Tragic Football Stories - Let us Kick Around the misshapen Jabulani that is English football right here

can't think of a proper example before 1986, though the seeds are there in 66 and 73

The dramatic narrative in '82 was provided by the inclusion of two 30something stars-that-we-couldn't-leave-out, who were both carrying injuries - Keegan and Brooking. Keegan's best years as an international had been wasted in non-qualification and now he'd returned to English club football. The whole thing seemed to be about Superstar SuperKev of the SuperSaints and his WC Dream.

Sans KK and TB, England coasted through the group, drew 0-0 with West Germany in the second group stage and needed to beat Spain by two goals to make the semis. On came the crocked veterans for the last 20min. Brooking crosses for Keegan to head wide from six yards. I think this was also the debut of Clough's non-truism "it only takes a second to score a goal". And Big Jack C's helpful "if they get one with enough time to get another one, they'll be alright." Which, taken together, essentially meant 0-0 at 89:58 was still a winnable position.

John Terry, while prob one of England's best performers

... exsqueeze me?

Wait, Brooking played in 1982? WTF?

I thought Terry was one of england's better players- obviously pretty awful in the German game, but certainly in the group stages was one of the only performers, alongside A Cole.

Struggling to think of who could count as one of England's best performers. Ashley Cole? Jermain Defoe? Someone who came on for a few minutes at the end of the game and didn't disgrace themselves? Michael Dawson? Theo Walcott?

Carrick will have been pleased with his own individual standing- Dawson also came out as a sure thing for the next campaign.

Thought Cashley was OK. And Calamity James. Terry arguably squeaked by against the mighty forward lines of Algeria and Slovienia but was mince, when you get right down to it

the problems were with teamwork so there's no point picking out good performers. for every missed pass there was a lack of movement to give any decent options. the really telling detail was when james took a goal kick or anyone took a throw in, they would always wait for a few moments looking out in despair at the field in front of them.

Terry 80% pass success rate, FWIW, according to article above.

anyone took a throw in, they would always wait for a few moments looking out in despair at the field in front of them

lol tottenham hotspur, as long as i've watched them. we lose possession from the majority of our own throw ins, i swear.

80% success trundling the ball sideways to Upson

What d'you want from John Terry in possession, I ask?

Whatever happened to Statto by the way?

Terry 80% pass success rate, FWIW, according to article above.

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Wednesday, 30 June 2010 11:34 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

means nothing for centre halves btw

I know nothing about the development of soccer players though, because, simply put, you need to be from dublin or cork to get a game or a sniff of a game at FAI utd FC

dunno, one thing ive noticed in recent years is players on the irish team not from those cities for a change - stephen hunt (waterford), kevin doyle (wexford), shane long (tipperary)

Wait, Brooking played in 1982? WTF?

Oh yes. But never again afterwards (and incoming Eng manager Bobby Robson dropped Keegan from the squad for the first Euro 84 qualifier in Sept '82, so that lame 20min cameo at the Bernabeu was his last hurrah too).

Lousy structure to that tournament - second round of four three-team groups. Spain had nothing to play for vs England (though the other final R2 matches were more "live", in each case one side only needed a draw to progress).

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/30/article-1290711-0A432C17000005DC-888_634x531.jpg

Lennon is da pimp

Michael- yeah, but hunt has been in England since forever (since he was 15 I think) and I think both of the others came from Cork City?

Great article by Humphries

the really telling detail was when james took a goal kick or anyone took a throw in, they would always wait for a few moments looking out in despair at the field in front of them.

^realest of talk, if someone made a Zidane-style film of James v Germany it'd be like Bad Lieutenant or something, he looked that angry every time the camera picked him up

(may be wrong about doyle coming from cork, tbh, but waterford still the rich and pampered east of the country imo)

no youre right, doyle played for cork city

Nice piece on England's 1982 World Cup here http://www.morethanmindgames.com/2006/06/01/the-nearly-men-englands-1982-world-cup/

England's problems are deep, man.

