The FA – Help! We need answers

After yet another dismal showing by our supposed ‘Golden Generation’, the time is now upon us for the ferocious debate to commence surrounding the credentials, methods, and indeed the future of the current England boss – our adopted Italian general, Signore Capello.

For the n’th time since the pinnacle of English footballing achievement back in 1966, England have somewhat under-whelmed the watching world on the biggest stage of all despite the efforts of our continuously cash-slashing Football Association to appoint the right man to tame our best home-grown lions. But yet again we find ourselves debating the who’s, where’s and ultimately the why’s that appear to hinder each successor to the England manager’s poison chalice on their ability to guide the national team to World Cup glory.

As always, when Mr Capello took the reigns of England’s top job after the flawless attempts by Steve McClaren (who, N.B. has now become a title winning coach in his own right), the standard rhetoric was employed by employers and subordinates alike as England hailed the new messiah, headhunted to invigorate each and every man to pull on the famous white jersey, and to mould the ones lucky enough to represent their country into an efficient, well-oiled, but ultimately stylish footballing machine – the personification of a fine Italian sportscar, akin to the models displayed with brashness by our multi-millionaire star performers.

With the reported £6 million pound salary being to our football headmaster, it appears the FA have identified some statistical correlation between capital investment in salaries and subsequent success on the football field. However, after a mere four games in the 2010 competition, it appears the FA yet again, have drawn bizarrely spurious conclusions from their economic hypothesis.

To answer the question on the nation’s lips: “Is Fabio the right man for the job?” the resounding answer is – Yes. Possibly.

But ultimately, World Cup failure must be directed at his employers, those men in the highest echelons of our England’s football hierarchy. Barring the exception of Sir Trevor Brooking and a handful of others, it is this core within the FA whose ignorance and short-sightedness which is causing further outrage at their day-to day decision making. As with any organisation – if all is not functioning well at the top, expect the operations at ground level not to be performing to the maximum output.

So what strategies off the field can be considered by the FA to improve England’s performance on the field? In truth there are several important aspects to revise, however in the opinion of this writer – youth holds the key.

As a starting point for the FA to benchmark future youth development programmes, we only need to look at arguably the two best, and certainly most successful youth academies in the world, two high investment centres of youth football excellence which have undoubtedly reaped the rewards through silverware despite a high expenditure costs: La Masia, literally meaning “The Farm”, the famous centre which has bred success for FC Barcelona year after year. And De Tokomst, or “The Future”, for those of you a little lacking in Dutch – the world famous Ajax academy. To highlight the success of these two academies in the present day, just look at the current squads for Spain and The Netherlands in this years World Cup semi finals. Both Ajax and Barcelona have contributed no less than 9 players each to their respected nation’s teams at this years World Cup; Cesc Fàbregas, Wesley Sneijder, Andrés Iniesta, Rafael van der Vaart, Xavi, Nigel de Jong and Carles Puyol amongst a host of others are currently buccaneering their sides through the 2010 World Cup campaign. That of course is not including other notable graduates of these two prestigious academies such as Everton’s Mikel Arteta formerly of Barcelona, Zlatan Ibrahimovič, now of Barcelona but a product of De Tokomst, and of course undoubtedly the most gifted player on the planet today, the immeasurable Lionel Messi.

With this kind of strength in depth produced on the endless conveyor belt of talent which breaks through, and indeed enhances exponentially both the Dutch and Spanish national sides, it really creates food for thought when we look at the talent (or lack of it) emanating from English academies in recent years – not since Sir Alex Ferguson’s “Class of ‘92” consisting of graduates such as David Beckham, Paul Scholes, the Neville brothers, and Welshman Ryan Giggs have we seen anything that resembles the success of youth development seen in the footballing havens of Amsterdam and Barcelona. With the population of England approximately 3 million greater than that of Spain, and a huge 35 million greater than The Netherlands, a lack of comparative English success in indeed a cause for inquisition.

With the success the British Olympic squad has had when maximising the use of cutting edge technology, facilities and training techniques employed in track cycling, rowing and swimming – why can the FA not seem to be able to transfer these methods to provide a blueprint for all 92 league clubs to ensure grass roots development of our new era of lions? It seems an area which has clearly been neglected by the FA, struggling lower league clubs such as my hometown club Stockport County, are so financially ravaged since the collapse of ITV digital a few years back, that the school of excellence that once attended at aged 12 has now had to disband due to lack of funds as first team affairs become first priority. This miserable paradigm is a feature throughout league football, clubs are unaided to develop their own teams of the future thus stifling the lifeblood of the national team’s future successes.

It’s rather like the saying; “Give a man a fish and he’ll feed himself for a day. Give a man the tools and he’ll feed himself forever.” – and this is much akin to the situation in lower league clubs where teams cannot afford to run youth teams, are held to ransom over their best and brightest by the big boys of the Premiership (the majority of whom do move on and languish in the reserves for several years, stagnating their progress), or indeed the economic transfer trade-off suggest clubs opt for cheaper foreign imports.

There will be some idealists who will suggest recent success of English youth teams at under 17 and under 19 levels will eventually drag us out of the quagmire of England national team selection in which Mr Capello had a choice of less that 40% of Premiership players to build his World Cup winning team. However, let’s not let this paper over the cracks – prolonged success is the only way to ensure success at senior level, as many academy graduates will tell you, senior football is such an enormous chasm away from that of its juvenile equivalent. As many England fans will have noted, the likes of Rooney, Gerrard, Terry, Lampard and Cole, England’s option in terms of World Cup winning clientele is quite obviously lacking. Compare this to a side such as Spain where Cesc Fàbregas, Pepe Reina, Jesus Navas and David Silva continually struggle to even make the starting XI of their national teams; such is the strength in depth of talent.

Even if the likes of Adam Johnson, Theo Walcott, James Milner, Danny Sturridge, Jack Rodwell and Joe Hart continue to develop in their club sides to become future England regulars we are, arguably, still in the same boat as we are now with a lack of competition of world class youngsters. With competition, efficiency is the effect – so whilst the FA ponders over its next move on how to govern the England senior team, let’s just hope and pray that this talented, albeit minuscule crop of youngsters in number, can step up to the plate, with the cross of St. George in the eyes and 3 lions on their chests, and restore some faith in the English grass roots system whilst the FA lays the foundations for the youngsters coming through in ten years time.