european football

[Herman Hessian]

so - bayern win in germany, juve in serie a (barring yet another ridiculous crotone performance), the axis of evil continue to dominate in spain and it's one of the putative big three in both france and the netherlands as per usual - and yet the achievements of all those national sides continue to embarrass england when it matters

do we think having "the most competitive league in the world" which could be easily won by any one of six clubs (notwithstanding the leicester factor, too) mitigates against success at international level ?

personally, i think having a top flight league awash with second rate foreign players is doing institutionalised and irrevocable damage to our national team, even though it means that we have a broader spread of "quality" players across several clubs (most of whom can never represent the country in which they earn their bloated wages) so week in and week out the "anyone can beat anyone else" factor props up this illusion of competitiveness to the greater glory of sky tv, and doing nothing but long-term harm to our national game...

discuss...

[GazLaz]

England were shite before the foreigners came over. What was our excuse then?

[Herman Hessian]

oh - i omitted reigning european champions portugal off the list, where - to reinforce the point - benfica/sporting/porto (entirely interchangeable) are going to win - again...

[Herman Hessian]

England were shite before the foreigners came over. What was our excuse then?

we were shite, but bravely competitive - the last decade or so has been absolutely f**king abject - south africa, poland, brazil - france -just embarrassing....

[not on facebook]

The problem with England national team is about 50 years or so ago England would roll over likes of turkey ,Norway , Greece ,whatever African nations  etc etc as all these teams were at a quite low standard.

Teams at the top were likes of Brazil ,Germany, holland and Italy I guess with England been in the standard just behind them .

We now come to today and likes of Brazil ,Germany ,Italy ,Spain, Argentina  are the top standard .

England have stayed at the same standard while likes of African nations ,Norway  turkey and Greece are now playing at England standard as they have ALL moved upto our level.

I recall the day we beat turkey away 8 - 0 or something years and years ago,if we was to get a 0-0 draw in instanbull today it would be a classed as a result.

[Sammy Chung was King]

Arrogance is in our mentality. Britannia rules the waves and all that crap permeates into football people we think because we invented the game we know best-we don't. By the time our players get to a tournament they are 'shot' mentally and physically by the style of football we play all year round-a slightly more complicated version of kick and rush.
From a young age foreign players learn about the game and are taught to be tactically aware. Our young players are admired if they can run further than the other kid. Though they are trying to improve and we are the other countries are improving quicker.
Football goes in cycles and when we have had players good enough to win a tournament we haven't had the manager as well which has cost us tournaments. We are producing robots through the academy system with no backbone for fighting for a game to win it. They need to go back slightly to the apprentice scheme but with more modern versions of it. This would stop young lads getting too much too soon.

We need to improve the coaching at local level so players can join clubs later without having to miss out on childhood and also not missing out on being taught properly. At any level throughout the land you should have to have a minimum of four british players in every matchday squad.
Clubs should miss out on funding from the premier league if they don't get so many playing a certain number of games. This should be awarded to clubs lower down the leagues who have met these conditions. They need to get serious because already the national team pool is reducing sooner rather than later our manager will be selecting players from league one.
Young players need to be taught to think about their game from a young age and to learn why they need to be in certain positions tactically but they also need the freedom to play street football and not be trailing to Elland road or whatever for thursday night coaching that usually leads nowhere.

[wilts rover]

Another point to consider, who OWNS those clubs? I bet the vast majority of clubs Herman has mentioned are owned by nationals of that country - some maybe even with a connection to the town/city - thus they may have an interest in seeing the club develop local players - for the benefit of the country.

None of the top 6 clubs in English football is owned by a national - why would they care about England as the reason they are involved with the club is to make money for themselves?

[acko]

basicaly i agree what you say herman,but the problems doesnt all relate to the foreign players we should be looking at foreign managers who in all honesty would sooner have foreign players than british.dont allow these managers take a club whats not in the premier league because its spreading to the championship now just look at the teams in the championship play offs.give british born managers a chance.