The difference between England and Wales

[BillyStubbsTears]

Keegan? He won the square root of jack shit and presided over arguably the worst England side in history. Present company excepted, natch.

Im not talking about ex-England players who managed. I'm talking about ones who managed successfully at the very top level.

[Jonathan]

I'm still hearing that "Our players are head and shoulders better than theirs" meme, which defies all experience.

The obvious, inescapable fact is that, when we get into international tournament football, our players are NOT better than those of most other countries.

And it's NOT about the managers. We've tried every sort of manager and none of them has got our players to over perform, other than in Italy90, when we stumbled our way to near-greatness.

I'll give you my take. Our players are fine when they are coached in a system that they know, day in, day out at club level. But they have neither the flexibility not the intelligence to adapt to the rapidly changing situations of a tournament.

I can't see any other explanation. They ARE better players than the Welsh or Icelandic ones IN CLUB FOOTBALL.

But, time and again,our players demonstrate an inability to react to the changing requirements of tournaments. They are flat. Wooden. Lacking sophistication, intelligence and guile.

I think at the base level, the problem is that we produce footballers who are pig thick. 

It's an interesting one. I don't have the answers, but I think there are certainly further questions.

The players in the England squad are, in most cases, better at club level than the players in the Wales squad. For that ability not to translate onto the international stage in this tournament has to have something to do with management of them. As thick as they may be, practically all of them have the same football upbringing.

I think every player in the Welsh squad came up through an English youth system (no surprise there given that a fair few of them are actually English). I think every player in the England squad (barring Dier) came through an English youth system.

What has been evident is a huge gulf in organisation, discipline, spirit and togetherness. Some of those qualities ought to be ingrained (though clearly aren't), others have to have something to do with management.

I know England have faltered in almost every major tournament we've ever played in, and there's a historical pattern. But this is a new set of players, some of whom have been right at the top of their games at club level. To then churn out that despicable performance on Monday night (surely the worst of my whole life) something has to be catastrophically wrong. No matter what the level of intelligence, that was truly shocking. The players cannot be that bad or they would never have made a living from the game in the first place. It was like watching a nervous breakdown unfold on a football pitch.

The Welsh squad, all from similar football groundings, have handled pressure better, been better organised and more spirited. That must have something to do with the way they've been managed leading up to and during this tournament. 

[Bentley Bullet]

Wales are being talked of as if they are something special when the only special thing about them at present is they've unexpectedly reached a final stage tournament for the first time since 1958! What has made it even more unexpected is that they are doing well!

Wales have had no pressure so far, but I suspect they will from now on, and will consequently get stuffed in the next round.

England had the pressure from the start.


In a nutshell;   England expected.......Wales didn't!

THAT was the difference.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I think you're underestimating the effect of the "we'll f**king show YOU" mentality of the Wales squad. And let's be honest, last night was the only really good display by Wales. They did competently in a woefully poor group, then huffed and puffed against NI.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

WHO expected England to do well? Where ARE these bizarre people?

[Bentley Bullet]

BST,

I expected England to do well. I thought they were good enough to have a chance this time, based on the qualification matches and friendlies successes in the build up to the tournament.

Of course I'm not always wrong with my forecasts. For instance, I predicted Rovers to struggle almost from the off last season, because I didn't think the team was good enough. I was proved right.

Others predicted Rovers would reach the play-offs last season. Not sure what that was based on but I found it extremely bizarre.

[ravenrover]

Keegan? He won the square root of jack shit and presided over arguably the worst England side in history. Present company excepted, natch.

Im not talking about ex-England players who managed. I'm talking about ones who managed successfully at the very top level.

So that'll be B Clough Esq then

[Bentley Bullet]

Tony Barton

[Bentley Bullet]

Bob Paisley

[ravenrover]

Bob Paisley

Did Paisley play for England?

[ravenrover]

Tony Barton

Did he play for England?
BST asked for successful ex England players

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm genuinely struggling to think of an England regular of the past 50 years who has made anything remotely resembling a decent manager. I'd never thought of this before, but suddenly everything fits into place. Our most talented players simply aren't sufficiently intelligent enough to really know how football works.

Edit: Glenn Hoddle is about the best I can come up with. Probably the most intelligent footballer of his generation. And even he was hardly stellar as a manager.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Peter Reid has his good patches too.

[Sammy Chung was King]

The problems go back to kids football, coaching not good enough. The coaches mostly can't afford the certificates, and to be honest, the whole coaching system needs altering.
Funding for village coaches to be teached by dutch coaches to show how to teach the ajax way, mixed in with our physical side. Tactical and game awareness needs learning about, thirteen to fourteen years old. Players on the whole don't understand the game, they just concentrate on they're on strengths.

Football, when you get to better levels, intelligence, tactical knowledge, awareness, coolness under pressure, developing individual skills, but learning team skills.
The fa need to divert funding to every village kids team in the country. Academies should only start properly, at fifteen, sixteen years of age.
They are training the love of the game out of them, they are losing vital time in being kids, they are creating robots that play for the money, the love has gone years before!.

[Jonathan]

But we're talking about the differences between England and Wales. Both sets of players were brought up through the same youth systems and coaching set ups.

