Stuart Pearce will not be offered a new contract by the FA. He will leave at the end of June when his current deal expires. Get in Glenn Hoddle I say, teach the youngsters how to play football.
If Hoddle is treated the same as Pearce,re selecting best players nothing will change. You must play the strongest players, regardless of "first team friendly games"
Sadly, whoever does the England under 21s job will find it a poisoned chalice. The personal pride at pulling on the national shirt is now dwarfed by the best interests of the club paying the players wages. And the more money the sport generates, the worse it will get, sadly.
If our football is to ever improve it needs to start at an earlier level and it needs to start at school and home, as the footballing mentality in this country is flawed to start with. As a nation we're renowned for being patient we'll queue up and wait our turn in an orderly fashion in the shops, airports you name it, but for some reason this doesn't transpire whilst watching the game in our living rooms and on the pitch whether it be a school match right the way through to a professional game. Players in this country are raised to have good engines, be powerful and quick, the technical ability totally go's out of window because for some reason the general public along with the establishment find it's boring, dynamic athletical players and those with flair are what people want unfortunately. Ask someone if they'd rather watch players like Schweinsteiger or Pirlo or if they'd rather watch someone like Neymar, I can guarantee you most people would go for the latter.
It's because that's what works in the current juniors system, I wouldn't say Joe Public really have much to do with it. The easiest way to win with a kids side is to have defenders who can lump it up field, and strikers who'll bully the opposition defenders off the ball - at least in my experience of coaching in a poor U10-14's league. And frustratingly it seems winning is all that matters at that level. It's not helped by playing on mud-bath pitches which destroy any attempt at short passes. I'm told we've removed competitive football, and shrunk the goals, at the start of junior football, which is a start, but we've nowhere near gone far enough. If you look at Spain, the focus is on Futsal at a lower level, which is played mainly indoors, on smaller pitches and with fewer players. Each kid gets more time on the ball, and being comfortable on the ball is important as you've got less time before you're closed down - or you're already marked. You can see that in the national side, players are happy to receive the ball when tightly marked, and keep possession. We're trying to teach our players that kind of ability once they've already been introduced to football in the "English" way. We've got it the wrong way around, physicality can be developed at any age, it just takes time in the gym - something which also works better at an older age anyway. Rather than start on a mini-football pitch, the youngsters should be started on a mini-futsal pitch, to acutely train control, etc from a young age. Keep them on age-appropriate futsal pitches until around 13, then slowly expand the pitch to be full size by 17. Ideally then you've got academies and youth sides producing players with the technical ability, and then you can stick them in a gym and work on their muscularity and stamina to get them up to speed with the mens game. Well, that's my $0.02 anyway. I'll get off my soap box now.
Spot on Carrabuh. If they haven't been coached or been coached properly, by then, Hoddle won't be able to teach them in the few days at his disposal. I always remember Ron Saunders saying - if they can't control a ball and do the basics by the time they reach me there is not a lot I can do about it. All I can do is get them fit and play them is a system that will win matches. Trouble was that Pearce was trying to do that with a bunch of overpaid, uninterested youngsters who showed no pride in pulling on the England shirt.
I think it has a lot to do with Jo Public. Jo Public is not interested in watching or understanding quality football. The appreciation for passing, touch and technique is just not there. Jo Public want to see as many chances made as possible, not fewer quality chances. I've been on these types of boards for 6 years now and I realise that there are just not enough people who are interested in watching it. You get plenty of people moan about the lack of ability of English players, but the first sign they try and do anything different and fail its resort back to what we know. That's what I admire about the likes of Spain and Barcelona, they don't have the plan B's this country is absolutely besotted with. They focus on making Plan A even better so it doesn't fail next time.
Joe Public in my opinion is impatient they want quick direct teams. Somehow parents and coaches need to educate the kids that it's OK to pass it backwards or to the side if it means creating space and easing pressure off the team. They really need to go back to the drawing board but it's more about mentality and attitude, stop running around like headless chickens in training games it solves nothing, work on passing drills and technique get it right. I also think that people need to install some pride in the position the youngsters play in, I bet quite a lot of the kids who play at the back absolutely hate playing there because they want to be the striker or the winger etc, they need to learn just because they're a defender doesn't exactly mean they're a **** player. I remember when I was a kid in PE when we played football You'd have 20 people playing other positions then about 50 strikers, whats so bad about being a midfielder, a defender or a Goalie? I agree with you about facilities but even practicing indoors or on astroturf could help that but once again I appreciate it involves facilities. Was out in Barcelona two years ago with my mates one of who has dabbled with semi pro football, it was baking day and we were walking to the Sagrada Familia, along the way there was a group of lads playing on an astroturf pitch and I'm not lying some of them could of quite easily cut it at League One/Two level and the technical level would of made a Championship player jealous, these guys were like Under 16's junior Saturday D league.
I guess it depends what you're classing as Joe Public, the wider population of football fans, or the parents of the kids involved. I think if a decent coach explained to parents what they were trying to do, then some parents would be receptive, particularly as the media continue to disseminate the idea that 'spanish' is the way to go. Loosely adhering to my above outline, you take a group of kids, and train them to play 'properly' for 4 years or so to develop them technically, and then you introduce the competitive side of things, and ideally they do pretty well. You've then got them as an example to show future parents of U9's, to help explain what you're trying to do. I think a lot of parents would be receptive as well, particularly those of kids who aren't tall, strong and quick. That should help you keep a reasonable size group together, rather than having those who don't suit 'english' football drifting off and getting bored/disillusioned. Then after your 4 years, there's the potential that some of those small, scrawny lads have developed decent technique and could play competitively in a passing style. I agree though that the football fan living for the moment just wants to see their club creating chances however they come about, and sticking the ball in the net.
DH, When you get back home we might have to see about taking over a local team... you can be the coaching and the tactics and ill be the mouthy and the physical. Lets build some Fabregas-es
