Home players proposal - Ulterior motive..?!

[The Glove]

So the point about it being the players is a non starter which in turn shows this 6-5 rule to be bollocks.

[fah-q]

I wouldn't hold Spain up as a good example, they have a history probably greater than England at underachieving.

[MindGuerrillas]

Isn't this 'modern failure due to foreigners' that the media points to not just a continuation of historic trends? It's not like we used to be be Brazil.

Absolutely. It always annoys me when I see someone like Trevor Brooking on the TV moaning about all the overseas players in the league and how it badly affects the national team. He seems to totally forget that when he was playing for England in the 70s we failed to qualify for 2 World Cups and 2 Euros in succession. And this at a time when the league was stocked to the gills with English players.

The talk about having a bigger pool of players to pick from is also complete nonsense. Even if every player in the league were English the England Manager would still only be seriously considering the top 30 or so players for selection. The rest simply aren't good enough to get into the national team. So does it really matter if we have 200 players not being considered instead of 100? There will always be a limited number of players in any country that are regarded as good enough for the national team. This was the case back in the 70s when Brooking was playing - far more English players available but still a relative lack of realistic options for the manager to choose from. There's no country on Earth, apart from maybe Brazil and that's down to their huge football playing population, that has multiple players queuing up for every position in the national team. Look beyond the first 30 man squad of most European teams and there's not too many more for them to choose from.

Increasing the number of players will just add more inferior players and water down the overall quality of the league. It's not as if we're suddenly going to find ourselves another 10 Gerrards is it?

[fah-q]

Well said

[Abro100]

I wouldn't hold Spain up as a good example, they have a history probably greater than England at underachieving.

I mean individual players, not a national team as a whole. English players generally, cant beat a man, have a crap first touch, and very little technicall ability. But they can tackle and run longer than foreign players.

[Roboklopp]

They never kicked up this fuss when 3 italian teams where in the semis full of argies and players with 'italian passports'

Exactly, this is becoming very annoying indeed. Not even like I am pro-english, but the bias is plain to see here.

[fah-q]

I mean individual players, not a national team as a whole. English players generally, cant beat a man, have a crap first touch, and very little technicall ability. But they can tackle and run longer than foreign players.

Oh sorry, thought you were talking about the national teams.

You're right, having had experience of playing football at a young age in Italy, the coaching is very different.

I remember training exclusively with the ball rather than running laps, etc.

They take footballers and turn them into athletes rather than taking athletes and turning them into footballers.

[Whelan5]

as has been pointed out this blaming the foreigners thing is ridiculous, English teams won the European Cup every year from 1977 to 84 bar one with mainly English players and yet you did sweet FA as a country so it's a pointless argument.

Looking at it from outside i think that English players are over hyped because of how much we see them compared to foreigners we've possibly never heard of, for eg the arrogance that was displayed against Croatia was laughable. This goes back years, i remember when Ireland beat England in Euro 88 Clough was doing the half time analysis and was going mad that England could possibly be losing to Ireland, they're not Brazil i think was his quote. Yet our team was full of Liverpool, Utd players etc.

On that note got an invite to a lunch to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Euro 88 with Aldo and Whelan speaking, hope to ask whelan about his recent Rafa comments!

[Leyton388]

Look at the past 3 years and an english team has been in the european cup final.

2005 was us
2006 was the gooners
2007 was us again
2008 the scum and chavs.

UEFA do not want us to be the dominant force in Europe but the fact is the EU will tell them to **** off as will all the major clubs in europe.Also if anybody saw the piece on goal.com Uefa are looking at letting milan into next season champions league as some other club have been booted out due to money.

[El Jefecito]

Look at the past 3 years and an english team has been in the european cup final.

2005 was us
2006 was the gooners
2007 was us again
2008 the scum and chavs.

UEFA do not want us to be the dominant force in Europe but the fact is the EU will tell them to **** off as will all the major clubs in europe.Also if anybody saw the piece on goal.com Uefa are looking at letting milan into next season champions league as some other club have been booted out due to money.

Don't worry, the racism that Blatter is pushing will get nowhere, It's clearly illegal.

[keniget]

It's all cyclic. The Spanish and Italian leagues will get stronger and stronger.

And as said, it really does seem as though FIFA and UEFA don't like England. I'm surprised the FA and the EPL don't fight back.

[Joe King]

You have to look at the clubs Academies as well coaching in this country. It simply isn't good enough if clubs can't produce good enough youth. When was the last generation of good youth coming into the English game? 60s? 70s? 80s? 90s?

[cadmium]

Damn right it is.

One small scuffle between fans and Platini and Gaylord will kick English clubs out of the competitions

[Shaggy]

They never kicked up this fuss when 3 italian teams where in the semis full of argies and players with 'italian passports'

[The Birdman]

The problem is in youth coaching, it's an absolute disgrace that 11 year old kids are forced to play on a full side pitch where you either try to play football but ultimately lose because at some point you'll give the ball away or you pick big lads with no technical ability who can kick it 40 yards.
That's where the fear over making mistakes and giving the ball away becomes ingrained into the kids, you hear parents shouting "put it in the corners" "throw it up the line" because they have obviously read it somewhere or think they know better.
Kids should be encouraged to have as many touches of a football as possible, try as many tricks as possible and laugh and get as much enjoyment as they can out of it.
Teaching tactics can come later.
A under 9 team my son's side played against against had corner routines ffs.

The FA are to blame full ****ing stop, if they were more worried about grass roots football and changing our culture than leaving a legacy of a poncy over priced stadium which isn't much different than the old one we'd be in a much, much better state.