A quota for English players?

[sussexpob]

End of the day, look at this World Cup and check how many really good players have been formed in the Premier League and played in the years between 18-22 as first team contributors.

For Brazil, Oscar and Jo played for Premiership teams often between 20-22.....
For Italy, their star striker played for Man City at 20.... and De Rossi was at Man United, even if he wasnt picked
For Portugal, the current world player of the year was playing in the Premier League at 18 as a regular, also Nani, Helder Postiga
For Cameroon, Alex Song was a regular for Arsenal before 21
For Croatia, Corluka
For Holland, Robin Van Persie, Robben and Tim Krul
For Spain, David De Gea, Pique and Fabragas
For Greece, Samaras played two seasons at Man City as a youngster
Ivory Coast... Kolo Toure never played anywhere but England, Kalou came here as a youngster to a top team, Max Gradel was a Leicester Youth product
Costa Rica's best player was signed by Arsenals youth team
Antonio Valenceia signed for Wigan at 21
France.... Paul Pogba, Schneiderlin...... Patrick Vieria and Thierry Henry were two pretty good players too.
Switzerland's CB partnership are both from Arsenal's youth team
For Bosnia.... Begovic
Nigeria.... Yobo, Obi Mikel, Victor Moses, Ameobi, Omerou,
Germany - Boateng (x2 if you count Prince)
Ghana - Atsu is a Chelsea player,
USA - Altidore played for two Premiership clubs by 22, Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard both had long spells as Prem regulars, their only really great players.
Algeria - Bentaleb for Spurs.
Belgium - Janzjai, Vermaleun, Felliani, Kompany, Mignolet, Lukaku, Hazard, De Bruyne, Courtois
South Korea - Lee Chung Yong, Ki Sung-yueng and Kim Bo-kyung

[sussexpob]

Just to put that into context of a team....

Courtois

Kompany, Boateng, Pique, Song

Pogba, Hazard, Robben, Fabragas

Ronaldo,Robin Van Persie

I would hazard a guess that this team could win the cup.... The B team would probably sail through most groups.

These players got football and were bought because they had the talent. Why would teams buy or pay money for talent if they believed they had it?And if it was age/lack of opportunity or competition, why did these get football. Quality....simple as. We dont have the quality in the youth to play at the top level, if we did, they would be playing and teams would gladly save money.

[SaintPowelly]

I'm abit confused about the point your making, is it that English players should go abroad ? or we shouldn't play so many foreigners ? or neither ?

You said England had played well and weren't happy with me criticising them, so wheres the issue ?

[braveneutral]

There is no way you out together a list of all of those players and don't at all think it odd that there is minimal comparable English talent?

[sussexpob]

I'm abit confused about the point your making, is it that English players should go abroad ? or we shouldn't play so many foreigners ? or neither ?

You said England had played well and weren't happy with me criticising them, so wheres the issue ?

To summarise:-

You are moulding two discussions..... should the English coach be sacked for getting a passable result from a poor squad?? No. Is it Roy's fault he had the worst group of players to take to a World Cup in my lifetime? No. Did England play well in the first two games?? Yes, they did well enough to have expected them to come out of both games with something, against two teams with huge international pedigree. Do I view the tournament as a success? Yes, because this team was nowhere near the quality of others, and never had a chance. To come away with two frustrating games they competed in was a positive.

Does this mean that English football has no problems? No it doesn't, there are clearly issues with the national team.

Is this caused by too many foreign players? No, why would teams buy inexperienced talent and develop them, paying huge transfer fees, if English talent was good enough. No evidence this helps, and the attempts to counter act the "invisible foe" have led to actually finding a noticeable thread of big teams wasting talent to make up the rules.

If English players were comparable in talent at that stage, they would be in teams.

Is it caused by the Premier League and money?? No.... look at the list of non-English players who have played here as youngsters, the league and its level of coaching is obviously capable of churning out the very best.

Is it caused by lack of passion and overpaid people not caring, and people not singing the anthem??? No, thats nonsense.

No one is coming up with any plausible reasons why this occurs, I am simply pointing that out.

[braveneutral]

In my eyes 18-22 is too old. Players don't come to fruition overnight on their 18th birthdays. Perhaps this is where we are not strong enough - in the teen age groups. I don't have the foggiest but I wonder how many of the current team represented England at youth level in comparison to Spain of 2010 or Holland of today? Again I don't have the foggiest but something makes me think that more of the foreign players will have done so than ours.

[sussexpob]

In my eyes 18-22 is too old. Players don't come to fruition overnight on their 18th birthdays. Perhaps this is where we are not strong enough - in the teen age groups. I don't have the foggiest but I wonder how many of the current team represented England at youth level in comparison to Spain of 2010 or Holland of today? Again I don't have the foggiest but something makes me think that more of the foreign players will have done so than ours.

I think Nigeria are the most successful below Under 21 football, but at the latest youth level Argentina and Brazil start taking things much more seriously, and they have utterly dominated this age group. Remember Lio Messi taking Barcelona to court for the right to play in the Beijing Olympics? U23/U21 is a big thing for fans, and an honour to win tournaments like that... big players have played in those tournaments.

The point was only made in reference to the argument that players took opportunities away from English players of a similar age. I agree, it is too old, the damage is already done... so playing more English players at this age is arguably not going to do much more good.

[Gingerfinch]

No point blaming foreigners, quota's etc. We expect too much from our side, if I'm being honest. Truth is, we don't have any great players, or even many very good ones at present. We had our chance 10-15 years ago, when we had world class players in defense, midfield, and up front. Who know's, we may have a good team in 8 years time, and be challenging for a QF spot once again.

