Euro 2012

[Jim_P_Pulfrew]

I am loathe to jump in here as I know next to nowt about the game and its machinations, but if England are playing noughts and crosses I will always watch and support my national team.

One thing that permeates through English soccer IMHO, is misplaced expectation. Essentially, the parents expect too much of their children as mentioned, it would appear that owners now expect too much of their managers and we certainly seem to expect too much of our national side.

Look at the hard facts, we won nothing before or since 1966 and many sports historians either class that as a fluke or a rare combination of circumstance (All games played at Wembley blah di blah). Look how many stars Brazil. Italy and Germany have on their jerseys and it puts our single into some perspective.

England always seems to rely on one, possibly two, outstanding talents and build whole tournaments around them. Ted Danson misses two games at the beginning of Euro 2012, but is a straight shoe in and performs to less than he is capable of. Why? Because the nation expects him to produce genius and the manager daren't leave him on the bench because the press will take him to the cleaners based upon the expectations of the fans. Beckham breaks his toe and the game plan falls apart. Owen has a bad run of form - you know better than I other examples of people who have been expected to be awesome and failed to meet the standard.

Read back into some of the stuff written when Sir Alf left Jimmy Greaves out of the team in '66. The difference was the overpowering expectation wasn't there (We all hoped and dreamed of course) and Sir Alf didn't give a toss what was written about him either. You can posture that the players earned a lot less and weren't best mates with the foreign opposition players and were driven by desire and not lucre but that is not for me to comment on.

If I were to offer an opinion on the way ahead, don't look at what Germany et al have done, look at the models in this country. In cricket, rugby (both codes), swimming. cycling, track and field and all the others; where talent has been identified very early on, nurtured and protected from the guttersnipes in the media. Where the youngsters are driven by a desire to be the best they possibly can, not to earn bazillions and all the trouble that brings. Where coaches and referees are not threatened by pushy parents living their dream through their offspring's effort. All the sport we have been successful in have had strong resolute leaders who have taken hard decisions for the greater good of the sport and not for the mandarins at Sky and the BBC.

(I apologise in advance for invading the round ball game discussions and spouting on a subject of which I do not know much).

Jimps

 

[Trusty Adjusty]

Indeed it only seems logical (to FIFA anyway) that after Englands disappointing defeat to a far superior Italy team in the quarter finals we now are likely to jump 2 places to a national best equalling 4th place in the FIFA World Rankings! - http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/england-flops-set-ranking-boost-100819856.html

Apparently only Spain Germany and Uruguay are now better than us DT_Xtremez_42:DT_Xtremez_30:

 

[propersplitbrainme]

If I were to offer an opinion on the way ahead, don't look at what Germany et al have done, look at the models in this country. In cricket, rugby (both codes), swimming. cycling, track and field and all the others; where talent has been identified very early on, nurtured and protected from the guttersnipes in the media. Where the youngsters are driven by a desire to be the best they possibly can, not to earn bazillions and all the trouble that brings. Where coaches and referees are not threatened by pushy parents living their dream through their offspring's effort. All the sport we have been successful in have had strong resolute leaders who have taken hard decisions for the greater good of the sport and not for the mandarins at Sky and the BBC.

Well this precisely what the Germans and Spanish have done which is why they are good models to follow. When Arsenal played Barcelona in the Champions Leage a couple of season's back Pep Guardiola was asked to comment on the threat posed by the promising talent of Jack Wilshire. Guardiola simply shrugged off the suggestion by pointing out that he has a reserve team full of Jack Wilshires and he's right, they do. Getting this sort of set up in England isn't going to happen overnight and you cite some very real reasons why; I said earlier that I'd happily see arrogant parents with childish short tempers banned from touchlines to take the pressure off the kids on the pitch. The parent pressure can partly be resolved by removing competitive games until the kids are old enough for their skills to have devloped and for winning to mean something; if there is no pressure to compete and win then there is no need for some of the pathetic scenes witnessed on pitch touchlines every Saturday and Sunday morning during local youngsters football leagues.

 

[dozyscopie1]

I remember reading an article in Four Four Two a few years ago about the development of kids in the UK. At the time (2009/10) Spain had at 15000 fully qualified, UEFA badged coaches, teaching all through the system. England had 3000.
Spain had set this up in the late 80's early 90's so it would start paying dividends in 10/15yrs down the line. Worked pretty well.
Heard Shearer and Hansen touch on it before tonight's game. They said Spain now have roughly 30'000 coaches along with Germany.
Maybe time to punt that cash back into that football school of excellence that the FA said they could no longer afford and invest a decent wedge into getting some quality put into the coaching side of things, or it is going to be the same old year in, year out.
A cap on the amount of foreigners being allowed to play in each team might help. This is currently set at a minimum 8 out of a team of 25 but these home grown players can be foreign players who have been at that club for about 2/3 years then can be deemed a home grown. When I think of home grown I think of the UK.

I dare say this argument will run and run, and we will come back to it after England qualify for Brazil in 2014 but are again knocked out in the quarters by a tactically and technically more astute side.
Still it could be worse, you could be like me and follow ScotlandDT_Xtremez_42:DT_Xtremez_42:

 

[FOGHORN LEGHORN]

I'd like to see more of our players play abroad. It would surely make them more well rounded and savvy to the continental game.

At grass roots the FA need to start making training courses more available to clubs. By that I mean a motivational outreach team style group that take coaching techniques around the country. Teaching people who run local clubs how best to develop youngsters.

They also need to support local clubs who find it increasingly difficult to run young teams due to the legislation and logistics involved. Local communities and parents need to get on board for it to work but I believe that the impetus should come from the FA.

The way we play our football and teach football at school and in local clubs is all wrong. Not saying every club is making mistakes but as a country our approach doesn't work. People seem to take info from the coaching courses and say "I like that exercise and that warm up but sod the rest I'll do it my way". I see it all the time and it's frustrating.

More coaches. Better funding and support at grass roots and local football. Better education and access to training courses.