaginable?

more or less, although I gather our U17s are far, far superior to this shower

yeah suuuuuure they are

England's tactic is 'pacy, powerful forwards' - that appears to be it

yeah we'll they'll all be in prison or jaded with footballing life by the time they're 23 so best have a backup

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IN1AUOgvL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

Book review:

The Anatomy of England
Jonathan Wilson

This is an attempt to trace the development of the England team through ten key matches in their history. It's absolutely marvellous.

The games are chosen to mark out the peaks and troughs over the decades. Some are obvious: Hungary 1953, Holland 1996, Croatia 2007. Others less so: Spain 1929, Italy 1938, France 1982. They're all given proper treatment and placed in the proper context of the periods and tournaments they occurred in.

The detail is just brilliant. He's taken great care to use proper sources instead of received wisdom, so it's continually surprising - just as much with the modern games as with the older ones. I had no idea that Hungary's lead-up to the Wembley game wasn't effortless genius, for example, but in fact some rather laboured games against teams who had worked them out tactically. And I'd clean forgotten the surge of violence the night England went out of Euro 96, and how out-of-character it was in the that tournament's context.

The best, though, is the detail he goes into on the games themselves. Individual moves get described over and over, which sounds like it might be dull but made it really easy to picture what was actually going on. Tactics and formations are pretty complex things, and it's lovely to have them addressed properly and explained on their own terms. He also draws parallels between the matches, but without being trite or tenuous - things like how England's kick-offs against West Germany in 1972 and 1990 and against Norway in 1993 were very similar, and trying to explain how somehow the middle one worked while the other two were fiascos.

It felt like there was loads of everything crammed into the book, and there is, but it's so well done that it isn't too dense or difficult to read. Highly, highly recommended.

haven't read ITP yet but really must

Slightly unexpected is that Wilson cites Why England Lose by Simon Kuper with approval on a few occasions. I was a bit dismissive of it in my previous review.

Having written that, I have unexpectedly found myself with a spare copy (of Why England Lose). If anyone wants it, send me a webmail and I'll see what I can do.

pretty sure we've covered why england lose on ilx premier league threads 2002 onwards

"Why England Lose"

cover picture- stevie gerrard, rest of it is actually a blank

hope u don't troll the real gardaí like tht

*that*

Gardaí- GAA men first and foremost

"Why England Lose"

cover picture- stevie gerrard, rest of it is actually a blank

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Wednesday, 28 July 2010 12:15 (54 minutes ago)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rKf10GO9L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

That's not Gerrard is it?

It's his squad number.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2009/11/7/1257606409539/Steven-Gerrard-001.jpg

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04_04/Gerrard2304_468x660.jpg

England boss Fabio Capello has called up the uncapped trio of Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs and Bobby Zamora for the friendly against Hungary on Wednesday.

Goalkeepers David James and Robert Green are replaced by Ben Foster and Paul Robinson.

Theo Walcott and Adam Johnson are both recalled having been included in the provisional 30-man squad before failing to make the cut for the World Cup.

Bolton's Gary Cahill and West Ham's Carlton Cole are also in the squad.

now more players in the england team than liverpool and utd - what a hater of english footballers wenger is.

rabble-rousing alternative perspective: Arsene hates English footballers so much he won't even play the ones who are good enough for international football.

How much are tickets for the Hungary game? I tried looking on The FA website but you need to register and get an ID number.

Gah, always the case. I look, can't find the answer, ask, look again, and find it dead easy. They're £40, £30, £25, £20.

David James didn't exactly cover himself in glory today.

Ha, Paul Robinson's retired from international football.

Thanks for the memories Paul, we'll miss you big guy ;_;

I feel a bit sorry for him. I picked him for my fantasy team yesterday and was just thinking that goalies get shabbily treated in treated. They hardly ever get to make a comeback, when they're out it's off to the wilderness never to be seen again. Robinson's more or less teh same player he was when he was longstanding no.1. Obviously he's not great, but he's still no worse than anyone other than Hart and James.