[Dutch Uncle]

I'm genuinely struggling to think of an England regular of the past 50 years who has made anything remotely resembling a decent manager. I'd never thought of this before, but suddenly everything fits into place. Our most talented players simply aren't sufficiently intelligent enough to really know how football works.

Edit: Glenn Hoddle is about the best I can come up with. Probably the most intelligent footballer of his generation. And even he was hardly stellar as a manager.

Jack Charlton just about squeezes into the 50 year timespan, and he did a great manager's job at international level. Kind of makes your point for you BST.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dutch. Aye. I'd forgotten Charlton.

So, are we saying that of reasonably regular England players of the past 50 years, a couple have stumbled national sides to the knockout stages of World Cups, and that's it?

None have won a major domestic title in a major league.

None have got to the final (semi? quarter?) of a European club cup competition.

[RedJ]

Robson won a Copa del Rey (granted, not a title, but still), as well as the UEFA Cup at Ipswich and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup with Barcelona (which I'll give you isn't that prestigious but still, at the end of the day a European club cup competition).

[BillyStubbsTears]

Robson wasn't an England player of the past 50 years.

[RedJ]

Sorry, I can't add up. He falls just outside your timeframe... never mind.

[Bentley Bullet]

It's possible that a lot of ex England players who wished to remain in the game chose to work in the media, rather than getting constantly slammed by it, should they be lucky enough to get a manager's job over foreign applicants.

 It obviously makes sense to them that if you can't beat them, join them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

No, it's not possible.

[Copps is Magic]

It's pretty meaningless. England is an exceptional case in many respects. Firstly, there has always been a disproportionate influx of Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish managers coming into England probably linked to their peripheral socio-economic positions which gives that little extra dogged motivation to succeed. Secondly, as with players, the language barrier (and unwillingness to travel) prevents English managers form succeeding abroad. Thirdly, in the last 20 years at the very least (and much longer at the elite level of England internationals) wages have been massively over-inflated and the need to pursue a career after playing simply hasn't been there for many players.

It's hugely subjective what you count as success when such background factors (and many others*) determine the practical limits within which former English players can be judged.

* Edit, another being the fad that started probably about 15/20 years ago for employing foreign managers.

[jmt]

Glenn Hoddle?
Was doing a fantastic job as manager, until he went all David Icke on us. I think he is probably still the best manager to go for too.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps

Do Italian players not get well paid? Do Italian clubs not employ foreign coaches?

Hasn't stopped a conveyor belt of Italian internationals becoming top level managers.

Was Zidane not paid the riches of Croesus when he played? Surely he has the financial wherewithal to sit with pipe and slippers in the garden?

No theory is ever 100% water-tight, but you look for evidence to appraise it. Whatever the mitigating circumstances, the fact is that (I think! unless someone can find a counter example) not one established England international of the past 50 years has gone into management and won a decent piece of silver wear, or taken a national team beyond the last 8 of a tournament.

After a record as long as that, you put aside the mitigation and start to thing there is something fundamental going on.

[Bentley Bullet]

BB

No, it's not possible.

I'll offer Gary Lineker for starters.

[RoversAlias]

Why is everyone touting Glenn Hoddle as the best bet? I'm just about done supporting our national team if he takes over. He hasn't managed a club in 10 years, to the best of my knowledge in that time all he's done is a brief coaching job at QPR under Harry Redknapp, and run an academy out in Spain that produced such gems as Ryan Burge, and he says some right guff on ITV's commentary.

There are miles better candidates out there, indeed many I wouldn't even consider decent options that I'd rather have before him.

[Bentley Bullet]

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjOgr2t59fNAhXGD8AKHVemBrcQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiotimes.com%2Fnews%2F2016-05-28%2Fgary-lineker-were-missing-out-on-top-english-managers-because-ex-players-all-want-to-go-on-tv&usg=AFQjCNFWrmI701Ed2ZDuAL-9vmlGnPppTQ&sig2=ejfyXSq3KdkHaWRarSFp2Q

[Copps is Magic]

After a record as long as that, you put aside the mitigation and start to thing there is something fundamental going on.

Ah, I see. You just ignore them completely and declare what really doesn't even amount to an interesting factoid as a 'theory'. Forgive me if I find that a bit of a grandiose claim.

the fact is that (I think! unless someone can find a counter example) not one established England international of the past 50 years has gone into management and won a decent piece of silver wear, or taken a national team beyond the last 8 of a tournament.

Very careful wording there shag, you've been on Terry Venables' wiki page haven't ya? That's OK, if you set the parameters so small and ignore all other factors that might fundamentally negate the conclusion you've already drawn (by your own admission) you're bound to end up with a 'theory'.

In any case, not the original point of this thread. A point that was re-articulated by Jonathan above. That is, the most pertinent and important question is why players born in England, coached in England, and playing in England - but playing for two different international sides - can achieve such divergent outcomes. That question doesn't immediately necessitate a fundamental re-evaluation of English football.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

You're making the mistake of looking at the particular instead of the general.

At random, look at the starting XI that England put out in their final matches of WC 82, 86 and 90.

In those three matches, the number of players who went into management was 8, 5 and 7 respectively.

So, no, I don't think that most players shy away from management because of fears of being ridiculed. I think they tried and failed. Pretty spectacularly.