Are English players are 'technically inferior?'

England international tonight. Like many, when it comes round to these games - I almost have to force myself to get enthusiastic - yet with Newcastle - I'm always there, checking news on players - transfers - watching, games and highlights, etc. Why is this?

What's everyone else think?

. Do English players lack the skills & technique of their foreign counterparts because of the way they're trained? Therefore they're boring to watch. (I know what people are going to say about this: "old argument"...but you have to think....WHY does everyone keep on saying it? If it's an old argument, WHY is it an old argument)

. Secondly, has the standard of club Premier League and CL football surpassed international football, to the extent where international football is becoming less important? This national rivalry thing is also a thing of the past?

Would be interesting to see opinions...

 

Back in the day, Internationals were always the games to watch. When you got the chance to see the best players in the Country and felt a certain amount of pride at seeing England play and hopefully win. Days when you got the chance to see foreign International players that you hadn't seen before. Now you see them every week playing either for your team or against them, and the Internationals don't seem to have the same glamour now. It used to be Country before club, but now it's very much club before Country for most people.

Sorry, out of rep at the moment. Later though.

 

In a sense, yes, but that's only because people only include things like dribbling, passing and pace, when it comes to technicality.

But technical means having a lot of good attributes, not just fancy ****.

We're not as skillful, but we have the necessary traits.

No point in being a skillful Brazilian, if you cannot stand a crunching tackle, or react quick enough to deal with our defensive work.

 

Well, technical ability is usually equated with techique, which is generally equated with skill. English players do tend to be much less skillful than theire counterparts.

As Tash says, they also tend to have some otehr qualities, traditionally leather lungs and shins of steel.

As for the boredom with international fixtures, I think it has more to do with the consistently disappointing nature of the England performances in the last decade than anything else. In 2002, the country stopped for the England Brazil match.

2002 isn't that long ago. There were plenty of foreign players in the Prem at that time, and the Champions League ws in full flower. What gripped the country was that the team had fought back from almost certain elimination to qualify in the first place, and had then shown a hugely gutsy display to beat Argentina, who were generally thought to be much betteer than us. Underdoggism, spirit, success snatched from the jaws of defeat: evereything the british (and probably everyone else) likes best.

Since then, it has been the opposite: hyped up players, pathetic surrenders, defeat snatched form the jaws of victory. Very hard to get enthusiastic about.

If, in the next two years, Hodgson brings in a younger group of players and if the look like their interested, and if they can put in a decent performance or two to pull out a result against any top side, expect to be glued to your set with the rest of the country. Nothing has structurally changed: we just need something we can cheer.

 

Wouldn't say we are techniacally inferior but what we do lack is a bit of imagination/creativity in the centre of the park. Would like to see people like wilshere and cleverley turn out to start blooding them along with the Ox. My 23 man squad for the world cup in just under 2 years time.

GK
Hart
Ruddy
Buckland

RB
Richards
Walker

CB
Shawcross
Jagielka
Lescott
Saylor

LB
Bertrand
Cole/Baines

CM
Milner
Rodwell
Cleverley
Lampard

RW
A Johnson
Lennon/Walcott

CAM
Wilshere
Gerrard

LW
Sturridge
Oxlade-Chamberlain

CF
Rooney
Carroll

 

English players come from England, where we have a very limited program for educating on football excellence. In Spain, or Brazil, a lot of it is learned in the street, on the beach. In Germany or Italy football excellence is coached through schooling, much like big sport in the USA; excellence is nurtured. Here, it is down to the clubs themselves to invest the time and effort and we all know we have a huge history of 4-4-2, hit it long, run channels, kick it into touch from our coaches, so it follows that it's harder to produce decent talent.

It's all pretty obvious, but it'll take yonks to fix.

 

I think we are technically inferior.
This has all but been admitted by the FA so hopefully the new centre of excellence will address this.

 

I look back to school.....im a decent player but im 5'9" now so was fairly small in school, compared to some of the other lads anyway. I was also one of the quickest sprinters but useless over long distance. Our teachers woudl play full size pitches regardless of how many players we had, sometimes 6 or 7 a side on a full pitch, which was not conducive to any sort of skillful play whatsoever. In fact it was a total joke and i ended up gettin fvcked off and quitting the afternoon football sessions to go along to the gym where i could look at the girls. I coulda been a contender.

you get the picture anyway, thankfully they seem to be knocking all this on the head with the new measures etc

 

In short I'm not sure there can be any debate, we are behind. Thankfully Trevor Brooking has noted this some time ago and put the wheels in motion to sort out the issues. Unfortunately it can take 10-15 years to resolve this kind of issue so we need a bit of realism and patience from our fanbase.

 

Sorry for being a massive knob but would a mod fix that title before I lose my ****

 

English national team only has creativity through the wings and little at that, the centre midfield has no creativity and little to offer in defense and zero mobility... when we change that we will look a whole lot better.