I’m a regular Radio 5 Live listener, and a regular ‘contributor’ too. Since the World Cup, my contributions (usually via text message) have increased exponentially and a few have even been broadcast. Why the increase? Largely because it saves me from smashing my radio to pieces listening to the tripe espoused by most pundits and ex-footballers when it comes to the England team.
Following the World Cup, the main thing I’ve noticed is the uneven balance of the debate on what went wrong, and what we need to do to fix it. With the exception of a one-off show with Chris Waddle, roughly 80% of the debate seems to focus on the perceived weaknesses of the manager, and the other 20% on reasons for failure that frankly sound like the sort of excuses I’d expect from a pre-pubescent schoolboy. In other words, it’s mostly the manager’s fault. Together, the list looks something like this:
1. The manager picked the wrong tactics / formation / team / squad
2. The manager needs to be English
3. The manager needs to change the way he communicates with players
4. The players were tired
5. The players were bored
6. To improve English players, we need a quota on foreigners in the Premier League
Let’s take each one of these in turn, and see if we can’t debunk the theory behind them.
1. The manager picked the wrong tactics / formation / team
Starting with the team, it is difficult to see what Capello could have done differently. With the exception of Joe Cole, the players at Capello’s disposal didn’t give him many other options. The starting XI were the players used in qualification, with significant experience at international level. The other options on the bench were Peter Crouch, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Jermaine Defoe. Hardly a stellar pool of talent, but at the same time, the best England has outside the first XI. Some have argued that Gerrard shouldn’t have played on the left. Possibly, but where else could he play? 22 matches in the middle with Lampard have shown that they do not work as a partnership. What would the reaction have been if Capello had chosen balance rather than perceived ability and dropped either Lampard or Gerrard? Most likely, uproar and calls for his head. It’s the dilemma that successive England manager’s have faced over the past decade – how to pick a balanced XI when you have to pick the biggest names. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
And where does a holding midfielder fit into all of this? Those who were clamouring for Gareth Barry as a sudden saviour of the national team have been left looking a little foolish – he was undeniably woeful. A benchmark for any team is to comparison to their competitors. If we wholly suspend reality for a second, and assume that England’s peers are Germany, Spain, Holland, Argentina and Brazil, then Barry must be compared to Schweinstiger, Alonso, van Bommel, Mascherano and Felipe Melo. No contest, and the same analysis is probably true all over the pitch (more on that later).
Next, tactics and formation. There are strong arguments for the 4-2-3-1 formation employed by most other teams, providing a solid defensive but ball playing shield behind a trio of attackers who are given free rein to cause problems by interchanging and finding space. But do England even have the players for this? A second holding midfielder would be required alongside Barry, the best available option being Carrick. The attacking trio could then be Cole, Lampard and Gerrard – devoid of width and facing the same conundrum of two players who like to play in the same space. To compare England to Spain here would be unfair but how about quarter-finalists, Argentina? They could choose an attacking three from Messi, Tevez, Rodriguez, Di Maria, Banega and Gago, behind either Aguero or Higuain as the lone striker.
The 4-2-3-1 is a more familiar system to England’s players though and one with flexibility. Perhaps on that basis alone, it would have been better than 4-4-2. But that doesn’t explain the performances against the USA, Algeria and Slovenia. 4-4-2 may not be the perfect system but nor is it so archaic or flawed that it justifies the appalling displays that we saw, in the easiest group of the tournament. All formations require interpretation by the players, namely how far they choose to move out of position and around the pitch, and by doing so, how they exploit space. The real problem here is that England’s players are very poor at this – they prefer to stick rigidly to their positions because they are used to playing positions rather than as footballers. Cesc Fabregas could probably play anywhere on the pitch except centre-back or goalkeeper. Frank Lampard only plays midfield, and only attacking midfield at that. His movement is virtually linear, from goalmouth to goalmouth. To put it another way, if Joachim Low had asked the Germans to play 4-4-2 against the Algerians, would they have been as bad?
