In the last few years we have seen transfer prices spiralling out of control with Stewart Downing going for £20 million, Andy Carroll being sold for £35 million, Liverpool drawing £50 million out of Chelsea for Fernando Torres and talk of Carlos Tevez being worth £50 million and so on. Yet, Barcelona forked out £40 million for David Villa, which I would say is a bargain compared to Torres and Tevez.
Surely these extraordinary sums of money being thrown into transfers would be better and more efficiently spent within our youth ranks, academies and maintaining their facilities, a system Arsene Wenger has been trying to implement for some time. This is the system adopted by the German Football Government, hence why they came third in the World Cup Final 2010, in their eyes a team deemed not good enough to win the tournament.
England ought not to be looking for instant success and need to incorporate a plan for the future over a series of years. Other examples are Barcelona and their current team who defend and play the best football and England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup success was down to an 8-year plan devised by Clive Woodward and his team. In essence, it took 1 World Cup and 7 six nation competitions to win the World Cup.
Let’s now focus on Jack Wilshire. He is easily the best English midfielder since Paul Gascoigne and Paul Scholes – yes there has been Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard but technically Jack Wilshire outshines this duo at the age of 19. Therefore, nearly a decade has gone past since someone can take the reins for the national team but it is no good having one great player of this quality. Look at Spainish national team, their weakness in the last world cup was their left back, Juan Capdevila who would walk into any of 16 premiership clubs, in my opinion.
Furthermore, the majority of their team plays week in, week out together at Barcelona with a few additions. In addition, they have up to 4 goalkeepers to choose from in Casillas, Valdes, Pepe Reina and De Gea. Who do the England national squad have Hart, Foster (who is on sabbatical leave) and erm… oh yeah Fielding. This is quite frankly embarrassing.
I look at the current national team and think they are a good team, but not great (definitely should not be ranked 4th in the FIFA Rankings). If a handful are injured or suspended and unable to play then who can we turn to? That we don’t even have a first choice right back at the moment is a sorry state of affairs. And what of the left-back position? I can only picture our next left back as Kieran Gibbs and if he is serving a match ban or injury who would their be to fill his boots?
Spain’s midfield is bursting with talent, Xavi, Ineista, Alonso, Busquets, Fabregas, Thiago Alcantara and the forgotten Mikel Arteta who has never been capped by the Spain national team. This should be the situation that England should be in, the home of football but instead we are weighed down with love rats, overpriced and overpaid footballers and in my opinion it is only going to get worse as the next generation are seeing this and only playing football for these reasons instead of the love of the game which is clearly generated in Spain and other countries.
This must be a sign that actions must be implemented for a design structure for a youth system and for money to be dispersed appropriately on transfer fees and wages. Germany themselves said from the start that they weren’t going to win World Cup in 2010, it was a chance for the players to gain tournament experience and work together as a team and that the target was to win the 2014 World Cup. This holds many advantages, releases the pressure off the team enabling them to work better, experience is gained and that the whole team can work together for a number of years. Finally, the Premier League may see the top foreign stars leave but an improvement amongst the national team will be seen, as British players are given the chance to play professional football and develop.
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What you wrote about Spain, might be not that harsh on English football, as Spain owns the best League football in World as well. The irony is that, a lot of your praises for Spain is applicable for Germany, France or even Holland, despite the last 2 probably having a League compared to English Championship.
English players are over hyped, over priced, over paid & over focused. I surf a lot of global football sites & in last 1/2 years, the funniest 2 comparisons in football I read was comparison of Giggs with Pele, Maradona & the second one unfortunately from my favorite captain, insulting Messi.
Last November, at Wembely, a young English team was out played by a French team (Outclassed, had it been a boxing match, the Referee would have stopped the game at halftime). A lot of comments came in favor of the inexperience of the English team, completely ignoring the fact that the French were even more inexperience & in rebuilding phase.