[sussexpob]

I also think that the Nigeria example serves as a perfect point for my belief on what causes this - English footballing culture.

Nigeria's main success has been physicality. Ethnically they grow quicker, develop muscle mass quicker, tend to be physically more strong... at youth level size really matters, and they can bully far more technical sides into submission. English youth football is like that in my experience, I played with a lot of vastly superior technical players who has skills, but were crumbled when playing with people taller or stronger.

The English mentality to play full sized, full team games from the youngest levels is abundantly stupid. Technical players got lost completely on those pitches, players don't learn the right skills, and learn the wrong type. The players that stand out are usually quick, hard working, powerful players. So by the time you get to 17-18 and a shot a professional football, Conor Wickham is apparently your best youngster because he is a huge unit, and your four potential Messi's all stopped playing football at 13 because they got ten bells of shite kicked into them.

I think this extends also to the style of football we play. We end up having less technical players, we therefore find it hard to break down inferior teams that sit and ask us to play through them, and often cant play with the directness that a German team has on the ground because we don't have the passing ability or touch.

We therefore end up lavishing praise on pieces of more noticeable skill, and totally ignore players who fit inside systems, or simply have technical abilities that don't form a positive stat on paper...... We had arguably the best playmaking midfielder in the modern game (not my words, Messi/Xavi/Zidane/Guardiola all though Paul Scholes was a genius) and shoved him on the left wing out of position, playing Lampard and Gerrard, far inferior players, in his specialised position. We did this because Lampard scored more goals, and because Gerrard shoots 50 times a match and occasionally scores a screamer.

English fans watch football like youtube clips. They rate players on a 25 yard goal scored instead of close control. They think a player who contributes nothing but 10 such goals in a season is a world class player. They don't understand tactics, and care very little for the science of the game. From every level up, its about the final score, not about how you play, or creating a style that is repetitively good. If anyone wants evidence of this, turn on the TV and watch your pundits speak... Robbie Savage's tactical analysis on the BBC website is embarrassing, he doesn't know anything about the game, but is a spokesman for it. This is replicated all over.

This in turn shows the lack of English managers in the domestic and world game. English managers are stuck in a pragmatic way of showing negative ambition for short term results rather than trying to install a system that is expressive and works. They are dinosaur ex-players, hardly any younger guys come through with any ideas to shake things up. Its mainly down to the fact that ex-players played the game like dinosaurs, and bring this back into the game. Hardly any managers in England are now like Wenger or Ferguson, guys who worked their way up from modest footballing backgrounds.

We need to change this culture, but firstly we need to acknowledge that it doesn't work. We need to admit that players like Gerrard are failures, over-rated players who just weren't that good.... but we dont. Even now the press are rumbling about what more he can offer us, at 34 years, after a miserable tournament. We took a 36 year old Lampard even though his club even didn't want him anymore.

Do you think if we cant acknowledge these players are finished at 34/36 respectively, and show the ruthlessness to tell them they are no good anymore(arguably also at their peak), we can adapt and change a system that is overdue an overhaul by 30 years?

Of course not. We will moan for a week, nothing will get done, we will blame everything but our own outlook on the game and our own systems, and then forget about it for 2-4 years till next time.

[sussexpob]

What England really need to do is the following....

1. Stop playing on full sized pitches for youth teams until they are at least teenagers..... this will help players to develop their skills in tight areas, and bring forth more technical ability. It will also cut down on the physical players who grow quicker swallowing the smaller guys.

2. Increase the amount of professional or qualified coaches at all levels of youth football.

3. Do away with league systems in youth football, and encourage players to play to develop, not to win.

4. Insist that any footballing coach that is in a Management position, or in a youth coaching role, has coaching badges, and make it a specific requirement for their job to hold these.

5. Point four should be funded from the FA in the interest of making sure all professional coaches are passing on the correct knowledge. It also does away with old dinosaur ex-footballers who could play, but cant teach.

6. Cut the ruling on English "trained players" to those that have been trained at that specific club, in order to stop larger teams buying English players and benching them for a quota.

[Gingerfinch]

We do No1 already.

[sussexpob]

We do No1 already.

I thought they set the benchmark to about 10 or 11 for full sized pitches, which is still too early, and before that they play on a pitch which is nearly full sized anyway.

[Gingerfinch]

We do No1 already.

I thought they set the benchmark to about 10 or 11 for full sized pitches, which is still too early, and before that they play on a pitch which is nearly full sized anyway.

10-12 year olds now play on smaller pitches, from when I played. A little bigger than a 5-a side pitch. I can only say from what I've seen on our local pitches.

[sussexpob]

We do No1 already.

I thought they set the benchmark to about 10 or 11 for full sized pitches, which is still too early, and before that they play on a pitch which is nearly full sized anyway.

10-12 year olds now play on smaller pitches, from when I played. A little bigger than a 5-a side pitch. I can only say from what I've seen on our local pitches.

Obviously, we wont see the benefits of this for another 10 years. I do think a lot of positive changes on our footballing outlook have crept into English football in recent years, and we are yet to reap that benefit. I see the future as positive, I think we will start to notice more technical players coming through in a couple of world cup's time.

[SaintPowelly]

The thing is Pob, you bring up technically gifted players, the most technically gifted player in the England squad is Adam Lallana, and he sits on the bench to accommodate Danny Welbeck, who is a sub at Man United. NO-ONE with a half functioning footballing brain can justify Danny Welbeck playing, yet he does,because he plays for a "big club" ( and I use the term "plays" lightly ), until we eradicate this problem from the game, England will NEVER advance.