The General Football Thread

This is the passion you show at failing to qualify for the World Cup: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41977749

Makes me proud to be half-Italian at least. Pretty much all of Italy will be in mourning.

 

Forgive me if this topic has been raised before, but I having been musing for a while that when 15/16/17 year old lads progress into first teams when they appear to be physically mature it is not unusual for their careers to be curtailed by injury or injuries. Boys who looked like men... Norman Whiteside, Gareth Bale, Luke Shaw, Ross Barkley are prime examples.. it can even be argued Wayne Rooney has suffered.. Is this just because there are only so many games in a footballers legs, or is it that boys who look like men in their mid teens need more protection/nuture before playing in 'big league'?

 

Not convinced I’d put Bale in that category. He was pretty slight when he started for us. Theo, Michael Owen and Ox would tend to disprove your theory too.

 

Theo, Owen and Ox looked like relative striplings. My memory of Bale is he was muscularly well developed, he certainly had a long throw at 16...

 

Exactly. And they’re always injured.

 

Just going to pop this here because it is two hours long and I want to be able to pick it up again, having listened to an interesting first half hour:

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It's The True Geordie and Co talking to Alan Shearer. He speaks a lot of his time at Southampton.

 

Cheers for posting the video.
I have a lot of time for Shearer as a pundit even if I don't always agree with what he says.
He also comes across much better than most of his co-presenters although perhaps that's not much of a compliment when they include the likes of Savage and Wright.

 

England's youth teams continue their march. The U19s beat Bulgaria 1-0 to top their Euro group and get top seeding in the next round draw. The U17s beat Germany 2-1....they had previously beaten Portugal 3-2 after coming back from 2-0 down.

 

Thanks for that TSS, I just watched the whole thing while doing stuff around the house. He makes some very salient points about the differences between his time as an apprentice and Academy boys nowadays, and questions whether a return to cleaning boots and toilets might actually benefit some of the self-entitled, pampered kids we see today (in football generally, not at Southampton). One of the other things was the respect he had for Dave Merrington, who was the youth coach when Shearer was coming through the Saints Academy. Dave tipped Alan off that by lining up facing backwards in front of the centre backs he was making life too easy for them, and he had to constantly do different things to try and get past them.
The thing that shines through above all though, was his love for Bobby Robson, whose man-management skills were second to none in Shearer’s career.
A great interview, well worth the 2 hours!

 

Love Bobby Robson. Great man. Met him twice.

Yes Alan, youngsters should clean boots, toilets, showers, corridors, make the tea, put cones out at academy centres and lots more.

Lot of respect for Shearer as a player, although I am the only person on the planet (because my mum has left this planet now) who strongly believes that Saints made a mistake when they signed Shearer as a schoolboy on the day they let me go

 

Maybe in between cleaning boots, toilets,showers, corridors, make tea, put cones out at academy centres, the lots more might include doing their GCSE's and A levels, just in case they don't make it... just a thought..

 

Which, as everybody knows, our academy students [it is called The Campus] do.

 

Yes. I thought this was one of the areas in which Saints led the way. Before a time (late 70s, early 80s) when even Div 4 (sorry L2) footballers could be millionaires after a couple of years Saints insisted all youth players were enrolled in local colleges to provide a backup to a footy career. It was one of the reasons parents became keen for their little darlings to sign for us. These days the parents expect rather different, more material, things.

Funnily enough it was when Saints decided not to use young players to 'serve' in the players lounge after games I got my chance to mix with Channon, Watson, Keegan etc. Keegan was the only one who rarely drank alcohol, orange juice and lemonade if I remember.

 

Our Academy lads also get taught about mundane things like cooking, washing, finance etc. Be nice if we could send all our kids there.

 

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12:53 AM - 16 Nov 2017

 

Mmm a bit of self criticism there Fran? The kids are only as good as the parenting

 

I agree on others but not Rooney. He was incredible until Andrade stamped on his foot in that tournament.

I understand what you meant though although I'm not sure it has too much to do with the actual physical side of things. There are plenty of counter examples.

 

Revenge at last for Euro 2000!

 

http://www.skysports.com/football/n...for-sunderland-job-after-resigning-from-wales

I wonder how long he will last?

 

Tell me about it - I was there that day!