english players at LFC

[Abro100]

From all the magazines and interview with Juninho and the middlesbrough acadamy ad sorts the problem is that when kids are signed up to acadamys they are not allowed to play football in or for there chool, then when they go to acadamy alot of it is spent on fitness and other sorts and they only get in about 5 hours football a week max, where as abroads they have the acadmys alot more through the week, they have lots of local ones so the kids dont have to travel far, they concentrate on football and are still allowed to play for there school and the kids also play on the streets alot more so they tend to get 18/20 hours a week of football in. Which is a big difference.

[The Glove]

So what club was that Pacman?

[Pacman]

So what club was that Pacman?

Corinthians AFC in the Isle Of Man http://corinthiansiom.intheteam.com/...e.aspx?pc=home

[JohnDoe]

English kids don't play enough keepy uppy. I think it's that simple.

It's all about strength, fitness, team work and set pieces in England.

In Brazil they don't have better training facilities nor do they have better coaching, they just spend hours with the ball at their feet.

It's all about keepy uppy.

[dww]

I think the coaching has a lot to do with it.

The football club I played for all my life until I retired at the end of last season (aged 28 ) has a chartered academy. It gets funding from the English FA but it has to follow their syllabus. They have to have fully qualified coaches and the age groups must range from under 6 to under 18. Anyway at the minute the syllabus is all centred round games and game situations instead of working on technique. It's funny because I heard Trevor Brooking going on about on Sky today however our club have been saying it for the past couple of years. Kids should work on technical ability at a young age and this isn't happening.

I think Brooking often talks sense but has found it hard to get the politics in the FA and between teh FA and the clubs sorted out. Everytime this debate comes up everyone blames each other and everything stays the same.

Some progress seems to have been made at clubs where a lot of time has been put into the youth setup but I guess it is a struggle in general.

[Parm]

English players cost a fortune. The same standard player from abroad costs half the price so no wonder the league is full of them.

yup its a double edged sword. Whenever we're linked with an English player, the majority on this site (and other I'd imagine) are up in arms, usually due to the price and talent. Look at Bent, good player, but not 16.5 mill!

[Howard_lfc]

I do. I can easily believe that they want the good life without working for as hard as other top flight footballers from abroad do.

I can just as easily disagree with this.

How you can make this comparison when you have no idea how hard footballers from abroad work is puzzling me.

Please feel free to back this up Chris.

[Rocket]

just look at the press fella, the majority of players making the papers for drinking/ looking hammered are the brits and irish

the spanish folk go over each others houses for a nice glass of red

[Redspin]

I'm Engish and I couldn't care less. If our team was made up entirely of Eskimos I would be as happy as if they were all Scousers. It's how good they are rather than where they come from that matters.

Besides this is hardly a new phenomenon. The '86 Cup winning team had only one English-born player (Lawrenson) and he opted to play for the Irish Republic. It's all so much paranoia. If we had more English players who were good enough they'd be in the team

[captainfog]

Cream rises. If they are good enough, they'll get in.

Is the right answer.

[Darth Marty]

English kids don't play enough keepy uppy. I think it's that simple.

It's all about strength, fitness, team work and set pieces in England.

In Brazil they don't have better training facilities nor do they have better coaching, they just spend hours with the ball at their feet.

It's all about keepy uppy.

I agree totally, when I was a lad we had nothing else better to do than just play keepie uppie and practise with the ball at our feet, unfortunately beer, women and drugs got in the way of a glittering footie career but I guarantee my ball control is up there with the best of them. Kids should be allowed to PLAY football, not get super organised, tactical etc etc.
Isnt there a very simple answer to this though?
Simply copy the south americans example, Brazil, Argentina etc etc, let our kids do what their kids do but ultimately in better conditions.

Seems fairly simple to me.

[Howard_lfc]

just look at the press fella, the majority of players making the papers for drinking/ looking hammered are the brits and irish

the spanish folk go over each others houses for a nice glass of red

another sweeping generalisation.

[rushscored4]

The famous double winning side of 1985-86 did not feature a single 'Englishman' in the FA Cup Final starting XI although Mark Lawrenson, who represented the Republic of Ireland, was born in Preston and the solitary sub, Steve McMahon, was a Scouser.

1986 FA Cup Final

Besides this is hardly a new phenomenon. The '86 Cup winning team had only one English-born player (Lawrenson) and he opted to play for the Irish Republic. It's all so much paranoia. If we had more English players who were good enough they'd be in the team

[dww]

another sweeping generalisation.

Thats true but we are dealing with a (sub-)population of people and as such a generalisation can be useful. I think that it is reasonable to say the British culture is much less family orientated and more centred around drinking than many on the continent. This means that young players are more likely in general to fall foul of the dangers of this sort of lifestyle.

Those who are driven and have the right attitude will make it anywhere. The thing is that not everone has this attitude at an early age and it takes time for it to develop. On the continent there is less of a tendency for the less motivated players to get into a drinking culture or be led astray by the money they are given (for example look at how young lpayers in Spain have no professional contracts until older and rarely seem to have the sort of pre-contracts young players do here). I'm sure it still happens there but the rate I would suggest is likely to be lower.

I think this may be a factor but I'm not sure how much and it is clearly a bigger social question than one that football alone can answer. However I suspect that if sports clubs were more of an integral part of local communities we would see an upturn in sporting excellence in this country.

[rushscored4]

another sweeping generalisation.

There's also been a problem with some Scandinavian and Dutch players (Andy Van Der Meyde for one) so perhaps, if we're going to generalise, it's a Northern European thing?