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

No

Hes incorrect that that numbing mishmash of channel dave advertising level regalia cuntishness is even accurate, he's incorrect that it translates to a footballing identity, he's incorrect that it is even to be consolidated upon even if it did, he's incorrect to make this embarrassment of a diatribe public

Seems a fair diagnosis. England only ever really lose to a combination of top organisation and top technique - since they're invariably well-organised themselves, the skill gap always looks horrendous. But otherwise England usually at least hold their own when the opposition only has one of these qualities.

Spirit is fair too - nevermind doggedness, in the two most traumatic defeats of the past decade (Croatia 2007, Germany 2010) England managed a frankly stupid two-goal comeback. See the recent Brazil game too. That sort of thing is fucking terrifying to anybody even slightly flaky.

But ultimately you can't get over poor technique.

siding with klata on this one, really. dunno if that means i've revoked my immunity

...or gained it

immunity from?

the eternal zinging flame

Eh, is that what siding with me gets you? :o( Time for ILF glee club.

the spirit of british fair play immunizes all who sail under her ensign

As long as you post hard and never say die you'll be fine

Well you won't be, but you'll probably make the quarter-finals.

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/1535/b474.jpg

This is amazing - setting a lunatic arbitrary target with no mechanism to reach it. Even more so when the pre-target - semis at Euro 2020 - was only two or three penalties away last summer.

it might be an indicator of how powerless the FA feels with regard to developing the game in England. Dyke's quotes read to me as half "anybody got any ideas?" and half "please help us oh powerful Premier League"

they'll be lucky to even be in the next world cup, seriously. and who's going to take the job after hodgson gets sacked?

They'll qualify comfortably, I don't know why the panic. Much as I like Hodgson, his dampening talk here is even worse than at Liverpool.

NV was it ever thus? Was there really ever a time when the clubs considered England to be a priority?

it is different now though in that, and it's a cliché, there's no way the youth system can have any real emphasis on it in england when even clubs finishing 10th or whatever are richer than most of their european counterparts.

when even clubs finishing 10th or whatever are richer than most of their european counterparts.

Clubs finishing 20th are richer than most of their european counterparts.

i'm sure the FA held a lot more sway over the clubs when Premier League money hadn't happened but i don't know if anybody has written in-depth look at shifts in political power in the English game. the bottom line is that for most of their history the FA and the Football League weren't in significant competition over finances and resources and obv the EPL itself didn't exist

as i understood it most of the recent rule changes re: developing young players have been in favour of the Prem clubs, and the FA has far less control over the development of schoolkids than it did even 20 years ago. "not enough English players in the Prem" is surely a symptom of England's problems more than a substantial cause of them.

it's always about youth development imo

the wealthiest teams in europe all produce far more good players than any epl sides. real madrid are the wealthiest by revenue and most spendthrift yet they still produce enough players to field a champions league team, half of them in england and very few still in madrid.

this sort of third way maoism by dyke is exactly predicated on the complete lack of central planning by epl teams. they are gradually rationalizing their mgmt structures with directors of football etc but in general they still change managers frequently and each of them guts and replenishes the side and has no incentive to prioritize young players.

then at youth level the emphasis on demonstrable, short term success with the youth teams rather than nurturing individual players tends to produce legions of barely competent players with only physical advantages. ajax and bayern are explicit about only trying to get a few players a year, the rest are merely making up the numbers to field a side.

then the reasons why the players are crap -- bayern / barcelona have one clear advantage in that they have second teams in the lower divisions. the 90 minute rule isn't great but football teams are concentrated in the southeast and northwest where most of them have a netherlands sized catchment area.

epl teams spend plenty on their youth academies but coaching in general doesn't seem very good, the number of elite uefa licenses is absurdly small, something like a quarter of the proportion in spain. there's also the cultural chasm between the current epl which requires higher levels of technique than british style football generally does, so loads of ishmael miller / ryan tunnicliffe type dogshit is produced for champo level in order to bring in a continuing stream of revenue for the elite academies.

Graph of playstation ownership per country to thread

the coaching thing is interesting, especially when you look at say the u21s. like psycho followed by gareth southgate, both managers on the way down from failed topflight careers. doesn't really say much about investment in youth. surely at the worst you give this job to a hungry guy who's looking to prove self rather than someone already proven to be rubbish.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2411847/West-Brom-forward-Saido-Berahinos-journey-streets-Burundi-England-Under-21s.html

‘It’s not like here where kids have PS3s and the internet'

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/west-brom-chairman-blasts-premier-4802779

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-lodge-young-player-2033504

Albion’s biggest gripe is that each Category One youngster has a set ‘price’ of £209,000 (not including add-ons for U-12 to U-16s, not including add-ons for eventual appearances) which Peace feels renders his own club’s academy as a loss-making venture.

“Why are we spending £2.5million to be another club’s academy? We’ve invested in the infrastructure and we’ll see what happens over the next year. But from what we’re seeing so far it’s very disappointing.

“We’ve brought in a whole load of staff, all these facilities and then a club can come along with £200k and say ‘here you go, thank you very much’.

“It’s irritating me because it’s about the big clubs, not about clubs like us. Perhaps £2.5million would be better spent bringing in a player rather than spending it every year on the academy."