A better example, perhaps, is the Dutch whose players are not only used to fluid and graceful attacking style, but come from a nation steeped in this tradition. In South Africa, however, Van Marwijk implemented a rigid, negative and physical system. Did the players have any trouble in employing the system? No, they almost won the World Cup. Any complaints from the Dutch players, renowned for their belief in egalitarianism and free speech? Not a peep.
2. The manager needs to be English
Why, exactly? What is so unique about being English that would make an English manager better than Capello?
Capello’s managerial record is makes him one of the most successful coaches of all time. As manager of Milan, Roma, Real Madrid and Juventus, he won 6 Serie A titles, 2 La Liga titles, the Champions League, the European Super Cup and several smaller domestic cup competitions. He has a track record as a winner.
Somehow though, since the World Cup, his ability as a manager has been called into question, as if the only plausible explanation for England’s capitulation is a great manager suddenly turning into a bad one in the space of a few weeks. Suddenly, his ability with language and his style have been called into question: ‘He’s too strict’. ‘English players need an arm round the shoulder’. ‘He asks too much of the players’. Why is that English players cannot adapt to a new style? Why do they need cosseting and kid glove treatment? These are seasoned professional footballers who have played at the highest level for their clubs. Most of the senior players have also had the benefit of several styles of England manager: Keegan’s passionate and expressive ethic, Eriksson’s laidback hands off approach, McClaren’s ‘buddy buddy’ style, and now Capello’s disciplined style. None have worked.
So who are the English candidates? Harry Redknapp appears to be the most qualified and favoured, the argument being that he knows exactly how to motivate and inspire players with his man-management style. Whilst clearly a talented manager, his record pales into absolute insignificance next to Capello’s – his trophy record with Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth and Spurs consists of 1 FA Cup, a Division 1 title, a Division 3 title and an Inter-Toto Cup triumph. How is it that by virtue of his nationality, Redknapp is now considered by some as a more qualified national manager than Capello?
Most of all, one of the big criticisms of Capello is his lack of experience at international tournaments. Redknapp has never managed at international level and has never managed overseas either (other than a short spell in the NASL with Seattle). The same is true of any other British manager who might be a candidate: Stuart Pearce, Martin O’Neill, Gareth Southgate, and even Sir Alex Ferguson*. In fact, since 1996 only one manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, had any overseas managerial experience prior to taking the job. And none have had any managerial experience at international level. The only candidate who ticks the boxes of nationality, some club success, and international experience, is Roy Hodgson.
Lastly, England’s key players are drawn from the ‘top four’ clubs in the Premier League – all of whom were managed by non-English managers at the time of the World Cup. A cursory glance at the squad, in fact, shows that only 5 of the 23 man squad for South Africa were managed by an English manager, those from Portsmouth and Spurs. So if having foreign coaches works at club level, why doesn’t it work at international level?
*In July 2010, Ferguson said he had been offered the job twice but turned it down as he considers it “a poisoned chalice”.
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3. We play too many games in England which left the players exhausted
A much used argument is that the English players play more games than their foreign counterparts, leaving them fatigued for international competition. This one is pretty easy to dispel. Comparing the England team to the finalists, Spain and Netherlands reveals an interesting picture. Taking the 12 most used outfield players, it becomes evident that most English players actually played fewer games than their Dutch and Spanish counterparts. Dirk Kuyt, for instance, played 53 games in the 2009/10 season – at least 3 more than anyone else in the England team (Lampard played 50 games). The same is true for Xabi, Busquets and Pedro who played 53, 52 and 52 games respectively. On an average basis, the Dutch players in the dozen, played 36 games. The equivalent for England is higher at 39 games. The Spanish players, however, played an average of 45 games – 6 games more than the English.
The next argument would then be that the Premier League is faster and more physical than other leagues. There might be some truth in this but it wouldn’t explain why the average distance covered in the Spanish league is the same as in England and is unlikely to account for the average additional 6 games played by the Spanish. It also doesn’t stand up as significantly faster or more physical in comparison to the Bundesliga, where several of the key Dutch players play, Van Bommel and Robben being the two best examples. Most damning of all in debunking this myth – of the 24 outfield players most used by the finalists, 6 of them play in the Premier League: Kuyt, Van Persie, Heitinga, De Jong, Torres and Fabregas.