In that match, 2 similar aged player from either side played almost at same position. Now if Henderson is purchased for at least 16mn, what should be the asking price of Ma’Vila? A lot of people suggest that the foreigners are limiting young English player. Actually it’s other way round, the quota system has given the English players the marque status, which has allowed average players like Carroll costing almost as much as David Villa. The harsh irony of British football is that, despite being an elite Football force England (As well as Ireland & Scotland) are managed by foreigners.
This easy money is making English young players complacent & least bothered for qualitative improvements. Even after that WC ’10 performance, it was quite normal for Rooney black mailing Sir Alex, knowing that his demand ‘ll be met. In Spain, there are many Latin players play, due to the language & style, which has improved the overall quality of the Spanish team. Same can be said for French League with African connections. Those are examples of the external talents pushing the local players raising their level.
Unfortunately the English managers are a bit snobbish (I don’t want to say raciest) & often the non English mother tongue players are treated unfairly. Kenny Duglish is giving so many opportunity to Robinson & Falangan while Mavinga is leaving the club after being Euro champions. Same can be said for Pacheco or Ayla vs. Spearing or Selvy. I am sure the upcoming English players are paid much higher than similar foreigners. This nepotism is giving unfair advantages to English players while grooming & they hardly learn from an young age to fight an even & fair contest.
Already from global force to Europe, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland has become minnows & unless, English authority makes a proper contest for grooming English players, we ‘ll see a lot of English paper tigers, who ‘ll be sitting at highest end of computer based FIFA ranking as a National team & England ‘ll be a laughing stock as a National team, just like the WCs or Euros (Sometimes even in the qualification rounds as well)
Firstly you have misspelt Jack Wilshere’s name (he even made a big point of this in the press lately) and secondly I think you’re wrong about him being better than Gerrard and Lampard at that age. In comparison, he plays in a much better team than those two did at the same age, and with a manager who drills into his players the art of pass and move and ball retention etc! This was probably lacking in the Liverpool and West Ham teams that the two aforementioned midfielders began in! Oh and Lampard even went to Swansea for a season!
Not sure that’s entirely why Germany finished third; they have always been a good tournament team! Why is their transport infrastructure better than ours? Because they train their youngsters how to run and maintain a successful rail network from an early age?! No, it’s a cultural thing and this is probably the same with their football. As the cliche goes they are more efficient and probably less prone to the histrionics that accompany the England team!
I think the trouble with football in this country is at the grass roots level. We get these little lads onto a big field with 11 v 11, and expect them to mature into skilful footballers. They won’t. The pitch is too big, often too slow and they get tired. They learn to boot it up the field and hope someone latches onto it. Yes a few players make runs/dribbles etc, but not many. Compare this to say Holland and Spain. They place more emphasis on 5-a-side etc on smaller, faster pitches and focus on close control, passing and movement to be in place for the return ball. I have seen examples of this whilst working in Spain and have been told that the Dutch also adopt this policy. Then later they move to bigger pitches and teams and apply their skills to these games. The weather is another factor as it’s much nicer to spend all day outside in Spain than it is here. Also, recently (I think it was Alex Ferguson who said) that in Spain they can have young players training for a whole day, whereas in this country our laws prohibit this and they get like an hour with them! I’m not sure how much training the Spanish do in a week (after school etc), but I bet it’s more than we do!
Yes the German way of approaching the last World Cup was good (saying they’re there to gain experience for 2014), but can you imagine the press and fans letting England get away with saying that? The manager would be crucified by the red tops for suggesting we were entering a tournament with an attitude of we can’t win it!!! And as far as Spain’s midfield and goalkeeping options go, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if this is just an unusual period of history where they are overly blessed or whether they can keep producing players of this quality when this ‘golden ‘generation’ have hung up their boots!!
I totally agree that our youth system needs a massive overhaul, but this is probably best achieved by getting in coaches etc from abroad who have experience in this. I think this is happening at Liverpool at present?
The best article I ever read about English Football team.
The rest of the World would certainly prosper in Football while English FA remain sleeping and dreaming about how to make money in the transfer market. if this thing continues for another 5 years, then sorry to say Asian and African teams would surpassed them easily.