I think Southgate has some sensible thoughts along these lines but the positive impact that any U21 coach can have is extremely limited. In any case, by the time they get to U21 level the damage has been done. If the FA are serious about improving the technical quality of English players they need to start much much earlier.

and as i think Nilmar illustrates they need to either wrest control of youth development back from Premier League clubs or, more plausibly, impose much stricter control on the way the elite clubs develop young players

disagree about coaches not being able to have a positive impact on the players. stuart pearce is the guy who stuck david james up front when he was desperate for a goal remember. performances in the summer gave me the impression that they just didn't know what the plan was, and that comes from the coach. not as sold on this 'technically shite' argument as i think i used to be either.

i can see how the current wave of technically accomplished young English footballers might give the lie to that argument

nobody who knew shit about fitba could watch an england youth team game and not notice how risibly shit the basic control of 80% of players is

the rare exceptions tend to come from the few academies where half of the other players and coaching staff are from abroad

they play in tramlines even when not playing 442, everything is vertical or to the wings

this latest thing is more idle dogshit probably, the fa have no significant power over private institutions who can and will and should do what the fuck they want, but it would rather not admit it so continue to dissimulate wrt to their capacities and ~relevance~

Dyke was perfectly happy to enhance his reputation as a straight talking, no-nonsense leader, a bit of a geezer, while taking care to stress he was not offering the Premier League outside for a fight.

just sayin whatever

the english already have their own league for english british irish whatever players, the champo will continue to suit their characteristics and the revenues and wages are comparable to mid-lower tier la liga teams so nativists can be reassured that native workers will still get jobs

the current english nt is shit largely because the current generation who ought to be at their best right now, born from 1982 to 1987 or so, are with few exceptions dreadful: the succeeding generation looks rather better and should be able to maintain the borderline respectable achievements of 2002-2006

the best players of 1989-1993 show a gradual move to a higher basic technical level driven by the main cl sides and a few outliers like southampton, and by a process of diffusion this will ever so slowly reach to the rest of the epl

let the right Carroll in

then at youth level the emphasis on demonstrable, short term success with the youth teams rather than nurturing individual players tends to produce legions of barely competent players

This is otm for Celtic. They crow about winning youth and U19 leagues year on year but have delivered all of one (frequently broken) player in years, with one or two others making the odd bench/glorious winner vs Barcelona before being farmed out on loan. Every year we see a bunch of kids parade their league trophy around Celtic Park then never see them again.

the best players of 1989-1993 show a gradual move to a higher basic technical level driven by the main cl sides and a few outliers like southampton, and by a process of diffusion this will ever so slowly reach to the rest of the epl

England appear to be producing an awful lot of good pacy wingers, wide forwards and explosive if slightly flaky fullbacks and not that much else. Central midfield in particular is something of a desert, especially given that Wilshere looks unlikely to play a full season in the forseeable future and people like Tom Cleverly are not going to get any better than they already are. I can't even remember if people like Jack Rodwell are even any good.

What about this young Barkley fellow at Everton?

England have always produced good pacy wingers who can consistently beat their man to the touchline before crossing it into the opposite stand.

and the fullbacks are not 'slightly flaky' they are pacy non-footballers, or at best non-defenders, with only a very few very notable exceptions.

yeah thats pretty much not true at all when the best young english player is a cm, although wilshere is just about the best of any age, and rodwell is the best u20 player and he will end up a cm, and wenger intends to develop aoc to play more centrally

england fbs are mostly imbecile runners like kyle walker or like.....carl jenkinson

their wingers aren't worth shit either in the grand scheme of things, even zaha is completely unproven and nobody would rate him over much younger players like bakkali

ugh rodwell = barkley

rodwell himself is better than any fb/winger but he is very english in his dynamism and lack of concentration or composure

gonna have to step in here - jenks far more aware a defender than walker

yeah i wasnt categorizing jenkinson with walker i was saying he is his own thing

Wilshere is the best young English player by some distance but appears to be particularly injury prone. Rodwell's also had his problems and City doesn't really look like a great environment for him to be developing in.

People like Sterling and Townsend may well progress but yes they are unproven and don't look like world class players in the making.

Nothing to do with Pellegrini as a coach, they're just stocked with much better options. I'm still not convinced by AOC, steam train athleticism notwithstanding.

sterling is good but he seems to be a horrible little cunt and could go either way
townsend is epl level but not technically good enough to step up to cl level
redmond was the best u21 player this summer and should be a good player

jonjo shelvey

are any of these better than jermaine pennant was at the same age

and he has had a quietly half decent career, which is the sort of level this lot should aspire to

zaha has the size to maybe become more of a direct threat

connor wickham ftw

shelvey is trash, utterly mindless player

Also England's long-term prospects at CF look utterly dreadful, only Sturridge is worth the time of day and he's a greedy cock as well.

Welbeck?

sturridge is the only english cf in years who even looks like a natural striker rather than a converted sprinter or a 6'3 200lb lump like wickham

welbeck doesn't do it for me tbh but people have been getting more excited about him

sturridge has v good vision and seems to have worked on his finishing