Structurally, there's the whole Premier League set up, which makes clubs more powerful than country. There's the poor youth training - though apparently the kids at U18 level are very good. There's the lack of depth in the talent pool, where players like Upson, Milner, SWP and Barry become first teamers when they shouldn't even be on the plane. There's the subletting out of key positions to foreign players, so England cannot produce either a decent defensive midfielder (Barry was the direct cause of all England's faults v Germany and gave Upson/Terry zero protection) OR a decent creative midfielder (when did we last produce a decent playmaker - we had buckets of them 20 years ago when football was infinitely shitter).

Then there are the mistakes made by Capello. So many of them, it beggers belief. I really didn't expect him to lose it so badly and the whole contract thing is absolutely disgraceful.

I don't blame the players at all really: there are too many that simply aren't good enough (and that's not their fault) and the rest weren't trained properly and weren't man-managed properly. Given the endemic structural problems, the team was never better than the quarter-finals, but it's Capello fault they didn't even make it that far.

What to do? I say let him see if he can learn from his failure, manage expectations (England will be lucky to qualify for the next Euros) and use the big gap between the current crop of players and the next (who are all under-20) to implement some of the changes in coaching and prioritising that are required. Easy.

(Looking forward to reading the youth article above. I saw the Chelsea youth team this season against Blackburn and Villa, and there was a huge difference between Chelsea's ballplayers (including this amazing little English playmaker called McEachen) and Villa and (especially) Blackburn's cloggers, suggesting athleticism is still being rated too highly by youth coaches. But the Chelsea team itself was a massively better than the one I saw two years before, suggesting you can make the changes relatively quickly IF you have the resources.)

Okay, so I've read the opening paragraphs of the Irish Times piece and am shaking my head already. Sam Hutchinson is a very promising player but has the same knee problem as Ledley King, and he's only 20. The fact he has played for Chelsea at all is a minor miracle. Not the best example to pick...

there's the whole Premier League set up, which makes clubs more powerful than country

while I agree 100% with the rest of your post, Pete- This doesn't explain why the PL clubs don't produce young English talent to the level that big teams in other countries are doing for etc Barca in Spain, Bayern In Germany, Ajax (and others, tbf) in Holland.

Why are Everton able to produce 30m british youngsters, and nobody else sees the value in it?

including this amazing little English playmaker called McEachen)

McEachen, eh? Better make sure Ireland (or Scotland possibly) don't claim him first.

Surely scottish

not that that'll stop us (lol mcgeady)

Why are Everton able to produce 30m british youngsters

Because they are not bankrolled by sheikhs or Russian oligarchs?

But I don't know why they should have to be forced to do so out of necessity, when it seems to be the best long term blueprint

i hear good things about this man city youth product silva, btw

reckon a lot of english clubs like the idea of getting a player from elsewhere cheap, watch their value rise, then sell on. like flipping a house. can't do this with english players because they pretty much don't leave england.

Wayne Rooney didn't have to leave England to earn Everton 30m.

There are loads of reasons for this:

There simply aren't as many English 10 year olds playing football these days (pretty sure this is the case)
Poor PE training.
Lack of top quality coaches.
Those who do play, play too many games and on too big a pitch.
The big PL clubs can nick semi-developed talent from abroad and get praised for it
Too much money in the game - they can spend rather than nurture, even the smaller clubs piggyback on the success of the bigger ones.
They don't take it seriously enough (this is a brilliant read on Ajax - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html)
The even smaller clubs are put off nurturing talent by the fact the bigger clubs will just thieve their kids (Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham)

The rumours are that some of this is changing (foreign kids are less fashionable), but it's going to take a while to drip through into the Premier League and requires clubs putting their kids into the mixer and bugger the consequences.