4. The players were bored
Boredom whilst at the World Cup has to be one of the lamest excuses ever given for failing at the World Cup. It seems logical that matters off the pitch are as important to manage and structure as the matters on it, especially when 23 grown men are away from home for a few weeks. However, managing this side of a tournament means providing a professional environment – carefully planned routine, the right personnel to provide for the players, first class facilities and the time and means to relax. The England players had all of these things, including a pool table and darts league and every games console in existence. But it appears that this wasn’t enough. Still, they complained of boredom.
Perhaps the real problem here is the attitude and professionalism of England’s players. They live cosseted, exclusive and luxurious lives where their every demand is catered for and whim indulged. One suspects that reading or listening to music, or even writing, are activities that are beyond England’s players, a symptom perhaps of a British culture where any form of intellectualism in footballers is mocked and derided. And all of this is probably at odds with professional attitude required for an international tournament.
This wasn’t 23 blokes going on holiday for a bit of fun. This was 23 athletes going to the biggest tournament of their careers with the aim of winning it or at least coming close. It beggars belief that they could find themselves bored in such an environment but that probably says more about England’s players than the management. As Mesut Ozil remarked “If you find the greatest tournament on earth boring, then you probably shouldn’t be there.”
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5. To improve English players, we need a quota on foreigners in the Premier League
This is the current perceived panacea for curing the English game, which is apparently stifling young talent because of too many foreigners in the league. My grasp of economics may only be basic, but it is sufficient enough for me to believe that this argument is wrong to its very core.
The argument for a quota has to be based on at least the following three assumptions:
i. Foreign players are favoured over English players, particularly young English players, which limits their development
ii. Playing regularly in the Premier League is key to the development of young players
iii. There is the raw talent in England which is being stifled
All three of these assumptions are exposed as flimsy when you look at them more closely:
i. Foreign players are favoured over English players
Imagine the scenario. A manager of a Premier League club is choosing between two 18 year-old players for his team on Saturday. They are of identical age, identical physique, and play an identical position. The more talented player is English, and the less talented player is foreign. The manager picks the foreign player. Does he? No, of course he doesn’t. The manager picks the best player regardless of nationality – this would hold true for any manager. Yet the whole argument around foreign players in the Premier League is predicated on the idea that they get preferable treatment.
Perhaps 12 or 15 years ago, there was a case to be made. In those relatively early days of the Premier League, most foreign imports were fully matured finished articles in their late 20s or early 30s – Bergkamp, Zola, Cantona, Klinsmann and so on. There was an argument back then, which held some weight, that these stars were limiting the progression of English youth. However, even then, the counter-argument was that younger players learnt an enormous amount form training and playing with seasoned world stars. All of ‘Fergie’s Fledgings’ (Beckham, Scholes, the Nevilles, Butt) cite Eric Cantona as a massive influence on their careers and development, and similar comments have been made on Bergkamp’s influence at Arsenal and Zola’s at Chelsea.
Now, however, this argument carries no weight. Young English players now compete with young foreign players from academy level upwards. As stated above, there is no reason to select one 17 or 18 year old ahead of another other than ability and potential. So if young foreign players are selected over young English players, it’s because the young foreigners have more ability and potential – in other words, they’ll make the manager’s team better. Introducing a quota on foreign players would serve only to artificially reduce the quality of the talent pool and lower the benchmark for English players. It promotes one thing – mediocrity.
ii. Playing regularly in the Premier League is key to the development of young players
There are two angles to this assumption that need exploring. The first is that the key development of the players required at international level comes after a certain age, say 20 years old for arguments sake. Even to the naked eye, it is undoubtedly true that there is significant development in a player playing regularly from the age of 20 onwards – he develops game experience and tactical awareness that comes only from playing regularly at that level, elements that are best learnt in a competitive environment such as when the tempo of the game needs to be changed and the gamesmanship sometimes required in winning. But that’s about it. Does a player develop strength and physique? Surely, that comes from the days on the training pitch and hours in the gym, not 90 mins at the weekend. Does he develop the right mentality? Perhaps, but again surely that will come from hours of coaching on the training pitch and individual discussions with managers, coaches, teammates and mentors. And most importantly, does he develop greater ability or technique by playing week in, week out? No. Like any sport, this can only really come through volume of practice, repetitively training and honing skills and technique.
