Future of the National team?

[El Jefecito]

There is plenty of incentive. We bring players thru till they are about 18 and sell them for about half a million to some ****ty 2nd div outfit. If players are good enough they rise to the top.

But there is no focus for them to be British, we can sell the foreigners as well as the home grown players.

[Shanks]

If they are good enough then they will get through,
whether it be through School,
College, Sunday League, Academy etc.

Same applies to Tennis and Athletics.
The natural Raw talent will come through.

The standard just got higher that's all.

[Red Chilli]

The problem is with the academies. They are not training our youngsters well enough. There is no reason why a club as big as ours shouldn't have talented local youngsters coming through.
Unfortunately our young players are taught to win, rather than to play. THey are not taught technique and they are not encouraged to be creative, they are taught tactics and how to win.
It's a bit like Viv Richards philosophy on batting. He doesn't teach any youngsters how to play a forward defensive or how to stand properly or how to position their feet etc. He says the most important thing is to have them "HIT" the ball, as hard and as far as they can.
We don't encourage our youngsters to spend time on the ball, we encourage them to hoof it and get it in the box. I really think we stifle the young talented footballers in England/UK with our training methods.

[Howard_lfc]

England think they have a divine right to be good at football and win things. They dont and they wont. Football (and sport in general in the uk) has to be re-invented from the youth set up - professional status, and coaching seems to be a huge flop, if you look at the candidates for the England job (before McClaren had it) they were pretty much rubbish, Scolari would have been my pick. Also the british press has a lot to answer to....they build someone up then knock them down at all too regular intervals, its ****ing scandalous that we allow them to get away with **** like that. In an ideal world Id love Liverpool to have all english players BUT ONLY IF THEY WERE THE BEST WE COULD GET, and they so obviously are not at this moment in time so who can blame Chairmen/Managers/scouts for looking abroad?

Unlike the Welsh who are good at........(please insert here)!

[Darth Marty]

Unlike the Welsh who are good at........(please insert here)!

You are only jealous that we have players such as Freddy Eastwood and that our academy system is as good* as it has ever been.































* = mediocre bordering on completely rubbish

[jonesie]

Johnny Foreigner

Chelsea and Manchester United fans, you know those two players who electrified last season for you, Didier Drogba and Cristiano Ronaldo? Yeah, well it's their fault that England are rubbish. Arsenal supporters, you shouldn't be cheering on Cesc Fabregas because just by being here he's harming your country. And any Liverpool fan bearing the name 'Torres' on the back of your shirt, hang your head in shame. Because apparently it's Johnny Foreigner's fault that Steve McClaren's men are languishing mid-table in their Euro 2008 group.

I mean honestly, are we supposed to believe this rubbish? England's problems are all of their own doing, and no amount of blaming and pointing at the Premier League's foreign legion can change that. How about instead of looking at the foreign players, you look at who you have got to choose from, namely players from three of the top clubs in the world in Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool and top performers from a dozen or so clubs in a rapidly improving Premier League.

Why should top flight managers care about the England team? Only eight out of the 20 are English. Should Rafa Benitez ditch Pepe Reina, Xabi Alonso and Fernando Torres in favour of Chris Kirkland, Danny Murphy and Emile Heskey? No, because the Spanish trio are much better players.

Offer any English supporter of a Big Four club the choice between their club winning the Champions League or their country winning the World Cup and 99 times out of a 100 they'll choose the former. Fans of Liverpool and Manchester United will laugh at you for even posing the question.

Because that is the cold hard fact. The Premiership doesn't care about England. The national team's supporters are mainly made up of fans of lower league clubs. Sure when the big tournaments come around the hype will begin, you'll be given the illusion that the whole country is cheering on the 'Three Lions' (those of us in Wales aren't by the way) but fans of the big clubs couldn't really care less.

Until England realise that the problems lie with their poor management and not the Spanish, African and Portuguese influence in the top league, then their problems will continue. How do they sort it out? That's for another day...

England Expects. (A bit too much)

Is it any wonder that the stereotype about footballers being thick still exists? Every time you hear one of them being interviewed about the possible pressures they are under they always seem to say 'oh it doesn't bother me because I don't read the papers.' The rumours are that if England win Euro 2008 next summer John Terry and his team are looking forward to shaking Prime Minister Tony Blair's hand before heading off to a lavish reception with Princess Diana.

But perhaps where England are concerned the players are right not to take too much notice of the media circus around them. Today's newspaper informs me that the 'countdown to the crunch Euro qualifier' has now reached three days. Really? Wednesday is three days away from Saturday? Well thanks for clearing that up. Countdowns might be common in space launches or Channel 4's afternoon scheduling but to a home qualifier against a nation who have qualified for precisely one World Cup in their history? Give me a break.

The countdown sums up the amazing hype and expectation placed upon this England team. Everything is sensationalized. An injury to Wayne Rooney and suspension for Peter Crouch constitutes a 'striking crisis,' conveniently ignoring the dozen or so top class strikers Steve McClaren has left to choose from. The one he seems to have plumped for is Emile Heskey, how convenient, here's someone else the 'fans' can boo instead of you, Steve.

This hype of course reaches fever pitch once every two years. You know it's coming, you've seen those white flags with a red cross sticking out from the back of your neighbour's car, draped outside your local and heaven forbid, even painted on the faces of excited pre-teens. Oh god, England are in a major championships.

But no, England aren't just in the tournament, they are going to win it. It's not even up for debate. 'The Boys of 66' (who've been woken from their two year slumber) are inspiring them to do it, dear old Sir Alf is willing them on from up above and inevitably, they have 'the best squad in the competition.'

I'm not being anti-English, far from it, I'm just looking at it from the outside in, the people I'm getting at here are those who utter the dreaded phrase 'I don't really support a club, but I always watch England when they're on.' Has there ever been a more annoying statement uttered? It's right up there with 'and this is the new James Blunt song.'

A sense of perspective is needed. It appears as though England's only chance of winning this weekend lies in the toe of a drugged-up Steven Gerrard (and they used to say Liverpool were a one man team). Israel's players will hardly be shaking in their boots, but England's might.

Guus Hiddink might have been onto something when he said that England's players were 'scared to win'. It's more complicated than that, but he has a point. There is always a villain with England, it's never simply that their opponents were better than them. The players performances are dissected touch by touch. Flawless league form will be overlooked in favour of half an hour in a friendly in your wrong position (the main reason Jamie Carragher decided that he'd had enough).

England will win on Saturday, I'll even stick my neck out and say they'll labour to a 2-0 success (hopefully with two goals from Heskey, that'll show them) but that probably won't be good enough. Be prepared to read overanalysis of the performance in the Sunday papers. Of course by then it'll only be four days to the Russia game...