I don't know much about the Everton story, but would be interested to learn more. I presume they are in part benefiting from Liverpool's near complete neglect of local talent (although haven't Pool done well in the Youth Cup).

Josh McEachren, born in Oxfordshire, hotbed of football talent (see also: Why football is turning middle class).

Even the Mancs rate him.

http://www.redcafe.net/f7/josh-mceachran-296926/

was just digging up that ajax article, fantastic read.

Yeah, fascinating to see the comparisons made with American sports for a chance.

The even smaller clubs are put off nurturing talent by the fact the bigger clubs will just thieve their kids (Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham)

#1 problem imo, but have the new rules on compensation etc been in place long-enough to have borne fruit as yet?

Regarding why more clubs don't go down the Everton Rooney route

a) football clubs aren't financially literate
b) they can make almost as big a profit by finding and flogging a Valencia or Santa Cruz
c) these kids are hard to spot and take time to nurture and then may discover women or wine or get injured, and clubs don't like risk
d) why bother, when you can nick a 16-year-old from Barcelona and claim he is homegrown?
e) you may make £30m, but you look like Man U's bitch - how much is that worth? that's the Ajax angle.

There are signs this is changing. Arsenal were responsible for some of the bad youth policies of the past when they obsessed over foreigners, but Wenger now reckons English is good and everybody else will follow.

b) they can make almost as big a profit by finding and flogging a Valencia or Santa Cruz

Srsly though? Cost of developing one player (even allowing for attrition) can't be comparable. And

(c) it's not like buying in yr Santa Cruz's is a risk-free effort. Wages alone, etc etc. And whether or not they'll settle.

(d) Everton can't nick 16 year old's from Barca. That's an elite number of clubs that can do that to begin with.

(e) Even Man U are a selling club.

Return to a)

Josh McEachren, born in Oxfordshire

Where was his grandad born, that's what really counts

i mean what you're saying there is that we'd all make a better job of running the transfer affairs of 95% of english clubs.

can't be that simple.

Well, you have to factor in the stuff I was saying before about the quality of the English talent pool before it even gets to the clubs, that makes it harder to find the good stuff. It stems from there.

But English clubs definitely see bringing in foreigners (if not 16-y-o from Barca) as an easy option and one that can prove massively profitable if done well, and if you have scouted carefully you remove a lot of the attendant risks - plus you have a player who can improve the team from the get-go, not theoretically in five years time and then only momentarily before he moves to a bigger club.

That article is great, but it saddens me that being the world's greatest selling club is the best Ajax can aspire to. They've been screwed. They should be contenders every year.

Well bringing in better foreigners, yes- England doesn't monopolise raw talent.

But there's gotta be a huge amount of former eng u-21 players that could play first team for premier league teams. where are these guys going to?

Ajax article- am still working my way through, but yeah it's v interesting stuff. I've chilled at a BBQ with Denis Bergkamp's former Ajaz roommate, btw

Jennings said that his scouts, in response to the “unsuitability of the indigenous population of Britain” — children who are too sedentary and spend their time with video games — were increasingly focused “on the inner city of London, among Africans, Eastern Europeans and Caribbeans.”

teling quote, tbh

But that's part of the problem - there has been a big gap in the England talent pool for the last decade. There simply aren't that many good players coming through, and those that stay in the Premier League are manifestly not good enough to play for England (Sidwell, Bentley). It's a question of numbers, not that many are getting pro contracts (partly because of the squeeze from foreign players, but that's not all of it) and those that do, aren't particularly good because of lack of good coaching.

Where have all Liverpool's FA Youth Cup winning players gone? They just drift down the leagues.

I interviewed a youth development guy at charlton. he said of 40 players that come in and out of a group as it moves from u-11 to u-17, two will end up playing professional football and one will make a career out of it, most likely in the lower leagues. And that's at a club with a good record in youth development.

Sidwell & Bentley are good enough, imo, they're just feckless.

Is it more of a mental thing- is this a coaching thing?