There is no doubt that almost all young players increase in ability as they get older, but this does not miraculously happen on the pitch over 90 minutes each week, but rather through day in, day out practice. David Beckham’s accuracy with free-kicks was the result of hours of practicing to improve his ability, not the fact that he played regularly under Ferguson. Similarly, Steven Gerrard significantly improved his ability with his ‘wrong’ foot as he grew older. But again, this was from training, coaching, and hard work. And whilst Gerrard now has a decent left foot, he could not be called a two-footed player – a footballer who has a very weak left or right foot at the age of 20, will never have a great one at the age of 30. The key age for developing this basic talent has already passed. Barcelona’s Xavi Hernandez didn’t gain his ability to play with two feet after the age of 20 – he already had it.
The other angle to this assumption is a question: if young English players need top flight game time to progress, why don’t they go overseas? To me, there are two answers to this question. One, very few are good enough to be bought by a good foreign club. And two, English players are too insular in their attitude and probably too well paid in the Premier League, to move overseas. Which brings us to the third false assumption.
iii. There is the raw talent in England which is being stifled.
Economists would probably describe the football markets in Europe (or even the world) as ‘highly efficient’. The quality of information in the market is high, and the availability of information is also high. In other words, a club in Italy is able to get information through agents, scouts, and a range of media, about a player in Slovenia or South America. Which is why, on the whole, good players all over the world are spotted and signed, rather than left to flounder at lower levels or in weaker leagues. The free market in Europe and the Bosman ruling has also greatly increased the ability of players to cross national boundaries, and for clubs to sign foreign players. In modern football, good players are spotted and signed pretty quickly.
This ‘efficiency’ is even higher at the biggest clubs. It is how Arsene Wenger rescued Vieira from Milan’s reserves and bought Fabregas at the age of 16. It is how Chelsea and Man United ended up fighting over an 18-year old John Obi Mikel, then playing for Lyn Oslo. It is how Liverpool spotted the talents of Sami Hyypia in the Dutch Eridivisie and signed him for a bargain £2.6m.
So given this efficiency, and the ease of moving to another club in Europe, why aren’t Europe’s top clubs snapping up England’s stifled young talent? If there are potentially world-class players floundering in youth and reserve teams across England, why haven’t Barcelona, Real Madrid or Inter Milan signed them up? Or even Valencia, Roma and Lyon? Where is this burgeoning underclass of English talent? There isn’t one. You could still argue that it is a result of the higher salaries paid in the Premier League which means players in their early 20’s can become instant millionaires, rather than earn a bit less playing overseas. You could also excuse players for not going abroad because we English prefer to stay in dear old Blighty, rather than bother with learning new languages and eating strange food. But if these excuses had some basis, you would expect the Championship and the bottom end of the Premier League to be brimming full of great English talent. They aren’t.
So putting all of this together, if our manager isn’t the main problem, and our players aren’t too tired, and the influx of foreigners is not the problem, what is the reason behind England’s performance on the international stage?
Quite simply, as a nation, we are overlooking a horrible but fairly obvious truth: our players are not good enough at football. Not only are our current players not good enough, in general, we don’t produce enough quality talent to produce an international team capable of winning a trophy.
