England, the World and the Premier League: Is This the Solution?

Everyone seems to have have their own idea of where England National Teams go wrong. The are always new accusations and FA directives to try and address an issue where the country with arguably the best league, and on balance, as good a player as the best of them, where is it all going wrong?

I don’t think it’s too many foreign players in the Premier League. The France team that won World Cup ’98, out of a 22 man squad, had only 9 based in the LFP, and they included Henry, Barthez, Trezeguet, Dugarry, Pires and Blanc who all moved on soon after. In fact, if we’re splitting hairs, you could argue some of their players weren’t even from France, Thuram for example.

It’s not Infrastructure as much as people think. Infrastructure has seen coutries like Belgium and USA crop up as emerging teams thanks to their investment in youth. We all know how the USA approaches sport, but not many people realise the potential that Belgium has with a team that is now developing with the likes of Marouaine Fellaini, Steven Defour, Romelu Lukaku, Axel Witsel, the future looks exciting for Belgian football, but will they ever challenge Spain or Brazil?

That said, I think the most influential aspect of a countries Infrastructure, is the Youth Teams. Especially in South America, U20 Championships are the tournaments to watch if your after some infectiously raw talent, but they give the youth of the country one massive advantage if they ever make it to the full International game, experience of facing, tackling and defeating other footballing cultures.

For me, that’s as important as the best training development facilities money can buy. But English football is in the enviable position where we are able to, and can afford to do both, so why are we still failing? Forget the Manager, forget individual performances, forget WAGs, forget the hype, let’s face the facts.
English players are used to one thing. The Premier League.
Our hay day in my life was probably the mid 80’s to mid 90’s, Gascoigne, Lineker, Francis, Platt, Waddle, Keegan, Ince, they all played abroad.

I appreciate that we have a mix of players, from all over the world, arguably the best quality league in the world, overall, it has to be. But all of our players are used to playing in English Systems, against English Systems, tactically we miss out on a lot of experience, except for maybe Champion’s League clubs, but how many English players play in the Champion’s League? Thank god Spurs got in there!

But sadly the monopoly of the Champion’s League clubs means that reputations always get in, no matter what Capello says, and also, young English talent, Wheater, Rodwell, Noble, Adam Johnson, Henderson, Carroll, these players are at crucial stages in their development, but they are only playing for and against English Systems, and we expect these players to one day go and win in a World Cup?

It may already be too late for the likes of Baines, Agbonlahor, Young, Richards, Onuoha, Cahill and Cattermole. Such a travesty, that they are not the players we once thought they could have been.

If it was up to me, which it should be, I’d send ’em abroad. Send them to Spain, Italy, France, broaden our own collective horizons, so each player called to the squad brings something new and individual to pass on to the collective, instead them all just being mates or in some cases bitter rivals.

England has become too much of a clique, the players are too comfortable, they only have to worry about competition for an England spot from players they see and play with or against every week, if they thought that there was an English lad in Italy who was going places in Serie A, that might make them start looking over their shoulders and really performing their hardest. There’s nothing more unnerving than the fear of the unknown, give them a good old fashioned case of xenophobia!

Just look at other countries, throughout the history of modern football (i.e. my era: Premier/Champion’s League era), and you’ll see that they have key players who play abroad.

One Exception?: Spain, they all play for the same team! But that’s a secret to their success, and the fact that that team is Barcelona. But even Spain, Torres, Fabregas, Xabi Alonso (his past experience for Liverpool definitely counts) and now Silva, even Spain have players overseas. No Exceptions!

That being said, maybe the amount of foreign players (over 360 as of 12/10, representing 66 of the 208 nations registered with FIFA) playing in England means that they are all learning how to deal with, contain and control English Systems, added to their own philosophy and culture they know growing up in their respective countries. so they know how to deal with us, but we don’t know where to start, even with teams like Slovakia, as we saw in the World Cup.

If we are to be real World beaters on the International stage, we either need to forge more links, club to club, association to association, overseas, and send young players there on loan for experience or just to learn a bit about other footballing cultures, or English footballers are just going to have to bite the bullet, give up the WAG/Premier League Footballer fanfare and status, and go ply their trade in other cultures.