Can't wait for Big Sam's verdict on this affair.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/13/article-1286255-0A022B92000005DC-219_468x297.jpg

pour one out

Obviously he's not great, but he's still no worse than anyone other than Hart and James.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 8 August 2010 10:56 (3 hours ago) Bookmark

sorry, what?

when did any of the other contenders cost their team points over a prolonged period like robinson did in the jol era (RIP big man)?

anyway, quite what lennon has done to deserve dropping is a mystery to me. fabio trying to get kudos for changing everything while switching round only peripheral figures imo.

abio trying to get kudos for changing everything while switching round only peripheral figures imo.

otm but i guess many things come into play - lennon was rubbish at the wc, watching him in training, 'the capello index', if he's been joining petey in any taxi rides etc. etc.

Another one bites the bullet rather than soldier on http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8896134.stm

haha, who's next then...

Goodness. I was hoping Capello was going to clear the decks and pick the unshowy guys who don't mind doing it for the team. If even they don't fancy it, he'll be on his way ere long.

Not really. Wes Brown ws probably going to be made redundant.

But Robinson? A lot of crap about concentrating on his club career (as if there was less focus before) and family (er what dude you play footie for a living?! What's a few more games adding to that commitment). But the goalkeeping position is really open: James is effectively off, so is Rob Green - only 'marginal' on paper. Wouldn't have lost much by sticking with it for a bit.

The retirements are all spineless. People who think they deserve more. Again, goes w/out saying that Capello's record at club level still carries weight - just great how there is no hiding place for the current bunch.

Can't wait for Big Sam's verdict on this affair.
Said he'd imagine Robinson would change his mind if Capello could guarantee that he'd be 1st choice.

yeah, england need more 'guaranteed first choice' players alright.

I'd only describe the decision to retire as 'spineless' if it was out of fear or lack of fight, tbh.

IMO, an england career doesn't actually matter enough to most players in that pool to qualify.

But the goalkeeping position is really open:

umm... only if hart gets an injury in the next 15 years aaaand then foster isn't available as back-up?

Can't see Hart getting one injury in his career tbh

this is awesome
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/08/08/article-1301389-0ABAB2D1000005DC-809_468x286.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/08/08/article-1301389-0ABAA95D000005DC-967_468x286.jpg

even better if you read it as a taunt tbh

ahahahahahaha

It was out of lack of fear.

only if hart gets an injury in the next 15 years aaaand then foster isn't available as back-up?

Hart was 3rd choice when arguably he should have been 1st for the wc, bit like I said he could've had stuck around.

I really hope this brave effort from some world class genii intent on unseating Capello succeeds. It's about time there was some player power re: England.

i thought that hiring an unquestionable like capello would break it, but tbh he's made himself fairly questionable and weakened his position.

but a new strategy is needed- i reckon gerrard/terry/ferdinand should be the new player managers.

said it before and I'll say it again: MARADONA. Wasn't afraid to drop big name, backbone of the team players like Cambiasso and Zanetti, exactly what England need.

MARADONA for VILLA you know it makes SENSE

england needs gazza.

he's the only person who recognises the england players the way they truly are.

good people. who have done very bad things.

england with gazza mnanager- joey barton gets a call up

'yo joey, it's gazza'

"I've got a dressing gown and a box of chicken"

o_O

Not familiar with the Gazza/Moaty connection, LJ?

nono I am o_Oing at yet another player pull-out and a dude called Frank Fielding being in the squad

Foster is just straight "ooh I'm injured" 3 days before a League fixture shenanigans I think. Wes Brown retiring from international football is about on a level with me retiring from international football.

whatever happened to lee camp

Summer season supporting Bernie Clifton at Skegness Futurist Theatre iirc

I tell you when I know Scotland was in trouble: on 1st June 1997, I sat down to watch highlights of a friendly between Scotland and Malta, and soon realised there was a player wearing a Scotland shirt who I had never heard of before - that man was David Hopkin

― I am utterly and abjectly pissed off with this little lot (Tom D.), Tuesday, June 29, 2010 11:53 AM (1 month ago)

I've sat down to watch a Charlton match and not heard of our striker once - that man was David Mooney - and yeah, trouble loomed

Yeah, I have no idea who either of England's reserve keepers are now. can't remember the last time I hadn't actually *heard* of a Scotland player, but I don't think I could pick, say, Scott Robertson out of a lineup.

when yer reduced to calling up some guy you just made up you know that the darkness has truly fallen and you may as well get it over with and try to Anglify Almunia.

I was just checking that Scott Carson and Chris Kirkland are still alive, and it turns out that they are, though they aren't feeling too good right now.

Anyone watch it?

talk was in the euro thread dude

doh, sorry.