Part of the problem is The Great Lie that we’re sold every week that the Premier League is the best league in the world, and that English players are at the core of it. All sections of the media perpetuate The Great Lie but Sky in particular are the worst culprits. Week in, week out, they hype the league to be far better than any other in the world, without ever defining what ‘better’ actually is. If better means more action packed, then the Premier League is right up there. If it means better ability and quality of football, then there is a debate to be had. Is the technical level of ability really higher in England than in Spain or Germany? I would argue not. The Spanish, in particular, play a game based on possession which demands a high level of technical ability in passing and control, and most of all, taking the ball under pressure. The Germans, and probably the Italians too, play similar games that are much better suited to the high level of technique required at international level. The Premier League is certainly close in quality, but largely because they have imported this level of technique in the form of foreign players, because English players don’t have enough of it.
Another part of The Great Lie is that because some English players are amongst the best at their clubs, they are therefore amongst the best in the world. For a start, Sky will relentlessly focus on their ‘poster boys’. By ‘poster boys’, I mean the players almost always shown on Sky’s advertising campaigns: Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, Torres, Terry, Drogba, Fabregas. Post-match and mid-match analysis of the bigger clubs almost always focuses on these players and what they are adding to the game, largely because they are the biggest English of foreign names and therefore appeal to the mass market that Sky is aiming for. So week in, week out, we are force fed the idea that because Gerrard and Lampard score hatfuls of goals, they are truly world class. There is no analysis into the fact that neither are involved in possession football – in any single move, these two will only touch the ball a handful of times at best. Compare this to say Iniesta or Schweinstiger who will touch the ball many times in helping to keep possession. True midfielders don’t just score goals because they are given free rein whilst being supported variously by Mascherano, Mikel, Essien, Ballack, and Alonso.
Alonso, in particular, is a perfect example. As a Liverpool fan, who watches almost every game either on TV or in a stadium, it was always obvious to me (and most other Liverpool fans) that Alonso was the man who made the team tick. He didn’t score many goals but he retained possession, dictated tempo and often dominated the midfield doing the important and sometime ugly things. Yet, he was largely ignored by Sky and the press in England until he left. The post-match highlights and analysis were always of Gerrard rather than the more mundane but, in my opinion, more important talents of Alonso. But Alonso wasn’t a poster boy so was overlooked in favour of Gerrard. The farce is complete when you consider that Benitez was attempting to sell him to buy Gareth Barry. Alonso was at the heart of the Spanish team in South Africa and is now a World Cup winner. Gareth Barry…. well, he just doesn’t compare.
The England team brings together the best of the English players, but also brings together all of the weaknesses that are compensated for by non-English players. Drive, passion, pace and power? Yes. Possession, technique, tactical awareness? No.
The FA need to face the truth and make a decision. If we’re serious about international football in this country, then we need a 20-year plan starting at grassroots. I recall being a schoolboy in the 80’s and having my sports teacher tell me that we’ve got football all wrong in England because we have kids playing on big pitches at too early an age. Almost two decades later, little has changed and everyone knows it. My nephew started playing on a full size pitch with full size goals last season – at the age of 10. Until the FA start at the bottom and structure the game to value technique over physique, and possession over pace, we simply won’t produce the players at the highest level. Added to this, we national academies rather than leaving youth development to Premier League clubs who can simply import better and cheaper young foreign talent. France took the long-term approach establishing the Clairefontaine national centre back in the late 1970’s, which eventually yielded many of the 1998 World Cup winning team. It was long-termism.
Unfortunately, the FA, it seems has little power or influence to implement such a plan, having yielded it or sold it to the Premier League. We are now, in my opinion, entering the wilderness years in international football. Sure, we have a few coming through but at the next World Cup will Rooney, Walcott and Wilshere really be much better than Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard?
Finally, you might ask what my experience is that justifies all of the above. The answer is none. It is simply what seems fairly obvious to me as a lifelong fan and student of the game. But don’t take my word for it, take Chris Waddle’s. Following England’s exit in South Africa, his now famous rant included his view “the FA are just sit on their backsides doing nothing… why don’t they look at other countries and say ‘how do they keep producing talent?’ We coach talent out of players.”
Watch the video below to see why England should host the 2018 World Cup!
[ffcvideo file=”england_bid”]